Principal's Report

Welcome to our final newsletter for Term 2. Thank you to our students, staff and families for a wonderful term of learning and particularly for your cooperation and understanding as our building project continues to come to life. With much of the steel now installed, the structure of our library is taking place, and I am sure we will see even more progress when we return from the school holidays. 

We recently shared our ‘Build the Inside’ fundraising initiative to help support this project, ensuring that our gymnasium, library, performing arts room and surrounding spaces are as spectacular as the building itself will be. All events this year, and possibly into next, will go towards this, beginning with our annual student disco, to be held at school tomorrow. I would like to extend a huge thanks in advance to Daelle Sachs, Gabbi Long and all our volunteers for their wonderful organisation and execution of one of my favourite events of the year! 

Our school will be a busy place over the upcoming school holidays. Alongside the building project continuing and Team Kids running their regular holiday program, maintenance, upkeep and school improvement will be at the forefront, including:

• Painting of windows, doors and frames of the main building façade.
• Classroom upgrades to four further rooms (1A, 1B, 3B amd 3C) in our main building including improved storage and pinboards to display student work. 
• Installation of new balustrades on internal stairwells. 
• Installation of multiple new air conditioning units.
• Significant roof plumbing works. 
• Further maintenance of classroom doors and the kiln in our art room. 

We will also be imminently installing an automatic gate to the staff carpark, accessed via Bundeera Road. I understand that some families utilise this carpark outside of hours when they are dropping-off or picking-up children from the Team Kids program; this carpark will not be accessible to community members once this gate is installed. We are installing the gate for security and safety reasons, and I am happy to field any questions about this; please either see me on the gate in the mornings or afternoons or drop me an email here. 

We could not continue to upkeep our school to such a standard without the contributions that you make through both fundraising activities and the parent payment arrangements. We thank everyone for the contributions that they make to help ensure our school is the best possible environment for all students. 

We will also be making a minor change to our drop-off routines from the beginning of Term 3. An additional bell will be rung at 8:52am, with students expected to be in their classroom by 8:55am, ensuring a beginning to the learning day at exactly 9:00am. Our current practice, which involves considerable movement for many classes caused by the restricted space for the building project, is seeing our students arriving to the classroom later than we would like, and sometimes not as ‘ready to learn’ as we would expect. As a result of this, learning is often starting after 9:00am, due to the slow movement of classes between the oval and classrooms. At the beginning of Term 3, you will see our teachers and leaders encouraging students to move to their classes from that 8:52am bell, ready for their ‘soft start’ in the classroom at 8:55am, and for learning to begin at 9:00am. 

Semester One reports for all students will be released today. As outlined in previous newsletters, these reports will not contain written comments. The Department have provided all schools with the following statement regarding student report comments:

We will be providing student achievement reports for Semester 1 this year as usual. The reports will be distributed on Friday 19th June. The reports will continue to provide important details about student learning attainment, but full descriptive comments will not be included as a result of industrial action taken earlier this term by the Australian Education Union. We will of course be pleased to discuss with you your child’s progress at our next parent-teacher interviews, scheduled later in Term 3, or, as always, you can contact us with any questions via email here.

Next week is the final week of Term 2. Please remember that we will conclude the term with an assembly on Friday afternoon, with an early finish of 2:30pm. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable school holiday period, and I look forward to seeing our students refreshed and ready for a busy Term 3.

Thanks for your ongoing support and keep doing your best.

Rohan Cooper

Principal