Message from the Principal 

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

YEAR 5 MELBOURNE CITY CULTURAL DAY

What a GREAT day on Monday this week! The Year 5’s visited the Botanic Gardens, the NGV, Birrarung Marr, Old Melbourne Gaol, Carlton Gardens and finished off with a delicious dinner and gelato on Lygon Street.

Perhaps the highlight though was visiting the newly renovated Arts Centre to attend a special opening show. The show entitled “Housewarming” was a large-scale collaboration starring over 100 Victorian artists including Jude Perl searching for a missing lyrebird, plus performers from The Australian Ballet, Opera Australia, Circus Oz, The Listies, Emma Donovan, and the Victorian College of the Arts.

If you get the chance over the next few weeks and months to see a show or performance here, then I think you’ll be amazed at how good the new facilities are.   

Our vision at Greenhills is for our students to be curious, connected and open to challenge and have a positive impact on the community. Days like our Year 5 Melbourne City Cultural Day are perfect examples of us working and striving to deliver this vision. 

A special thanks to Lauren Richardson for her organisation to make this day possible, along with all of her helpers including the Ebony Killmister, Roberta Iebbiano, Jordan Daley, Kelly Jones, Ruby Cuce, Brad Ryan and parent helper Jessica Higgins. This day is now a regular part of our camps and extra-curricular program.

GETTING READY FOR 2027

Even though it is only the second week of Term 4, we are very much focussed on planning for next year and our Transition program is a big part of that. This program has many different elements all designed to provide a positive experience for students, families and our staff team as well. Just a few relevant examples of this include: 

Student Request Process: To help prepare our students for the next phase of their schooling we allow students in Prep through to Year 5 to select up to four other students in no preference order. We then use this information to inform and assist with the building of classes for the following year. This will happen next week.

Parent Request Process: Our parents are also able to make requests as outlined in previous newsletters; these close this Friday 16th October. 

Prep Information Night - Wednesday 21st October 6.00pm – an evening for our 2027 Prep parents to find out more about our school and get organised for the first few weeks of 2027 and beyond. This will be held in our Library.

Year 6 High School Day – Tuesday 10th December: This is where we set up a high school day with classes in various locations around the school, teachers with specific high school style subjects to teach and our students even get the opportunity to wear their new high school uniforms.

Mid-Term 4 Meet with the Principal Team – Wednesday 18th November from 7.30pm via Webex. Our focus for this session will include information about school structure, classes, class size and other organisation for 2027.

As you can see there are lots of ways for students and families to participate when it comes to making a smooth transition into 2027. Over the next few weeks, we will continue to outline these and keep you informed along the way.

SCHOOL COMMUNICATION

Based on our recent 2026 Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey we know that 94% of families responded positively to the statement “I am able to get the information I need through the school’s regular communication channels”. These include our:

• Two Minute Tuesdays released every week via Compass Newsfeed & the official Greenhills Primary School Facebook Page 
• Weekly newsletters
• Compass Newsfeeds
• Team Newsletters sent two or three times a term.

As always, we continually strive to improve and if there is anything you need more information about or would like to see more of, please contact me: james.penson@education.vic.gov.au

MEET WITH THE PRINCIPAL TEAM

Keep the date free: Wednesday 18th November at 7.30pm. This will be our Term 4 Mid-Term Meet with the Principal Team. The session will be held via Webex with the link sent out shortly. Some of the topics that we will cover include:

• School structure & class sizes model for 2027
• Planning and Key Actions for 2027

Hope to see you there!

WE WANT OUR SCHOOL TO BE A BRAVE SPACE

At Greenhills, we want our students to feel supported to be brave, to try something new, face a challenge, ask for help and learn from mistakes. Drawing on the themes of connection and resilience in Dr Justin Coulson’s work, we invite families to enjoy a short Brave Conversation each week. Around the dinner table, in the car or during a quiet moment, these questions can help children recognise their growing courage.

The question for this week is about Having a go: What did you have a go at this week, even though you weren’t sure you could do it?

James Penson,

Principal.