Principal's Report

 Principal Report    

As we head towards the end of Term 1, we have had an action packed term, with lots of academic learning, but with lots of connection and fun, too! 

Multicultural Day!

We celebrated Harmony week with our Multicultural Day on Friday 20th March.  Many thanks to Ms Gan for organising a cultural puppet show for the students to enjoy, and many thanks to parents and carers for the wonderful cultural dress  that students shared with their school community.  But of course, the theme of the day is “Everyone Belongs” and that is certainly the case at our wonderful school!

Community Spirit – Working Bee!

Once again, we have had a great turnout at our Term 1 Working Bee. Parents, grandparents, students and staff worked together to improve our school environment for our children.  Parent connections were made and students had a great time putting the new sand into the sandpit. Thanks to Mr M, who organised the night – and cooked the sausages (very important job!).  Thank you to all of those who attended and/or made a donation to the school– your support is so appreciated:Thiilalarathahna Family, Iovannella Family, Christopoulas Family, O'Shea Family, Sikka Family, Akuratiyage Family, Jayasekara Family, Ann Dunford, Bella  56W, Max 56S, Junda  56C, Lewis Family, Hanna Family, Kinross Family, Horua Family, Lexi  56W, Max  56C, Gallaher Family, Berzins Family, Surani Family, Legha Family, Kilbarda Family, Klidonas Family and Alhaq Family 

Chess Champions

Congratulations to Siheli for coming first, and Nuthara for coming second in the under 10 girls Chess Republic Chess Championships. Chess is a game or skill and strategy, and clearly, these students have that in spades. Congratulations!

Leadership badge Presentations

On Monday, we presented our Sustainability Leaders, Student Voice Team and Peer Mediators with their badges. We are very grateful that the principal of Wellington Secondary College, Mr Chris Knight and our School Council President, Mr Chris O’Shea for making time to attend and talk to our students about good leadership and getting involved! Congratulations to all!

GRIP Leadership Conference

GRIP Leadership is an independent organisation that exists to train and develop leaders with a special focus on school students and the educational sector. The GRIP Student Leadership Conference is unique in that it concentrates specifically on training student leaders for their role as school leaders. The style, topics, and content of this conference all focus on what the students can do RIGHT NOW. The goal is that student leaders would leave the conference with a clear vision, a solid understanding and dozens of ideas for their time as a leader.

A group of our student leaders attended the conference yesterday, learning the core values of leadership. We cannot wait to see their new skills in action. Thanks to Ms Smith and Ms Megroz for taking them along.

Easter Raffle – donations and tickets

Thank you to our parents who have already donations some Easter themed goodies to be made into hampers for our Easter raffle.  It is not too late to donate, so if you are able to donate items, please bring them into the office ASAP.

Tickets are available on Compass.  5 tickets for $5 total has been added to your parent portal. If you would like to purchase more tickets, please let the office know and we can add more on for you.

The raffle will be drawn at our final Term 1 Assembly on Thursday 2nd April at 1.45pm.

Thank you for your support!

House Athletics 3-6s – 27th March 

We are so pleased to say that after the heavy rain of yesterday, the sun came out for our House Athletics Day at Waverley Reserve. Students love this day, participating in a variety of different athletics events and earning points for their respective Houses – Fraser (blue), Freeman (red), Perkins (yellow) and Bradman (green). A huge thank you goes out to our parent & grandparent helpers – we could not run this day without you! The amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to organise a day like this cannot be underestimated – thank you to Mr Mottershead, who organised this very successful day!

Grandparents and Special Friends Day, Friday 27th March

It was lovely to welcome grandparents and special people into our Foundation, Year 1 & 2 classrooms for the morning. Our visitors participated in activities with the children, including a hotly contested colouring competition! Thank you so much for coming – we know how important you are to your grandchildren!!

Playgroup is coming to Albany Rise….From the first Monday in Term 2, the Albany Rise Primary School Playgroup will be in session!  After the morning drop-off, if you have children aged 0-5years (who are not already at school), you are welcome to come to the Function Room,  where we will have a variety of toys and activities set up for the children to play, and the parents/grandparents are welcome to have a cuppa and a chat.  Families from outside our school community are also welcome. Gold coin donation if you can.  Huge thanks to Ann Dunford, who has kindly offered to facilitate our playgroup on Monday mornings 9.30 (or a bit earlier for our school families)-10.30am during school terms. 

Tours

We have hit the ground running, with several tours for prospective students already completed this year.  If you know of any interested families, our group tours run most Mondays at 9.30am.  Please call the office for more information.

End of Term 1 2026

Just a reminder that Term 1 ends next Thursday 2nd April with an early finish of 2.30pm.  We will be having our final assembly for the term at 1.45pm, where we will be drawing our 

Easter raffle and we would love to see you there! 

We wish our school community a safe and happy holiday, and look forward to seeing you all back at school on Monday 20th April 2026.

Outside of School: sport or other activity - Achievement of the Week (Repeat)We know how important physical activity and sport is for our students and to our school community, which is why we privilege time at school for PE and sport. We also know that we have some very talented students who participate in sports and activities outside of school. 

 We would love to celebrate their achievements! If your child has received an award or progressed to the next level of their activity outside of school (be it sporting or otherwise) , please let us know and we would love to celebrate their achievements in our newsletter. Please contact Mr Mottershead with information and a photo, or email through to our school office on Albany.rise.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Birthday Free Dress (Repeat)

We know that every single day at school is important for learning and connection. Of course, we want to celebrate with our students when they have a birthday! Late last year, we introduced the practice of students coming to school in free dress on their birthday.  This seems to be working very well and will be continuing this year. Students are looking forward to being at school on their birthday, and also, it is easy to spot who has a birthday to make sure they have a great day!  

Thank you!

Jane Capon