Principal's News

To steal a line from one of my favourite movies, the 1993 classic Cool Runnings, “I am feeling very Olympic today”. This is the overall feeling as the country is gripped by Paris 2024 and the achievements of Australian athletes and other competing nations. I really enjoyed seeing Simone Bilal lead the US team to gold in the team gymnastics, overcoming some well documented challenges and a personal withdrawal from competition for two years and who wasn't captivated by Jessica Fox and her two gold medals?!

I wouldn’t always encourage our students and families to turn the television on, but the Olympics is such a great opportunity for students to see a significant sporting event, participation, commitment and achievement. It is scary to think that some of those athletes competing are not much older than some of our students.

We have embraced the Olympic buzz this week and celebrated a Green and Gold and Olympics day today with students dressing to demonstrate their support of Australia and other countries. We also have a mini Olympics for our Prep – Year 2 students next Friday afternoon and will continue this theme with our House Athletics on the 14th August.

Please find some highlights from around the school and key priorities shared throughout our newsletter.

Naplan Data

When I advocate for our school, speak to colleagues, families, staff or prospective students I am often celebrating the work in an immersive bilingual school. Quite rightfully, the questions are often around measuring or evaluating what impact (both positively and negatively) bilingual education has on a child. NAPLAN results over the last two years (see graphics) demonstrate that our teaching and learning programs in both English and Japanese are value adds to our students. Large scale research supports this but so to does our data. Graphics shared are a summary of the percentage of students achieving Exceeding and Strong results between 2023 and 2024 for Year 5 Numeracy, Reading and Writing. The graphics indicate our school (orange) placed against similar schools (purple) and network schools (light blue). All data shared identifies performance above similar school and network averages. When you benchmark this data against the reality of our students learning all mathematics content in Japanese and having a large proportion of Japanese literacy alongside their English literacy it begins to dispel some of the mistruths around bilingual education.

These results are a great reflection of our teaching staff and our work, in no way doesn’t it shy away from areas of improvement that we still are pursuing but it gives great validation and an authentic opportunity to audit the validity of our bilingual immersion work at our school.

Principal Conference

Morioka sensei and I have had the opportunity to undertake some formal obligations via our attendance at the statewide Victorian Principal conference on Monday, this was in follow up our attendance at the SaGE principal network meeting last Thursday. This provided the chance for networking and shared learning including keynote presentations from the Minister for Education, Hon. Ben Carroll, Deputy Secretary, David Howes and Dr Jenny Donovan (Australian Education Research Organisation).

Last Thursday, we had a keynote presentation from Tracey Ezard. Tracey has worked in education and leadership for over 30 years, she is engaged in our network presenting on leadership via trust, emotional safety, strategy and empathy.

School Attendance

Every day counts and there is no safe threshold for absences. As we move back into Term 3 routines, It is important to reiterate the importance of the children attending school each school day when they are able, as every day matters. I understand that we are still experiencing some cold, flu and general sickness but when students are healthy, it is important that we make each day count in our classrooms. The correlation between absence and achievement is consistently negative and declines in achievement are evident with any level of absence. Studies of chronic absenteeism (missing more than 10% of school days) show that regardless of the type, absence, has a compounding negative impact on academic performance and social-emotional learning.

Term 3 Dates

A number of opportunities exist to support the school over this coming term, including our Performing Arts Festival and our school Working Bee. We would really appreciate your support with any of these dates.

Afterschool Play

As you are aware, in accordance with our Yard Duty and Supervision Policy; Caulfield Primary School is supervised by school staff from 8:45am until 3:45pm. Outside of these hours, school staff will not be available to supervise students.

We appreciate that on sunny afternoons, parents may like to continue to chat whilst children happily play on the equipment or the soccer pitch after teachers have ceased their mandated duty requirements. Please note however, that unsupervised students are not permitted in the grounds after 3:45. In the interest of student safety, we also kindly ask that students who continue to utilise the school playground after 3:45 are actively supervised by parents who are conversing with each other.

2024 Parent, Caregiver and Guardian Opinion Survey:

A reminder that our 2024 Parent, Carer and Guardian Opinion Survey is currently open. This annual survey provides a great opportunity to canvas our school community and seek input. Details were shared on Tuesday via schoolstream and I will put out another reminder next week. If you have an opportunity to take a 15 minutes to provide us with this feedback it is greatly appreciated.

School Council:

Our school council met on Tuesday evening and had some great discussions, addressing our Naplan achievements and compliance pieces. Sub-Committee reports were presented to support finance, school engagement, policy and education and buildings and grounds. We were also delighted to be joined by our PFC as we look to consolidate that relationship between school council and the parents and friends club.

Maintenance priorities throughout the school are the backbone of the fundraising work of PFC and our school building fund, these allow us to support improvements in the school. Priorities include:

Painting prep classrooms - $25,000
New carpet in classrooms - $3500 per classroom ($21,000)
Upgraded Junior Playground $45,000 - $60,000
Nature Play Space - Quote To Be Confirmed
Student Toilet Upgrades - Quote To Be Confirmed

These priorities are items that require the fundraising support of our school community and directly benefit our students. School council continues to work through addressing these priorities and funding for them.

We also met and confirmed the date of our next school fete to be held in 2026. This then moves the fete and school production away from the same bi-annual cycle and provides us the opportunity to host our school production in 2025.

Principals' Day:

The Department of Education and the Victorian Principals Association recognise today as Principals' Day, it is an opportunity to inwardly reflect on impact but also to express gratitude for the work that I have the pleasure of undertaking at our school. I love working in education and it is such a wonderful privilege to work at Caulfield Primary School. I am full of admiration for the staff at our school and my colleagues around the state that lead through complexity and challenge and do so with great dedication and knowledge.

Parent Webinar:

On Tuesday, August 6, 2024, at 7pm for our #VPCLive event a distinguished panel will discuss pathways and educational alternatives to support students with school attendance challenges, including School Refusal, School Can’t and School Avoidance. The panel includes parents, educators, psychologists, researchers, and government agencies.

The Victorian Parents Council (VPC) advocates for parental choice in education and acknowledges that School Refusal may not accurately describe some students' experiences. Terms like School Can’t or School Avoidance might be more fitting. These issues cause anxiety, academic setbacks, social isolation, and family stress, impacting children's education and mental health.

The Victorian Parents Council recognises the significant impact of school attendance issues and is convening an expert panel to explore solutions for affected families.

Please refer to the attached flyer for speaker details. The event will end with a Q&A session.

VPC is a volunteer non-profit charity and welcomes volunteers. Consider joining us.

You can Register for this event via: https://vicparentscouncil.vic.edu.au/events/

Parking Reminder:

Unfortunately, I received a phone call this morning from a local resident who was frustrated by car parking behaviours. Please be mindful of local residents, it is illegal to park over private driveways and prevent access. I understand over the last two days we have had some road work impacting on parking before school.

With Warren’s Magpies taking on my Blues on Saturday evening, one of us might be in for a tough start to the week on Monday. I hope you and your family have a fantastic weekend, we are set for a whole school assembly on Monday morning and your attendance is always encouraged. I look forward to seeing you around the school.

Thanks again,

Edward Strain

Principal