From the Principal 

Principal

Welcome to our February newsletter, our first for the year.

Many of you may have seen and heard news articles and programs discussing the findings in the 2024 Grattan Report. The Grattan Institute is an independent research agency that produces policy recommendations for Australia’s future. They have recently published a report about reading in Australia and that around a third of children in the country can’t read proficiently. You can access the report here:

https://grattan.edu.au/report/reading-guarantee/

At Gilgai Plains Primary School, we already implement the recommendations that are made by Grattan. When setting up our new school, as a leadership team, we heavily researched best practice and what every child needs to become proficient readers and learners. The evidence is very clear, as outlined in the report. At Gilgai Plains, we follow a school wide structured literacy approach with a strong focus on phonics in our early years. Our students also actively engage in a knowledge rich curriculum that helps to build their vocabulary and background knowledge, which is critical for successful reading comprehension. We are committed to filling the "knowledge gap", and providing a high-quality, robust,  knowledge rich curriculum to our students.

Our teaching pedagogy and programs  are all evidence based and highly researched, for improved and positive student outcomes. At Gilgai Plains, we have invested heavily in quality teaching and learning resources and high quality ongoing professional learning for our very dedicated and knowledgeable staff. 

We are very proud of the teaching and learning that happens daily at Gilgai. Both our staff and students work hard. We would love to share more of this information with you at our Open Morning on Thursday 22nd February, starting in our gym, and then moving into your child/children’s classrooms. We would love to see you there.

In this week’s newsletter, I would like to introduce you to our amazing Principal Class team and have them tell you a little bit about their role and work in the school.

Assistant Principal Wellbeing & Operations - Lisa Stafford

A very warm welcome back, and first time welcome, to current and new Gilgai Plains community members! I am incredibly grateful to be one of the Assistant Principals at Gilgai Plains Primary School. Our students have settled in incredibly well and are enjoying the opportunity to begin a new year of learning.

I am extremely proud to lead our wonderful Wellbeing team, which includes our Wellbeing Leader, Natasha Caruso and Ruby Mitchell, our Disability and Inclusion Leader. Together we are passionate about student wellbeing and implementing processes across the school to improve the health and wellbeing of all students. I also lead and oversee the daily operations of our wonderful school. This includes the documentation of  processes, reviewing school policies and Child Safe Standards.

Assistant Principal Curriculum & Pedagogy - Emily Hyde

When visiting our classes, it has been amazing to see how well our students have settled into the structures and routines of  our classrooms. I am so proud to be the Assistant Principal of Curriculum and Pedagogy at Gilgai Plains Primary School and what an amazing learning journey it has been so far! 

My role is to lead the teaching and learning at GPPS. This includes the programs and evidence based practices that are implemented by our teachers. A big part of my role is supporting the teachers to effectively implement the Victorian Curriculum by following the ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ model to ensure that all students experience success. By working closely with the team leaders and teachers, we are able to create a consistent approach to learning that is driven by evidence and science. 

My favourite part of my job is professional learning! I continue to explore research and attend external professional learning to build my knowledge of how students learn best. As a staff, we participate in weekly professional learning meetings where we build our knowledge collectively, so that our students learn the most they can and retain this knowledge to help make our world a better place. 

Assistant Principal Student Empowerment & Achievement - Scott Woolcock

Hi everyone, I hope that the school year has started well for you and that your children are enjoying their time at Gilgai Plains as much as we do! I am honoured to be an Assistant Principal at Gilgai Plains where I get to work with industry leading school leaders and teachers and a student and family community that is so respectful and supportive.

My role is something that I am very passionate about. I am lucky enough to support our student leaders in creating an environment where students have a voice and can positively influence decisions on their time at Gilgai Plains, this includes developing student clubs, building their leadership capacity, running assemblies and creating opportunities to enhance our school (eg. fundraising for the new playgrounds). The Achievement side of my role is to support our staff to develop their data literacy skills and create an environment where we can continually improve our practice and support our students to achieve their best in every area of their education. 

I am looking forward to another amazing year at Gilgai Plains and achieving great things for our school and community.

Lastly, our Community Picnic is on Friday 1st March at 4.30pm - 6.30pm. It’s a great opportunity to meet families and staff in a relaxed social setting. Please check Compass for more details.

Thank you for your support in making the start of the year a great one for our children. We look forward to many more weeks of fun and learning together over the term.

Kind regards

Anthea Jamieson

Principal