Principal's Report

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to our new families

Our Foundation students have made such a wonderful start to school.  I am very proud of our new Foundation students for the enthusiasm they have shown in starting their learning journey and for the incredible energy that they bring to our Junior School Centre.  At our first assembly for the year our Foundation students were presented with certificates to recognise their outstanding start to school.  We hosted our Welcome to Foundation BBQ on the same day, which was such a wonderful way for our Foundation families to get to know each other and make new connections and friendships.  We look forward to many amazing achievements and a wonderful partnership with our new families over the next seven years.

We have had many new students start at our school at the beginning of the year, many of whom have just moved to Belgrave South or Heights.  I would like to warmly welcome all of our new families and I know that they will make many great connections with others in our local community. 

Welcome to the Team

We welcome some new members of staff to our teaching team for 2025 – Leah Distefano, Ellana McGeehan, Rachael Moore, Teresa Kos and Danika Dakic. 

Leah will be joining the Grade 5 Team, Ellana returns to BSPS to join the Grade 3 Team, Rachael will be joining the Grade 2 Team and Teresa and Danika have joined our staff as our new music and performing arts specialist teachers. 

We are very excited to have them join us at Belgrave South and collectively they bring a great deal of expertise in teaching and learning.  You will begin to see their faces around the school as they start building relationships with our students and their connection with our parent community and staff team. 

Teacher Touch Base Interviews

The Touch Base Interviews for Grade 1 – 6 are scheduled to take place on Tuesday 11th March and provide an opportunity to meet the teacher and discuss how our students have settled in to school for the year and the learning goals teachers that have been co-constructed with your child.  Bookings can be made through Compass.  If you are not able to make a booking, please contact your child’s teacher so that you can arrange a time to meet or to talk on the phone. 

FETE – Lock it in! 

The 29th March is fast approaching, I can’t believe that our fete is just over four weeks away!  Make sure you put the date on your calendar and let all your family and friends know that you would like them to come along.  It is a great chance to have some fun and food with friends!

Wonderful events like the fete don’t just happen – it takes the support of many volunteers and a huge amount of teamwork and community spirit.  It is not too late to be involved, instructions to register to help on the many stalls and activities will be sent home later this week. 

A separate letter will be sent home outlining the many different ways that you can support the event on the day through volunteering to help run a stall for an hour or two or through making a small donation of one of the items we need to run the activities and food stalls. 

If your business or workplace is able to make a donation of a voucher or item for the silent auction – please get in touch with Jackie in the office or Kelly Papatolicas.  Thank you to all the families that have already made generous donations of items for the auction, there are some amazing things that will be auctioned on the day.

NAPLAN

The National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) for Grade 3 and Grade 5 students will begin on Wednesday 12th March. An information sheet was sent home for all Grade 3 and 5 students last week.  Please contact Mrs Ould if you require any additional information or need to discuss any aspect of the testing program.

Buildings and Grounds Development

The new stairs to the oval and the ramp upgrade works around the school are almost complete.  Despite the setback of the wrong shape/size surrounds being delivered last year, our new junior sandpits have finally been installed and have already proven to be a hit.  Further landscaping works in the playground spaces and new outdoor learning areas are in the pipeline and will continue to transform our school grounds over the coming months.  With new garden beds to plant up, our landscaping club will have plenty of new places to work in over the next six months. 

Communication Channels 

The following forms of communication will be used to clearly communicate key information about school programs and events through Compass:

Newsletter – now published monthly containing whole school projects and updates, celebrations of learning and achievements, assembly award winners, student work, student leadership projects, lunchtime club updates, sporting events, excursion and incursions reports and photos of school events.  We will maintain a web-based newsletter and will be adding a podcast version in the middle of the year. Newsletters will remain visible in Compass for two weeks.

Year Level Updates – published fortnightly via Compass newsfeed.  Updates on student learning tasks and notification when learning tasks feedback has gone live, year level programs, key dates that relate to your specific year level, reminders about whole school events that the year level will be part of. These will remain visible in Compass for one week.

Compass Newsfeed reminders – sent a week ahead or day prior (depending on the reminder).  These will be targeted to the specific group of students and families that need the message.  The title of the message will indicate which year level it relates to ie. Grade 2 – Reminder to bring gumboots for gardening tomorrow OR Grade 3 - 6 – House athletics trials will be held next Tuesday.  The message will expire on the day of the event so the newsfeed doesn’t become cluttered. 

Calendar – our dates are placed on the calendar as soon as an event is booked. If the calendar item connects to an event requiring permission/payment, a place marker will be added to the school calendar and you will receive a separate communication linking you to the permission/payment for the event. 

It is advisable to check the calendar on an iPad or desktop computer so that you can see a week or month at a time.  The calendar feature of the iPhone/Android Compass app only allows you to check a day at a time – intended to be used to check a single day if you are making an appointment, it is not suitable for viewing the calendar for block of time.  I also advise checking the full version of the calendar regularly as sometimes special events become possible for our school with short notice ie. visits from VIP’s or community programs and free incursions offered to schools, although we will send a newsfeed message if there is a date change or special event.

Annual privacy reminder for our school community

Our school collects and uses student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy and the Schools’ Privacy Collection Notice. 

Our Photographing, Filming and Recording Students Policy describes how we collect and use photographs, video and recordings of students. The policy also explains when parent consent is required and how it can be provided and withdrawn. 

We ask parents to also review the guidance we provide on how we use ICT safely at the school and what parents can do to further protect their child’s information. 

For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. 

Dogs on school grounds

To ensure that our school remains a safe and inclusive place for everyone, we have in place a number of rules that we expect all families to follow if they wish to bring their pet dog onto school grounds:

• pet dogs must be leashed at all times and in the control of a responsible adult

• pet dogs are not permitted inside buildings

• pet dogs must not be left unaccompanied

• families that bring dogs to school that exhibit signs of aggressive behaviour, bark, or jump may be asked to remove the dog from school premises.

Accident Insurance

A reminder for our families that Belgrave South Primary School and the Department of Education and Training do not provide personal accident insurance for students. 

Parents and guardians are responsible for the cost of any medical treatment for injured students, including any transport costs. Student accident insurance policies are available from some commercial insurers which cover a range of medical expenses not covered by Medicare or private health insurance. 

The School and Department of Education and Training do not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools and there is no capacity to pay for any loss or damage to such property. It is advisable that students do not bring valuable items to school.

I would like to acknowledge our school council members for the incredible job that they do and the support that they provide to the process of improving the facilities of our school and the learning programs that we provide. 

School Council Elections and Timeline

Four of our parent representatives and two DET representatives will reach the end of their tenure in March and we will have four positions in the parent category and two DET positions vacant as a result.  I would like to thank Karen Penwarden, Shane Papatolicas, Lesley Wiadrowski, Dale Edmondson, Sarah Sussman and Jackie Rawson for their commitment to being on school council and for their service to our school community over the previous two years, they have worked tirelessly to improve our school and its facilities and programs. 

TIMELINE FOR 2025 SCHOOL COUNCIL ELECTION: 

Nomination forms will be available from the office from Tuesday, February 25 2025.