Principal's Message 

What a massive two weeks it has been at ENPS! I have been loving our special lunches on Thursdays with the Student of the Week token recipients. Last week we had a big group after a couple of weeks off, with Hallie (FKJ), Maeve (2SB), Ibrahim H (5AC), Taira (4CG) and their friends Dante, Audrey, Ziya and Hadar. This week it was lovely to have lunch with Isaiah (FTW) and Kaiden (2NV) along with their friends Ayden and Hugh. It was extra special to also finally get to have lunch with Lana (3KO) and friend, Isabelle after being sick for the past few weeks! They all certainly had some great ideas for improving our school. I was very fond of the icer cream party idea for every Friday, and the disco! 

Today I also had one of my most favourite days of the year, dressing up as a pirate to raid the Year Six classrooms as a part of their refugee boat provocation for the Morris Gleitzman text, 'Boy Overboard.'

Divisional Cross Country

A big shout out this week to Frankie (6GU), Ibrahim (5AC), Miller (6AI) and Sophia (4CT) who represented ENPS this week at the Divisional Cross Country! What a fabulous effort by all to get to that level! Ibrahim and Sophia will now also both go through to compete at the next level of competition at the Regional carnival! Congratulations to all of our Cross Country runners from last week's District event too!

Minister for Education Visit 

Today we had the honour of hosting a visit from Minister for Education and State Member for Niddrie, Ben Carroll and Danny Pearson, Member for Essendon. Thanks to a passionate letter to Mr Carroll from Charlie S (3KO) and his Grandma, the Minister wanted to come to ENPS to meet Charlie and hear first-hand why he loves our school so much and why he thought we definitely deserved some major funding to improve our buildings! Well done Charlie for being so passionate and taking action with Grandma to have your voice heard. 

ENPS Website Filming

What a fun day it was on Tuesday this week, witnessing our mini film stars in action! Keep an eye out in the coming months as we upgrade our ENPS website with all of the new footage and film stars! 

National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week

This week we have reflected across our classrooms on National Sorry Day and over the coming week we will also continue to learn and reflect on Reconciliation Week. Next Friday we will hold a special assembly for Reconciliation Week! I am so proud to know that our students have these opportunities to learn from, value and respect our First Nations people. National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week are hugely important to developing all of our understandings and being allies to our Indigenous cultures is a major step in that reconciliation. I sincerely thank all of our families who share this with us. Thank you to Sharon McWhinney who always leads the way in ensuring our intercultural events and celebrations are authentic, meaningful and connected to all members of our school and community, and to Imogen Westcott and Rhys McIntosh who, along with Sharon, make up our Marrung Champion team at ENPS. 

New Furniture

It was an exciting day on Thursday for our Year Five cohort this week receiving all new classroom furniture! As a school we work on a long-term succession plan for upgrading classroom furniture and each year will have a focus area or year level for a furniture upgrade. This year it is Year Five! While we didn’t quite get all of the new tables we expected (5JG will wait a few more weeks for their delivery!) 5RZ, 5JM and 5AC all got new tables, while all four classes received new chairs and locker trolleys! 

As you may appreciate, it was a big moving day as we swapped out the old for the new. 6AI and 6HB were happy recipients of some replacement matching tables while we will use many of the older chairs to replace our community use chairs for events like our Open Days. 

If you or someone, or group, you know might be interested in the remaining used furniture, please let us know by contacting the office. 

Fundraising Update

While the Year Fives were the recipients of new classroom furniture, we are very pleased to share that over the past weeks five of our classrooms have welcomed new TVs with another eleven to receive soon! Classroom TV upgrades have been on the JSC and staff wish lists for a while now and through our recent Walk-a-thon and last year’s Movie Night fundraising, we have been able to make these happen! 

Other new purchases (as a direct result of our fundraising) have included classroom sports equipment for all year levels, a new mini gaga pit and lunch club resources. We are currently investigating options for a bike shed, upgrading the 3/4 playground, a second big TV for our assemblies, and a new sound and speaker system too! 

What next…. while we are very excited to have received the government funding of $24 million towards our building and learning environment upgrade, staff and students are also developing their wish lists for our next fundraising purchases. With our locally raised funds, we always aim to have as much student voice involved as possible, however we are always welcoming ideas from staff and our community too. Coming up this year we have our wonderful Trivia Night and annual end of year Movie Night as our major fundraisers. Some of the big items we are looking to get include a shade sail for the Year 1/2 playground and resurfacing the quadrangle (which would now wait until after any major building works). 

If you have any great ideas for what we can used locally raised funds for to improve our school, please contact the office, a member of Executive Team (Kate, Alice M, Alice S or Connor) or even one of our School Council or Junior School Council representatives! 

Playground Update

Unfortunately, our excitement for the re-opening of the 5/6 playground was short lived. We have sadly had to close the playground yet again due to some compliance and manufacturing faults. We are currently doing what we can to have the playground back up and open as soon as possible! 

Staffing Updates

It seems it wouldn’t be an ENPS newsletter without some baby news, and this week it was a new ENPS grandbaby! Congratulations to Karen Kermonde, with another granddaughter, Sophie, joining the family. 

It is that time of the year where even our staff aren’t immune to all of the coughs, colds and viruses going around. Just like everyone else, our teachers are people too and they can get sick. You may notice from time to time there are casual relief teachers (CRTs) filling in when teachers are absent. There may even be times where CRTs are not available and classes may be split across the year level. We thank everyone in advance for their understanding when this happens.

It's Cold and Flu Season

With winter approaching, cold and flu cases naturally increase across our school community. This week, as a part of commitment to staff wellbeing, our staff have all had the opportunity to have their Flu Shots. This helps keep our adults at school healthy and we hope all families can do their bit too. Winter is a time to stay healthy and warm. We sincerely thank families for keeping children home when they are sick.  

A Day in May

Thank you so sincerely to everyone who made our Day in May last Thursday such a special day. To Marisa, Fabian and Mia Rosin, you will always have a place in our ENPS community and Marcus will always have a place in our hearts. Marcus’ legacy lives on and while many may not have now known Marcus personally, we all benefit from the connection with our Day in May. Check out the Day in May page for more! 

And finally, a special shout out to the number of performances we have been privileged to in the office this week from the Andrew Nunns School of Music musicians and performers. They were all wonderful and I especially enjoyed the sing-a-long to ‘Lush’ with the Year 5/6 girls' singing group. 

Have a fantastic weekend everyone and stay safe and well. 

Kate Barletta

Principal