As we reach the end of 2025, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our parents, helpers, and friends who have supported Caulfield Primary School throughout the year. Your time, generosity, and enthusiasm continue to enrich our programs and strengthen our school community.

As we enter the final two weeks of the school year, there was much to celebrate over the last fortnight whilst there are many events to close out the year on a high. We have our Year 6 Graduation on Tuesday evening and our 2026 Meet the Teacher day on Thursday. We have a Christmas concert and two final assemblies on Monday and Friday of the final week of term with our 2026 student leaders announced at that final assembly.

There is plenty of information detailed in our newsletter including our 2026 staff list and our 2026 student free days. We’ve had a huge fortnight around the school and we look forward to celebrating the end of the 2025 school year with each of you over coming weeks.

2026 Staff List

We are delighted to share our 2026 staff list, noting some minor changes throughout the school. We have added a fifth Year 1/2 class for the year which provides an indication that the school is growing which is exciting.

Welcome

We welcome Jess Hankinson who joins us from Dandenong North PS, having also spent considerable time as a classroom teacher at St Kilda Primary School. Mrs Hankinson will join our Year 5/6 team in Year 5/6C and is a experienced teacher whom we cannot wait to have join us.

We welcome Jill Griffin to our Year ½ team, partnering with Sakamoto sensei in our 1/2E classroom, Mrs Griffin has spent a considerable part of her career at East Bentleigh PS and has a wonderful knowledge and experience in the teaching of English literacy. Welcome Mrs Griffin.

We also welcome Mrs Millar to our school in an intervention role, working with students to support our English literacy approach and the consistent implementation and Multi-Tiered System Support (MTSS) intervention model. Mrs Millar also joins us from East Bentleigh PS.

Welcome back to Kurokawa sensei, following 12 months leave, Kurokawa sensei joins the Year 5/6 team, I am delighted to welcome back Hiroki, a popular staff member with students, staff and families.

Farewell

I would like to acknowledge and thank Mrs Lowy for her significant contribution to our school over many years, Mrs Lowy has developed great relationships with students and we wish her every success in her work moving forward. We also say farewell to Miss Pyrcz who has taken 12 months leave, pursuing a short-term contract at Kingswood Primary School before working and teaching overseas over the remainder of 2026. Both Mrs Lowy and Miss Pyrcz made significant contributions to our school and we wish them all the best for next year.

2026 Workforce Model
Prep Teacher – Classroom C	Aya Hughes/Sally Curlewis
Prep Teacher – Classroom B	Mari Murray
Prep Teacher – Classroom A	Olivia Gibson
Year 1/2 Teacher – Classroom A	Krystal Ryan
Year 1/2 Teacher – Classroom B	Asami Onda
Year 1/2 Teacher – Classroom C	Rosemary Watts
Year 1/2 Teacher – Classroom D	Ayaka Kato
Year 1/2 Teacher – Classroom E	Jill Griffin/Aoi Sakamoto
Year 3/4 Teacher – Classroom A	Carolina Guzman
Year 3/4 Teacher – Classroom B	Takako Morita
Year 3/4 Teacher – Classroom C	Jessica Mathews
Year 3/4 Teacher – Classroom D	Noriko Kurata
Year 5/6 Teacher – Classroom A	Kylie Newman
Year 5/6 Teacher – Classroom B	Hiroki Kurokawa
Year 5/6 Teacher – Classroom C	Jess Hankinson/Rika Klein
Specialist Teacher 1	Niamh Molloy
Specialist Teacher 2	Miho Okano
Specialist Teacher 3	Miho Suzuki-Bevan
Specialist Teacher 4	Zhimin Zhao
Education Support 1	Aparna Alagaraman
Japanese Assistant	Miki Takebayashi
Business Manager	Therese Meiers
Allied Health - Speech Pathologist	Georgie Labb
Education Support	Payal Sharma
Education Support	Noa Sharabi
Japanese Assistant	Tomomi Coster
Education Support	Felicia Teoh
Office Manager	Jess Walmsley
Education Support	Theo Wong
Assistant Principal	Miharu Morioka
Principal	Edward Strain
Wellbeing and Inclusion Leader	Joanne Weston
Intervention Teacher	Mandy Millar

Student Free Days

Some dates for the diary, our 2026 student free days are detailed below, providing the staff an opportunity to support school priorities throughout 2026.

