Dear parents and carers,

It was a pleasure to enjoy the strong sense of community at our annual welcome picnic, our ‘Night on the Green’. Our school grounds were full of picnic blankets, food stalls and musical tunes as parents, carers and children all took the time to enjoy the warm weather together. It was lovely to hear members of our school band and choir perform and we appreciated our local member, Tim Richardson MP, stopping by to welcome everyone to the school year.

Thanks to the many people involved in making the event a success:

to our musicians, Stela Matthews and Natalie Tideman (Performing Arts Teachers), Alex Barnard (instrumental teacher), Luke Drohan (instrumental teacher) and Nikolas Matthews (past student)
to our volunteers on the sausage sizzle, led by Katie Stokes
to our staff for the odds and ends in the lead up to and at the picnic
finally, to our Community Events coordinator, Sarah Cornell, for your overall organisation

Sarah is on the lookout for members of the Community Events team. If you are interested, you can contact her in Year Five or via the school office.

aspendale.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Getting To Know You Interviews

Our Getting To Know You interviews take place on Monday and Tuesday for Years 1-6. Thanks to everyone who has booked an appointment with their child’s teacher via the Compass Parent Portal. Bookings can still be made. Thank you to our teaching staff for their preparation for these meetings.

The meetings are a great opportunity to hear how your child has settled into the learning routines at school and for you to share information about your child with their teacher.

School Tours

Next week our school tours commence. This is an exciting time of the year as we get to share with future families our teaching and learning programs, our spacious school grounds and our caring community. If you know of any families looking to enrol their child at our school, they can contact our office to organise a time.

Staff Professional Learning (PYP, PLC, CoP)

We are fortunate to have a dedicated workforce at Aspendale PS who are committed to our school’s motto of ‘Learning for Life’.

This week has seen our teaching staff engaged in professional learning around updates to the Primary Year’s Programme on Monday and the importance of intellectual preparation in our Professional Learning Communities on Tuesday. Our Education Support Staff furthered their knowledge of how to support students in learning to read on Wednesday and members of our School Improvement Team attended Dingley PS to observe their instructional model today. They spent the afternoon learning more about varying practice.

A reminder we have a student-free curriculum day on Friday 6th March. Staff will learn more about the implementation of our instructional model. TheirCare will run their program for any families requiring it.

School Council Reminder

We are continuing to form our School Council for 2026. If you are interested in joining, please contact the office or have a chat to me.

I’d like to wish our District Swimming team well for tomorrow. Thank you for representing yourself and our school well in your events and across the day.

Enjoy the rest of your week,

Tom

From the Art Room