Principal's Report

Dear HPS Community, 

**School finishes at 2.30pm Thursday 2 April

**Complete permissions through Insights on Compass. 

These include media, IT agreement and local excursions. Without these permissions your child may miss out on school based opportunities!

Congratulations to our Year 3 students and staff who enjoyed a fantastic day at Kinglake Forest Adventure Camp on Monday. There were plenty of smiles as students disembarked the buses at 6pm on their return—alongside some very tired faces!

The day provided valuable opportunities for students to build independence, collaborate with peers, engage in appropriate risk-taking activities, and strengthen their confidence. It was wonderful to see these key outcomes so clearly achieved.

The Year 3 Day Camp offers an important transitional experience, giving students a taste of school camp and helping them develop confidence and understanding before the added challenge of an overnight stay. Well done everyone!

Next week, some year levels will be inviting parents and carers into their classrooms to share and celebrate their achievements from Term 1. This is always a wonderful opportunity for our community to connect with the school and actively engage in their child’s learning.

• Year 2: Tuesday 31 March,  2:45 and 3:10pm
• Year 3: Wednesday 1 April, 2:35 to 3:15pm

Positive Classroom Management Strategies (PCMS)

The PCMS consist of 8 evidence-informed instructional practices designed to create safer, purposeful learning environments. These practices support student learning and wellbeing through teaching positive behaviours.

The practices are based on the guiding principle that behaviour can be taught with explicit teaching and positive reinforcement and disciplinary measures alone do not teach students what to do.

The PCMS are founded on the following guiding principles:

• Appropriate and inappropriate behaviours are related to the environment in which they occur. Environments can encourage appropriate or inappropriate behaviours.
• Behaviour is functional. Individuals learn to use behaviours to get their needs met. Behaviour that works is likely to continue.
• Behaviour can be taught. It is possible to teach alternative replacement behaviours to meet students' needs more appropriately.

At HPS, our staff have worked collaboratively to deepen their knowledge and strengthen consistency in agreed foundational practices across the school. This shared focus has supported increased student engagement and helped minimise classroom disruptions.

A key area of focus in Term 1 has been the explicit teaching and embedding of classroom procedures and routines. Procedures outline the processes for how tasks are completed, and when taught to fluency, enable students to develop consistent and efficient routines. By clearly establishing these practices, teachers reduce confusion and maximise valuable instructional time. Importantly, predictable and well-established routines also foster a sense of security for students, allowing them to feel confident, settled, and better able to engage in their learning.

School Council

I am very pleased to welcome a new member to council:

*Liz Clarkson - parent category

We also welcome back onto council:

*Emma-Jane Stabb - parent category

*Lavanya Thirumalaisami - parent category

*Helen Thomas - school employee category

*Simon Lovett - school employee category

There is still one position in the parent category that remains vacant

A school council meeting must operate with a quorum, which requires not less than one half of school council members currently holding office to be present at the meeting and majority of members present must not be Department employees.

Ensuring we have full membership becomes very important for the school council to function effectively to:

• to establish the broad direction and vision of the school within the school's community
• to arrange for the supply of:
  • goods
  • services
  • facilities
  • materials
  • equipment
  • other things or matters required for the conduct of the school, including the provision of preschool programs
• to raise funds for school related purposes
• to regulate and facilitate the after-hours use of the school premises and grounds
• to exercise a general oversight of the school buildings and grounds and ensure they are kept in good order and condition
• to ensure that all money coming into the hands of the council is expended for proper purposes relating to the school
• to inform itself and take into account any views of the school community for the purpose of making decisions in regard to the school and the students at the school
• to generally stimulate interest in the school in the wider community
• to prepare the School Strategic Plan and review the Annual Implementation Plan — to be signed by the president and the principal
• to report annually (the Annual Report) to the school community and to the department on:
  • the school’s financial activities
  • the School Strategic Plan, and
  • any other matters that are determined by the Minister
• to manage the hire, licence and shared use of school facilities
• to determine the dates for the school’s student-free days:
  • in accordance with the number of student-free days each calendar year specified by the Secretary of the department

Please consider joining our school council! Feel free to come and see me (usually found at one of the gates at start and end of the day), call or email me if you are interested :-) Naomi.Ivers@education.vic.gov.au 

2026 School Term Dates

Term 1: Thursday 29th Jan- Thursday 2nd April (2.30pm finish)

Term 2: Monday 20th April- Friday 26th June (2.30pm finish)

Term 3: Monday 13th July- Friday 18th September (2.30pm finish)

Term 4: Monday 5th October- Friday 18th December (1.30pm finish)

Have a great weekend everyone!

See you Monday morning for our whole school assembly.

Naomi Ivers

Principal

Heidelberg Primary School