Dear Parents / Carers,

Welcome to the 2025 school year!

I would like to extend a welcome to our families with whom we have had a long-term association and to those who have joined our school community for the first time.

A special welcome is extended to the new students who joined our school community for the first time this week. This has included our Foundation students and students who have transferred to Rowville Primary School from other schools.

For some families, the beginning of the school year marked the beginning of their association with Rowville Primary School, for our existing students it marked a return whilst for some families the youngest child in the family joined their siblings at school.

The start to the school year has been sensational. Our students are enthusiastic. They have settled in well and are working with their teachers to establish their new learning communities.

Our staff have returned from the break re energised and ready for the new school year. A warm welcome is extended to staff who returned to Rowville Primary School in 2025. We also welcome several new members to our team: Mrs Williams, Ms Lysenko, Ms Oh and Mr O’Connor. We also welcome Ms Ballestrin back from family leave.

It really is an exciting time of the year. We had our first assembly last Friday. Our new school captains Andre, Aria, Amelia and Rafa delivered their introductory speech and led their first assembly. Our year three students had their first cooking lesson this week.

The start of a school year is the time to establish expectations and routines. Establishing a steady routine is most important if your child is to make a good start to the new school year. Both at home and at school it will greatly benefit each child if clear guidelines can be established for recreation and work, exercise and rest, school needs (homework) and individual needs.

An essential ingredient in supporting the learning of every student is the partnership between home and school.

During the ordinary course of your child’s attendance at our school, school staff will collect your child’s personal and health information when necessary to educate your child, or to support your child’s social and emotional wellbeing or health in the school context. Such information will also be collected when required to fulfil a legal obligation, including duty of care, anti-discrimination law and occupational health and safety law. If that information is not collected, the school may be unable to provide optimal education or support to your child or fulfil those legal obligations.

For example, health information may be collected through the school first aid officer, primary welfare officer or wellbeing staff member. If your child is referred to a specific health service at school, such as a Student Support Services officer, the required consent will be obtained. Our school also collects information provided by parents and carers through the School Entrance Health Questionnaire (SEHQ) and the Early Childhood Intervention Service (ECIS) Transition Form.

Our school may use online tools to effectively collect and manage information about your child for teaching and learning purposes, parent communication and engagement; student administration; and school management purposes. When our school uses these online tools, we take steps to ensure that your child’s information is secure. If you have any concerns about the use of these online tools, please contact us.

School staff will only share your child’s personal or health information with other staff who need to know to enable the school to educate or support your child or fulfil a legal obligation.

When our students transfer to another Victorian government school, personal and health information about that student will be transferred to that next school. Transferring this information is in the best interests of our students and assists that next school to provide optimal education and support to students.

In some limited circumstances, information may be disclosed outside of the school (and outside of the Department of Education and Training). The school will seek your consent for such disclosures unless the disclosure is allowed or mandated by law.

Our school values the privacy of every person. When collecting and managing personal and health information, all school staff must comply with Victorian privacy law. For more information about privacy including about how to access personal and health information held by the school about you or your child, see our school’s privacy policy: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Pages/schoolsprivacypolicy.aspx

Throughout this notice, ‘staff’ includes principals, teachers, Student Support Service officers, youth workers, social workers, nurses and any other allied health practitioners and all other staff at our school. This includes employees, agents and service providers (contractors) of the Department, whether paid or unpaid.

On Tuesday all families will receive notification of the call for nominations for the 2025 School Council. At the end of last year several families expressed interest in being a member of School Council and I indicated that the nomination process would occur in February. The last meeting of the current School Council will be Wednesday 26 March.

Kind regards,

Anne Babich

Principal

Visual Art