ART/AUSLAN (ARTLAN)

Over the last few weeks the middle and senior school have been working on iPads with the drawing app "Adobe Fresco." They have formed our design team for our up coming concert "The Musical in Me." A huge congratulations to Bonnie Steele from 5/6L for creating the digital poster which will be used for our main logo. Bonnie worked conscientiously throughout the three week unit, often helping others as she worked. Well done Bonnie!

It was very difficult to choose a winner - Aleah from 3M and Daniel from 3M have also had their digital drawings selected to feature on selected concert correspondence.

Well done everyone - there will be many more opportunities to help with prop making and back drops over the next few weeks.

Grade 4 parents - a reminder to jump into Xuno to approve and pay for our upcoming excursion to ACMI in Fed Square. Students will be learning the art of Stop Motion animation.

Grade 3 parents - a reminder to approve our upcoming NGV Cartier excursion through Xuno.

Many thanks,

Michelle Heenan

Fun across the school!

A Cosmic Celebration of Science Week!

To celebrate Science Week, we welcomed Mad About Science for their spectacular Cosmic Chemistry Show! Students were taken on an out-of-this-world journey through space, filled with explosive experiments, exciting rocket launches and plenty of amazing scientific discoveries.

We travelled to the icy corners of the universe, explored the hottest and most uninhabitable planets, and discovered what makes our beautiful blue planet, Earth, so special. Several lucky students even had the chance to get involved and help demonstrate some of the incredible scientific concepts!

The show ended with a HUGE explosion of Elephant Toothpaste, leaving the entire audience amazed, excited and covered in plenty of scientific wonder! 🤯🧪🚀

What an unforgettable way to celebrate Science Week!

🔬 STEM Update: Halfway Through Term 3! 🚀

We’ve reached the halfway point of Term 3, and there has been plenty of exciting learning, investigating and experimenting happening in STEM!

Foundation students have continued exploring movement and forces. They have been putting different objects to the test and investigating just how much force is needed to make them move!
Grade 1 students have been making predictions and conducting investigations to discover which objects sink or float. They have also been exploring the air all around us and investigating how it can affect the forces acting on objects.
Grade 2 students have been making some noise as they explore how sound is made! They had a fantastic time transforming tissue boxes into guitars and experimenting with the different sounds they could create. 🎸
Grade 3 students are becoming rock stars of geology as they investigate the fascinating world of rocks! They are learning to identify and understand the differences between sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks. 🪨
Grade 4 students have been turning their attention to the world around them, exploring weather patterns and investigating the important water sources in and around our school. 🌦️💧
Grade 5/6 students have been reaching for the stars as they explore the relationship between the Sun, Earth and Moon. They have been discovering how these celestial bodies work together to create day and night, as well as the changing seasons on Earth. 🌍🌞🌙

It has been a fantastic and busy start to the term, and we can’t wait to see what exciting STEM adventures are still to come!

We begin PE by congratulating our girls Tee-Ball team whose incredible run ended at the Regional level. It has been quite some time since we had a team go so far and we are so proud of their journey and how far they have reached.

We have also had our inaugural World Cup tournament at PHPS which took place over two weeks between the Grade 5/6 students. Students created teams and chose the countries they would represent with Cabo Verde victorious in the Mixed competition and Samoa winning the girls comp. This was an exciting tournament with students taking the helm and running the event themselves. They were refereeing, timing and scoring each and every game.

We have also had our 3/4 students competing in their annual HoopTime event. The students competed against other schools in a fun-filled Basketball event as they played multiple matches throughout the day. Smiles and celebrations were seen and heard throughout as the students enjoyed their time playing on the court.

Good luck to our students who will be participating in District Athletics on the 27th as they also compete against other surrounding schools in their respective Athletic Track and Field event.

LIBRARY

I would like to show you two wonderful displays in the library, created by our fabulous Tash, that are a great way to build excitement around Book week and showcase the library.

The first one is to celebrate Book week, which runs from 24th to 28th August 2026 (week 7). The theme for Book week this year is “A Symphony of Stories”

The other display has been in place for a few weeks and is an Acknowledgement of Country, positioned above the Indigenous Australian topics section in the library.

Of course the students have been hard at work as well. This is a picture of students from 3EA demonstrating finger positions when practising ten finger typing in the library:

And these are images of a school induction activity where student leaders explicitly teach and model the “Be Respectful” expectation to new students, using the library and whiteboard. The new students then demonstrate their understanding by writing and decorating their own interpretations of respectful behaviour.

The activity:

builds a shared understanding of the school’s behavioural expectations;
uses student leaders as positive role models;
gives new students an opportunity to actively demonstrate their understanding; and
creates a visual record of student voice and learning.

Malika Gerlofsma

Book Character Parade and (Grand)Parents Day.

This week we celebrated Book Week with our Book Character Parade. Students came to school in fabulous costumes, and so did the teachers!

Look at the 56 teachers!

We invited Captain Underpants to be our MC and organise the music for the parade. He certainly helped make the day extra fun! (Thank you Mr Duncan)

Here are our prize-winning costumes:

Prep V: Ethan J, from S: Neryiah P, 2S: Kain J, 3EA: Jacob J, 4D:Taylor Nish, 56J: Hunter.

All the prize winning students have chosen a book from our Book Club, which will be delivered to them by the end of this term.

After the parade, the grandparents and special friends came to visit the classrooms. In the library, we spent some time reading, as you can see:

September
2nd September	A-L School concert
3rd September	M-Z School concert
7th-11th September	Book Fair
8th September	Grade 4 ACMI workshop excursion
9th September	3/4 Swimming
10th September	Grade 3 National Gallery Excursion
11th September	3/4 Swimming (Catch up from concert week)
15th September	Prep/Foundation Myuna Farm Excusion
16th September	3/4 Swimming
18th September	Last day of Term 3 2:30pm finish for students

October
5th October	First day of Term 4 begins

PHPS Calendar