P & C News
PEAKHURST PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS AND CITIZENS ASSOCIATION
MINUTES OF MEETING
DATE: Monday 28 July 2025
MEETING OPENED: 7:04pm
ATTENDEES: Pravina Karan, Kristy Bentley, Sarah Marinovic, Karen Gambian, Nicole Lawlor Annesley, Peter, Emma T, Emma V, Joanna, Mrs Dalton, Mrs Zanetti
APOLOGIES: Nil
PREVIOUS MINUTES: Accepted by the meeting.
CORRESPONDENCE: Nil.
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT:
Term 3
Term 3 brings many events in the school calendar, including Education Week Open Day on Wednesday 6th July and School Show in the last week term.
Education Week’s theme is ‘Ignite Your Potential’, and at Peakhurst PS we are acknowledging the students who engage in the creative arts programs. Our school choir, dance groups and band will showcase their talents at a morning assembly commencing at 9.30am. After the assembly, classrooms and the Book Fair will be open for visitors. Tomorrow the official flyer will be sent home via ClassDojo and Sentral Parent Portal.
School Show will host a K-2 and Support Unit show and a 3-6 show. Each show will have a matinee and night performance. More information will come as the term progresses.
NAPLAN Reports
NAPLAN Reports were sent home last week to families of students in Years 3 and 5. Over the coming weeks, the school executive will analyse the data to identify trends in the student results to inform future teaching and learning.
External Validation
The school successfully engaged in the school excellence cycle and completed the evidence sets for the submission targeting Data Informed Practices, Teaching and Learning Practices and School Culture. These are three areas the school has had significant shift in aligning explicit teaching over the past 2 years. The process requires the school to submit annotated evidence sets depicting the practices across the school, followed by a discussion with a Lead Panellist and Peer Principal. This discussion was hosted at school last Thursday, with Mrs Wilson, Mrs Schafer, Mrs Partridge, Mrs Zell and myself. Our guests were greeted by our school captains, Leo and Layla, who delivered a warm and friendly welcome, engaged in a guided tour of the school and answered all the curious questions posed.
The External Validation process allows a school to pause and evaluate the impact of the practices implemented across the school. With the lens of new curriculum implementation, refining how we explicitly teach and the introduction of the Student Behaviour Support and Management Plan, which have all been new initiatives for our school, we were very pleased with the final outcome. Across the 14 elements in the School Excellence Framework we are Excelling in School Resources and Reporting, demonstrated strong Sustaining and Growing for Curriculum, Effective Classroom Practice, Data Skills and Use, Professional Standards and Educational Leadership and Sustaining and Growing across the other 7 elements. To shift ourselves into the Excelling for the 5 elements identified as strong requires consistency across the school. I am very proud of the trajectory our school is on as we embark in the development of the new School Excellence Plan. We will engage in this process again in another 4 years.
New School Counsellor
At the start of the term, we welcomed a new school counsellor to the Peakhurst PS team. Nicole Patterson will be supporting our community Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for the remainder of the year.
If parents or carers have concerns about their child, it is best to reach out to the classroom teacher. Depending on what the concerns are, the classroom teacher may suggest a referral to the Learning and Support Team which may require the support of the school counsellor.
Baby News
Mr McLeod became a proud first-time father in the holidays, welcoming his gorgeous daughter, Mabel, into his family.
Mrs Mutton gave birth last week to a beautiful boy, Cooper. He is already very much loved by his big sister.
Assets – COLA
Our assets officer has recently reached out to see if we have been successful with our Grant Application for the COLA. Is there progress to report?
PRESIDENT’S REPORT:
Mothers Day Stall
We had many volunteers for the stall. It was great to see such interest. Thank you to everyone who helped.
The finances for the mothers day stall was:
· Budget approved $4,000
· Gifts cost $2714.61
· Income was $4616
· There may be one more invoice for the gift bags to be paid. Waiting to receive.
· Total profit will be approximately $1900
We did things a bit differently this stall for children who did not have money on the day. In the past we have allowed them to select a gift and put it aside for them to collect from the office the next day. Often these gifts were then not collected the from the office. This meant that there would be items that were in high demand kept aside in the office and not sold. Dual problem of children who wanted the items missed out and excess stock. Instead this year we sent a box of stock to the office at the end of the stall. Children could bring money the next day and select gifts from the box in the office. A few kids did come to the office the next day to purchase gifts.
