Welcome Back

Welcome back to Term 4, widely accepted as the busiest term of the school year for teachers and families. We have hit the ground running and enjoyed a fantastic first week back. It is great to reconnect with our students and our school community this week, I have enjoyed seeing everyone around the school. It is remiss of not to congratulate our Brisbane (and old Fitzroy) supporters with a terrific Grand Final win over the holiday break.

There is so much to look forward to in Term 4, we have a year ½ sleepover, a trip to JAPAN! Excursions and incursions, transition sessions, graduations and Christmas concerts. It is busy for our teaching staff and I deeply admire their efforts to make the term ahead so engaging for our students.

We have an assembly on Monday morning, I look forward to seeing our families in attendance. Please find detailed below some notes from around the school.

An Olympic Buzz in Caulfield

This morning we were lucky enough to be joined by Reece Langdon. Reece is an Australian athlete and just returned from the Paris Paralympics with a bronze medal in the 1500m! He spoke with our students in Year 3-6 and this was a great opportunity for our students to meet an Olympic athlete. Thank you to Miss Molloy for organising this.

Are You Leaving

We ask that you let us know if you are moving or have enrolled in another school in 2025. We require this information as soon as possible to establish grade structures for the start of the new school year. If your child is currently in Grades Prep – 5, and will not be at Caulfield Primary School in 2025, please notify the school office in writing as soon as possible.

2025 Parent Requests

A reminder that all all 2025 parents requests need to be provided via email to the office no later than October 25th. At CPS, our policy is to create a whole school grade structure which is either single year levels (prep) or multiage (across 2-year levels). The structure is dependent on the numbers of students in each year level, the dynamics of students in each year level, our knowledge of students in the school and the best operational timetable and staffing arrangements that can be created within the budget provided by the Department of Education. The exact class structure is often not finalised until all of our future enrolments for 2025 are confirmed.

SoundsWrite

The changes shared by the Minister for Education in June provide schools with a mandated approach to a minimum of 25mins explicit phonics in all F-2 classrooms from 2025 onwards. It is important that this approach is supported by ensuring that our teaching staff feel equipped to deliver this approach and be provided with knowledge and understanding of how this can be undertaken. Importantly, there is no expectation that this is rolled out perfectly from Day 1 next year, but there is an expectation that our school have committed to this.

Over recent months, we have taken the approach to explore appropriate synthetic phonics approaches that are the best, evidence-based approach to our school. This is underpinned by ensuring that training and professional learning available to staff is detailed, thorough and accessible. To this end, we have explored case studies, spoken to education consultants, speech pathologists, explored peer-reviewed literature and comparative tables of different approaches, undertaken webinar sessions, worked with our Education Improvement Leader, visited schools and explored this thoroughly. This was comprehensive, thorough and detailed. Through this, we have finalised an approach that will see the school employing SoundsWrite as our F-2 Systematic Synthetic Phonics approach in our school in 2025. The reason for this is based on the extensive and detailed professional learning that is made available, it is widely accessible which therefore provides an opportunity for us to provide a consistent piece of learning for all teachers over the coming years.

We begin this professional learning next week with 4 English teachers undertaking two days of professional learning on Monday and Tuesday. We are really excited about this approach and the initiative of the school has ensured that we are well placed as we begin planning for our early years program in 2025.

Pamela Snow, who was instrumental in the research base supporting changes to the Victorian Teaching Learning model for 2025 wrote of SoundsWrite in a peer reviewed article:

“Robust recommendations are one thing, but full implementation of those recommendations is something else altogether. This is why schools need access to high-quality programmes that have the heavy-lifting already done in terms of their theoretical foundations, scope and sequence, teaching materials and scripts, assessment and monitoring tools, high-quality training and coaching, and demonstration videos. Sounds-Write is such a programme”.

Playground Upgrade

Throughout the final weeks of Term 3, we engaged with landscape architect Justin Staggard. Justin spent time with our junior students and visited each classroom taking on ideas and student voice and agency to design a proposed junior play space. He has provided the school with this concept plan (see image).

In addition to this, the school engaged with Adventure+ Playgrounds who created an upgraded junior play equipment (see image) piece to replace our existing junior playground.

Working with our wonderful Parents and Friends Club (PFC), we have shared this with our school community as a means of identifying our fundraising priorities. Playgrounds and play spaces are expensive items and are not funded by the Department of Education. The proposals shared are quoted at $64,867 (Adventure+) and $157,000 (Environmental Landscaping). When our PFC are fundraising over coming months, please keep this in mind, it would be great to be able to explore these opportunities for our students and provide them with an improved play space.

Thunderstorm Asthma – Be prepared this pollen season

Grass pollen season, which typically runs from October to December each year in Victoria, brings an increase in asthma and hay fever symptoms. It also increases the risk of thunderstorm asthma. For people with asthma or hay fever, especially those who experience wheezing or coughing with their hay fever, thunderstorm asthma can be sudden, serious and even life threatening.

Our will implement a range of measures to keep our school community safe as the risk of thunderstorm asthma increases.

Many of our staff are trained in asthma first aid, and we will monitor the VicEmergency app to receive thunderstorm warnings, and, where appropriate, keep students indoors when weather forecasts identify greater risk.