Tuesday 27th January
Tuesday 10th March
Wednesday 22nd July
Monday 2nd November
Monday 7th December

A reminder, that we also have our final student free day for 2025 to be held on this Wednesday. The school is closed for the day, Team Kids are running a program and families can make a booking to attend on this day.

Term Dates

The 2026 school year begins for students on Wednesday 28th January, Team Kids will run a holiday program throughout January where needed. The term dates for 2026 are detailed below:

Term 1: 28th Jan – 2nd April
Term 2: 20th April – 26th June
Term 3: 13th July – 18th September
Term 4: 5th October – 18th December

Volunteers Award

It gave me great pleasure to nominate our PFC co-presidents Yayoi (mother of Oscar) and Maya (mother of Miles and Harriet) for recognition at the Caulfield Volunteer Awards. Yayoi and Maya (represented by Libby - mother of Amelia and Oliver) received recognition for their outstanding contributions to our school community and their work to put together a Parents and Friends Club that celebrates the bilingual nature of our school and cultural awareness and community. Congratulations Maya and Yayoi and thank you for all the work that you do.

Transition

Over recent weeks, our students have participated in an intra-transition session. This has assisted us to create balanced classrooms in Year 1-6. Students will have an opportunity to meet their teacher next Thursday between 11:30 - 1:30pm.

Our 2026 also concluded their transition program last week and it was great to see their confidence grow as they shared their personalities with us over our transition program. Finally, our Year 6 students attending Government secondary schools embark on their Yr 7 transition day next Tuesday, another exciting time and we wish them all the very best.

Choir

I was so proud of our school choir who had a wonderful opportunity to put on a public performance last week at the Caulfield Volunteer Awards, performing three songs to a very receptive audience. Congratulations to our students and to Okano sensei who prepared our students on the evening and had them singing in harmony and with confidence. They received many congratulations and began the evening for all in attendance on such a positive note.

School Performance Report

The school has was able to acknowledge the hardwork of our staff recording a 'High' performance rating in the annual school performance reports. Staff at our school work very hard to provide a wonderful environment for students to learn, flourish and thrive and our school enjoyed a 'High' performance rating for the second year in a row.

School Council

Our dedicated School Council meets throughout the school year to undertake their important role in the governance of Caulfield PS. The work of our School Council focuses on oversight of important areas such as the school finances, buildings and grounds, school policy, strategic planning, fundraising and out of school hours care provision. Working in partnership our school council maintains a strong focus on continuous improvement and making sure that our students receive a high-quality education.

At our final school council meeting, sub-committee reports included:

Buildings and Grounds: Details of our working bee were confirmed, electrical work, arborist work and an ESM report undertaken. Parents are also moving forward with playground upgrade plans.
Finance: Finance details were presented and approved for the month of October, strategic resourcing includes budgeting for a further classroom and addition of two new teachers. Official accounts, High Yield, Building, Library and PFC accounts were shared.
Education and Policy: Existing policies were numbered for organisational purposes and school council endorsed the 'Respect for School Staff Policy'.

On behalf of everyone in our community I want sincerely thank our school councillors for 2025 and in particularly, our departing councillors Rachel McEwan and James Macky. As their children graduate from school they will enter new chapters and their contributions and support for the school have been invaluable.

Social Media Ban

From 10 December 2025, the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 will require social media platforms to:

prevent children and young people under 16 from having a social media account
deactivate or freeze existing accounts held by people under 16.

Delaying access to social media protects the health and wellbeing of young people and gives them extra time to build real world connections and digital literacy skills.

The responsibility will be on the social media platforms, not parents, carers, children or schools, to implement these new restrictions.

