School Council Update

Review of this month’s School Council meeting……

This week’s meeting included the presentation of our most recent school review and NAPLAN results. It was overall very informative and had positive outcomes.  This review gives the school recommendations to help build the strategic plan for the next 4 years, which is then broken down into AIP’s (Annual implementation plan’s) to achieve this.  The finest details of these AIP’s are still being finalised but the school council were very impressed with the hard work that the school and staff and putting into them.  We look forward to our children reaping the rewards.

The results of the school review (which was reviewing the school the year before this one) and the NAPLAN results will be published on the school website soon for your information. 

We had updates from the environment subcommittee on a few current projects:

Kitchen/Canteen area - this includes the addition of some large stainless benches which will be beneficial for the catering at our fundraising events but will also allow this space to become multifunctional and cater for groups of students to participate in activities like cooking classes and science experiments if so desired! This is due to be completed in the next month.

Bike shed project -this is finally progressing again after some difficulty on getting any trades people to quote! But we are still hoping to have this complete by the end of the year/beginning of next year as we are beginning to receive some quotes! We will then have a more functional space for kids, parents and staff to store their bikes and scooters securely.  We are even hoping to include a bike maintenance station so our kids can learn how to look after their bikes too!

Mural on PE shed - this is being supported by our wonderful art teacher Amy, who is currently reaching out to a few Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung artists to find someone suitable to transform this space in a bright, thought provoking and attractive space!  We really hope that we get to see the outcome of this by the end of year picnic….to be continued!

The working bee for Term 4 (Sat 2nd Dec 2023) will focus on the back of the school campus (around the PE sheds and into the OSH club as they are keen and willing to be involved) We also approved the date of Sat 2nd March 2024 to be the first working bee of next year-feel free to add these dates to your diary!

The community subcommittee put forward the proposal for End of Year picnic and this was approved by the council.  We will be selling pre-order Sushi for a very small profit as our focus for this one is going to be on bringing families together and not fundraising huge amounts. We are really struggling to get new volunteers into our community subcommittee and so by the end of a very tiring year it seems most appropriate for everyone to hang out together rather than selling food and drink!  BYO picnics if you forget to order sushi 😊

Code Camp is still being pursued to formalise an agreement before we can run on site.

NPS branded clothing/Uniform survey results presented and discussed (we will expand into the detail of this below) 

School council may have to review current set up for 2024 to compensate for the difficulty we are currently experiencing in recruiting active members.

The 2024 School events calendar is being finalised asap to assist with the recruitment of help and planning of our social and fundraising events, as well as the very important school fete and 150-year anniversary of the school next year!

Next school council meeting is Monday 11th Dec 7-9pm in the staff room.

The results of our NPS branded clothing poll are in……..

Over the last week we have been asking parents, teachers and children if they would like to have the option made available to purchase and wear NPS branded clothing items to school and school events.

It showed us that this was a very popular idea and voted by the majority of the community to have these additional options available to us.  There were some people that wanted a full wardrobe made available, but the intention is to keep it to the suggested polo, t-shirt, and warmer layer as we think this is a better balance with students that do not want to wear the items.  

For transparency of results, we have detailed them below.

Student results were 65% YES to 35% NO:

Parent responses were 62% YES and 38% NO:

And teacher/staff responses were 81% YES and 19% No:

To try and give some more detail and put this into context, the reason this poll was run was because the school and school council had received requests to explore this further by students, parents and prospective parents as a possibility.

We would like to reiterate that NPS have no intention to create a uniform and students will still have the same freedom to choose their clothes each day and show their individuality through clothing if they so wish.

Out of respect to parents that raised an issue with the word ‘uniform’ in the poll results, we will not be referring to it as a uniform as the items are not required to be worn and we do not want anyone to feel they have to wear them if they do not wish.

Based on these results the school council will now start to work with a supplier to explore possible options and what they could look like and the cost.  We will share more details with you when we can.

Please remember that if you and your family are experiencing financial hardship then please reach out to our school leadership team for support.  It is important to us that we support our community.

The last thing that was raised through this poll and something the school council wanted to communicate was the reason for the change earlier this year of the school hat. This change of hat was a forced change as school providers are no longer allowed to supply any hat with the cord that goes around the neck and so we were unable to get anymore of the old-style hats as they not in production with school suppliers.  Instead, you will see on the new style hat that there is now an adjustable elastic that sits around the crown of the head to make it tighter and looser. It has also been confirmed from the hat supplier that the new style of hats are no less sun safe than the old style.  The sun safe rating of the new hats is 50+.

If anyone has any other questions, please feel free to email jo.pitt@education.vic.gov.au