During the season, there are some things you can do to prepare and protect yourself and your family:

If your child has ever had asthma, talk to your doctor about what you can do to help protect them from the risk of thunderstorm asthma this pollen season, including updating your asthma action plan. Taking an asthma preventer properly and regularly is key to preventing asthma, including thunderstorm asthma.
If your child has hay fever, see your pharmacist or doctor for a hay fever treatment plan and check if you should have an asthma reliever puffer. These are available from a pharmacy without a prescription.
If your child has hay fever and experiences wheezing and coughing, it is important to make sure they don’t also have asthma. Speak to your doctor about an asthma action plan.
Where possible, avoid being outside during thunderstorms from October to December, especially during the wind gusts that come before the storm. Go inside and close your doors and windows. If you have your air conditioning on, turn it to ‘recirculate’.

Protect yourself this pollen season – managing asthma and allergies matters.

For more information, speak to your doctor. You can also visit the Better Health Channel website.

School Savings Bonus

As shared with you previously, parents and carers of every child enrolled in a Victorian government school in 2025 will receive the one-off School Saving Bonus $400 support.

In the coming months, the Department of Education will send you 2 email communications for each of your children enrolled in Victorian government schools.

By Friday 18 October 2024, please ensure that your child’s 2025 enrolment is completed and that your contact information is up to date.

The 2 emails from the Department of Education will:

1. Confirm your email address between mid-October and late-November.

2. Provide you with your unique $400 School Saving Bonus code by the end of November.

If you do not receive a confirmation email from the department by late-November, please check your spam or junk folders and contact our office team if needed.

You can read more about the School Saving Bonus on the Department of Education website, with key information now available in 14 different languages.

Social Media Policy

The Department of Education have developed new fact sheets to help students have positive and safe online experiences. As educators (and parents) we know social media is an important tool to help students stay connected, communicate and express themselves.

The fact sheets for parents and carers of primary and secondary students, provide information about online safety and advice about what to do if anything goes wrong. These fact sheets are available via the link – Safe Socials for Parents and Carers.

Student Free Days

Our school has two student free days occurring in Term 4 and a public holiday, could I please ask that you take note of these dates for your calendar, Team Kids will run a program on both student free days. The purposes of these days are to build capacity, provide and privilege time for professional learning and capacity building. These dates occur on:

Monday 4th November: Teaching staff will be working with Bronwyn Ryrie Jones on this day. Bron designs and delivers exceptional professional learning programs for teachers and instructional leaders. She has worked with over 30,000 teachers and leaders in Australia and abroad and is a sought-after speaker and learning designer. With a background in classroom teaching, instructional coaching and teacher education (University of Melbourne), Bron is able to synthesise complex research for busy teachers. We have worked with Bron over recent years and look forward to continuing with this in November.
Tuesday 5th November: Tuesday 5th November is a public holiday, recognised as Melbourne Cup day, there is no school on this day and Team Kids do not deliver a program. The school is closed.
Monday 9th December: Our student free day on the 9th December is focussed on 2025 planning, this provides 2025 teaching teams with the opportunity to collaborate, organise and contribute towards Term 1 planning, including assessment, incursions, excursions to ensure a smooth start to the 2025 school year.

Student Achievements

We could probably compose daily newsletters highlighting the achievements of our students in extra-curricular activities, such is their broad skills and talents. I always enjoy reading these achievements and highlight them where I can. To that end, congratulations to Barnabas (3/4D). During the school holiday break, Barnabas achieved 4th in Breaststroke, 6th in Freestyle, and 8th in Butterfly at the Junior District Selection Competition, which qualified him to compete at the division level. He represented the Southeast Swimming Club. Congratulations Barnabas.

On Tuesday next week, we have a talented group of students competing in the Division Athletics Championships, this is the largest team we have sent to the event for a long time, a great credit to our students and Miss Molloy for all her work training and preparing the students. We wish our CPS athletics team every success and know that they will represent our school proudly.

Congratulations to:

Reina (5/6B), Ada (3/4D), Kiku (5/6C), Kaylee (5/6B), James (5/6A), Tristan (5/6B), Declan (5/6A) , Lucan (5/6A), Aya (5/6A), Cocoha (5/6A), Caitlin (5/6B) and Nanami (5/6B), Mia (5/6B)

CPR Training and Emergency Management

To begin the school term, all staff participated in CPR training on Wednesday afternoon, this training is undertaken every 12 months by all staff at our school and supports extensive first aid training that we undertake every 3 years. I appreciate the professionalism of all our staff engaging in the trainer and participating in the practical examination. Our school recently installed an AED which is located in our office.

Without sharing the precise date, next week the school will undertake an emergency management drill, this will be an offsite evacuation for all students and staff. I will share details via schoolstream on the day before this drill occurs. These events ensure that our students are familiar with routines in the event of an emergency.

Polished Man

On a personal note, throughout the month of October I am participating in the Polished Man campaign, this campaign raises awareness to help end violence against women and children. If you see my fingernail painted blue throughout October, it is for this reason. If you would like, you can help me by supporting my fundraising campaign - https://polishedman.com/edward-strain.

The week ahead is looking really nice with plenty of sunshine forecast, I hope your family have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you around the school next week.

With Thanks,

Edward Strain

Principal

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