Most popular social media platforms will be age restricted. These include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Reddit and YouTube.

Messaging services and online games, as well as apps and platforms that support health and education, can still be used.

Parents and carers play an important role in supporting their children to be safe online.

To help get under 16s ready for the social media minimum age requirements, you can go to the eSafety website to learn more about the social media age restrictions and find tips on how to talk about social media age restrictions with young people.

Consul General

We had the pleasure of hosting the Consul-General of Japan, Furuya Tokuro to our school last week. He was very impressed to see the celebration of Australian-Japanese relations and the high level of learning and language on display in our classrooms. We also have the opportunity to visit the consulate in coming weeks as our Year 6 students complete their Japan Day to celebrate their conclusion to schooling at Caulfield Primary School.

Parent Opinion Survey

Thank you to our families who contributed to our Parent Opinion Survey over recent months, the results provide important and valuable information for the school to consider. A small but important sample size of families (approximately 20%) provided valuable feedback that we have explored at both a school council and school leadership and staffing level.

Some of the immediate actions taken to support this data included:

Increasing the frequency of information for families from classrooms, in 2026 you will have four formal opportunities for feedback (Parent-Teachers in Term 1 and Term 3 and Academic Reports in Term 2 and Term 4).
Continued work in our School Wide Positive Behaviour Support and updates to our wellbeing and engagement approaches supported by guidelines and policy updates working closely with evidence-based approaches including Positive Classroom Management Strategies (PCMS) and led by our Wellbeing and Inclusion Leader and Assistant Principal.
The transition to Sentral with the phase out of schoolstream and an increase in communication from classrooms to support families with what is happening in your child’s learning via sentral communication.
Updates to our website and communication to incorporate wellbeing and guidance advice to families.
In 2026, I will look to run some small focus group sessions for each year level as we seek to work alongside families to get a 2026 snapshot of how these changes are materialising for our school community.

Regenit

We worked with Regenit this week on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, providing families the opportunities to reduce eWaste and purchase a laptop for their family at a reduced price. Regenit sold near on 40 devices over those two days and I had a lot of positive feedback around this opportunity. Thank you for supporting this.

Fete Date

At our final school council meeting last week, we settled on a 2026 School Fete date, to be held on the 21st November, if you are able to offer your support in joining our 2026 fete organising committee, you can do so via the link here to express interest.

Christmas Cards – Goldstein

We have some artistic talent in our school! A big congratulations to Ren G (Yr 5/6C), Sophie M (Yr 5/6A) and Eleanor Y (Yr 1/2A) who were selected as winners and joint runners up in the Goldstein Christmas/Hanukkah Card Art Competition. Their artwork will feature on cards that go out to approximately 80,000 mailboxes across the electorate of Goldstein. They also had the chance to visit the Goldstein electorate office and receive a small prize and see their artwork on display. How fantastic!

PFC Meeting

Our Parents and Friends Club are hosting an end of year meeting on Tuesday afternoon in the Common Room at 2:30pm, this is an open invitation to all members of our school community to join us in attendance.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Callum M (Year 6) who successfully achieved his 2nd Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo this week, a fantastic achievement and a great example of dedication and perseverance to training and learning.

Sleep Over

Around this time each year, I regret not owing an air mattress. I joined our Year 1/2 team last night as we held our annual Year 1/2 activity and sleep over evening. I wanted to sincerely acknowledge our teaching staff and students who worked together to enjoy a wonderful evening together. Tim’credible the Magician had some fantastic magic tricks and pizza and zooper doopers is a pretty awesome Thursday evening dinner. Thank you to our staff who helped on the night and gave the students a very memorable evening.

Thank you for supporting our staff over recent weeks, we look forward to the final two weeks of the year and connecting with you at our school events to close out a very successful 2025.

Take Care,

Edward Strain

Principal

Caulfield Primary School Newsletter

Excellence, Respect, Diversity, Responsibility, Kindness, Honesty

Issue 21 · 05 Dec 2025

In this issue