Outdoor movie night
We had a committee to run the outdoor movie night, headed by Ela. Unfortunately Ela is not in a position to continue as lead on the committee. I sent an email requesting volunteers to take over that role. No one was able to.
Meeting agrees that we can’t proceed with the movie night without that role filled. We will revisit it for next year. Perhaps raise in term 4 so the event can be run in term 1.
GENERAL BUSINESS:
Fathers day stall
· Stall to be run on Thursday 4 September
· Meeting approves budget of $4,000 for purchasing gifts
· Committee to be set up to purchase gifts
Speaker system
· A parent raised that the speaker system in COLA outside the library wasn’t great on multicultural day. Asked whether the school is looking into a better sound system.
· Mrs Bentley confirmed that the school is looking into upgrading the system.
· Sarah M suggested that perhaps this is a project P&C could donate some funds for.
Grant for junior area COLA
· Mrs Bentley asked if there had been any progress with the grants for the junior COLA. Confirmed that to our knowledge, Moussa would speak with Mark Coure about it when the grants are available.
· Mrs Bentley to follow up with Moussa.
Olympian visit (Mrs Dalton)
· A parent had forwarded information about a program where an Olympian can visit the school to give a 20 - 45 minute presentation.
· Mrs Dalton has investigated further.
· The presentation fits the PDHPE curriculum. It focusses on goal setting.
· The school is happy to arrange the visit.
· A decision needs to be made about which stages to include in the program. The content is aimed at year 4-6 children. Due to our classes being 3/4 the program agreed that they could accept year 3. However, that would mean a large group attending. The organisers explained the program works better in smaller groups so that it can be more interactive.
· It was agreed to arrange the visit for stage 3 students. If the program works well we may be able to do it again in future years.
Year 6 Farewell
· Mrs Dalton asked whether the P&C can assist with a donation to year 6 farewell.
· In the past we’ve donated $1200. It was agreed to increase that amount to $1500 this year.
· Meeting approved $1500 donation
· P&C will write a cheque to the school. Confirmed that process is P&C provides funds to the school to be used by the year 6 farewell committee. P&C does not make direct payments for reimbursements etc.
Bank Accounts
· Sarah M updated on progress with correcting bank accounts. The problem is that the current bank account was opened in the school’s name, not the P&C name. When we’ve tried to update signatories this year, we were referred to the identification team in Westpac. They have indicated that the name needs to be corrected before they can make any changes to the account. Sarah was working with someone from the ID team who needed information about when the P&C was formed etc. It took some time to get that info, but Sarah was able to confirm the date that the P&C became an incorporated body and the bank agreed we could use that as the date. However, once Sarah made an appointment to provide that information, the local branch advised that we can’t just update the name on the current account if we want to be able to change signatories etc in the future. We would need to make a new account in the correct name and then transfer the funds into the new account, and close the old account.
· Meeting voted and approved the following:
o The P&C is to set up a new bank account with Westpac in the name “Peakhurst Public School Parents and Citizens Association”.
o The following people will be signatories to the account: Pravina Karan (president), Sarah Marinovic (secretary) and Sarosh Zaidi (treasurer).
o The signatories will only be able to operate the account jointly, with two signatures/approvals.
o Once the new account is established we will transfer the funds from the current account to the new account.
o Once the funds are transferred we will close the existing account.
· It was discussed whether to get a debit card for the new account. A card would be useful so that the P&C can order things online. One issue with the mothers day/fathers day stalls is that we have volunteers spending thousands of dollars on their credit cards and then waiting for reimbursement. The downside of a card is that it presents a security risk of people being able to access the account and doesn’t allow for the double approval we currently have for payments. It was agreed not to get a card.
· Square reader – the signatories for this haven’t been updated yet. Sarah M has been focussed on fixing the bank accounts. Once the bank accounts are done we will update Square with the correct details.
· Pravina K raised that it reimbursements have taken too long with volunteers left out of pocket. It was agreed that moving forward we will ensure reimbursements are done promptly.
Disco
· The disco is confirmed for 28 November.
· We will need to form a committee to organise the disco.
· We will think of ideas for themes to be discussed at the next meeting.
UPCOMING MEETINGS:
The next P&C meeting date is 25 August 2025 by Zoom
MEETING CLOSED: 7.57pm