Wellbeing

Welcome back to Term 2! We’ve hit the ground running already with a whole school Street Science incursion, Year 5/6 adventures to ACMI to learn film production skills and a Curriculum Day with esteemed consultant Misty Adoniou to inspire staff to teach quality writing to students. Read further details on these in our curriculum area reports. 

Staffing updates

We are sad to announce that Ms Stephanie Peters (now Mrs Stephanie Henalla) is taking leave to embark on teaching adventures in the United Kingdom. She will be greatly missed by myself, the school, her teaching colleagues and particularly her current Year 5 students who have had the honour of learning from her over the past term and a half. Stephanie has had a great impact as a classroom teacher, leader of the year 5/6 team and a lead Respectful Relationships coordinator across the Beachside network. We wish her and her husband all the best on their travels and look forward to her return in future years!

We are fortunate to have secured a replacement for the Year 5 position and welcome Miss Anusha Pillay to EPS. Anusha has recently moved to Melbourne from Perth and joins us with a background as a Science and PE specialist teacher, as well as having experience teaching in the classroom across all other year levels. She will work as a Casual Relief Teacher over the coming weeks until Stephanie’s departure so that she can get to know our school. 

At the end of last term, we said goodbye to Mr Le Wu. We thank Le for his enthusiasm and passion in teaching Chinese to the students of EPS over the past two years. Many students looked forward to their weekly Chinese lesson with Le. Ending with the much loved excursion to the Chinese Museum and dumpling restaurant was a definite highlight for our year 5 students! 

A huge thank you to Mr John Whitten and Ms Leanne Williams for the flexibility in adapting the STEAM program while we work through the French teaching recruitment process.  

Prep enrolments

Prep enrolments for 2025 are now open and we are receiving applications already. 

Please head to our school website to download an enrolment form if you wish to secure a place for any younger siblings in 2025!

Wellbeing Update

All gender bathrooms

Our all gender bathrooms in the gymnasium are near completion and will be open for student use very soon! These bathrooms include many of the universal features of inclusive design, such as coloured seats for the vision impaired, inclusive signage, floor to ceiling cubicle doors for privacy, and open external doors for visibility and airflow. 

We continue to speak with students across all year levels to ensure they understand these changes and how to behave appropriately and responsibly in the bathrooms. We’re pleased to report a reduction in the number of incidents since introducing the Brickwood Hall bathrooms, with many students accessing these bathrooms as first preference. 

By offering all gender bathrooms, we aim to provide more options for students to feel comfortable and safe, and to positively impact students who may feel at risk of exclusion. For any student who may not feel comfortable accessing these bathrooms, the library toilets will remain single gender. 

Using devices safely 

We know that raising kids in today’s digital world is no easy task. There are many positive aspects that our students enjoy about the online world. We aim to help students thrive in a digital world and navigate its challenges by encouraging healthy habits. This term, our students will participate in another age-appropriate live-stream incursion with Inform and Empower. The focus for term two is all about Healthy Digital Habits. Please see this article for further information about screen time and green time to encourage reflective conversations at home.

Parent/carer online safety workshop reminder

Details of our upcoming community webinar have been posted to compass but if you are yet to sign up please register using the following link: bit.ly/may16parents. 

As part of our partnership with Inform & Empower, we are excited to offer a free parent/carer webinar next term hosted by founder and educator, Martin McGauran and psychologist, Carley McGauran. This webinar will give you access to evidenced based, practical tips and strategies to help with navigating the challenges of raising kids in a digital world. You will also gain access to a free parent/carer toolkit with further links and resources to support continuing conversations at home. 

Delivery: Community Webinar

Date: Thursday 16 May 2024

Time: 7.30pm (90 mins)

Once you register, you will be emailed a link to the webinar. You will also receive reminder emails. The following day, you will receive a link to access the replay. Therefore we recommend that even if you are unable to attend the live webinar, please still register to ensure you can access the replay which will be available for 30 days.

Policy updates

The following policies have been recently updated and are available on our school website: 

• Asthma Policy - minor updates to resources and acronyms
• Anaphylaxis Policy - updated with latest guidelines on use of Anapens
• Action Plan - Aboriginal Learning, Safety and Wellbeing - a new policy that ensures we’re compliant with Child Safe Standard 1: Culturally Inclusive Environments
• Smoking, vaping, alcohol and other drugs policy - this is a new policy that ensures we’re meeting the requirements set out by our involvement in the Caulfield Health Achievement Program. This has been merged with our previous Alcohol at school events policy