From the Principal's Desk

This weeks newsletter begins with a recap of the fun excursions and camp that has occurred over the last few weeks!

Thank you to our wonderful staff and today in particular our teachers as we acknowledge World Teachers Day who go above and beyond for the kids at our school.

The P-2 Athletics carnival was a roaring success, despite the warm weather with many students participating wholeheartedly at all events. We would like to particularly thank the many parent helpers that volunteered in a formal way but also showed up to support our students. The teachers came back saying, we could not have done that without them!

The Prep Zoo Excursion was the very next day and we were worried our Prep students would have less energy to get around Werribee Zoo, but they proved us wrong and had an amazing day exploring and seeing all the animals. 

The Year 1/2 five day Swimming Program finishes up today and we appreciate that we might have some extremely tired students by the end of the day. We also would like to thank the parents as organising dried bathers and towels each day with change of clothes is exhausting by day 5! Our staff have said it is really busy (and hot) at the pool but the kids have thoroughly enjoyed it.

In 2026, we will be doing swimming lessons at a new alternative setting in Armstrong Creek and will be widening the program to include Year 3/4 as well. More information to come in 2026.

The Year 5/6 Howqua Camp was also completed last week with a highly successful camp that honestly was enjoyed by students and adults alike! Going on camps is a really rewarding experience for students and i would like to thank the many staff that went and gave up their personal and family time to support our students. Yet another example of the dedication of our team here at school.

And behind all those events are a highly organised admin team ensuring everything is prepared and organised, first aid kits are packed, parents are communicated with and payments all sorted so that at the end of the day, our kids enjoy the experiences. 

School Concert

It is that time of year that our wonderful students under the careful guidance of our Performing Arts Extraordinaire Mr Jared Smith begin to learn and perfect their carefully choreographed dance performances. To support this work in Term 4, Mrs Gleeson created a special timetable that allows all students in their year levels to spend as much time in their Dance specialist class to learn a dance routine with Mr Smith. This year we have again booked the Geelong Arts Centre to showcase these performances which is scheduled to occur on Tuesday December 2nd

Doors will open at 6pm

Concert to begin at 6:30pm

Finish time at 8pm

This year ticket sales will be completed via the box office and details of this will be passed onto families by Jess and Melinda in the office when our ticketing system is up and running. All tickets this year will be a flat $25 each and families will have the opportunity to secure up to 3 tickets in the first rollout of sales. Once the first rollout is complete, information regarding a second rollout will occur with families able to purchase additional tickets.

Children who are performing in the concert DO NOT need to purchase a ticket and are accounted for in the school numbers.

Any children under 2 Years, DO NOT need a ticket either and are allowed to sit on an adult's lap for the duration of the concert.

All seats are general admin- so no seats will be allocated specifically to allow for any additional tickets that might be purchased in the second rollout to sit together.

The school concert is considered a fundraiser for the school but it is mainly and most importantly a way to showcase the work our students put in all term learning their dance routines in a facility that is purposefully built for this kind of thing. Mr Smith also teaches our students all about on and off stage routines, entering and exiting the stage as well as waiting in the wings quietly and the venue really supports this element of the performing arts very well. We would like to thank all families in advance for supporting this event in our school calendar. 

Information regarding costumes and props will also be communicated to families via Mr Smith and we look forward to our annual school concert which is a highlight of the year!

Planning for classes 2026 

Planning is well underway on many levels for 2026. In coming weeks, our teachers will begin the arduous task of creating class lists for 2026. Teachers will give students the opportunity to identify friends, peers or trusted people they would like as options to be in their new class. As always we cannot guarantee that all friends each student selects will be placed together in a class. There are many complex reasons for this and we ask that families support our school decisions with regards to this. 

Having said that, capturing student voice here is really important and well considered. Like in previous years, we will be sending home a friendship hand which will give families time to discuss who those friends might be and this will help staff begin to build class lists.

If there are specific pieces of information that you would like me to know about prior to this work taking place, please email me directly via compass. I ask families to please remember that I can't take specific requests for teachers, especially as I am still finalising the staffing profile, however there may be specific things you need me know or be aware of and I am happy for this communication to be passed on.

The class structure in 2026 sees an additional class added to our school profile with the following setup:

Prep- 2 classes

Year 1/2- 3 classes

Year 3/4- 3 classes

Year 5/6- 3 classes

 Our overall student numbers are continuing to rise slightly each year, sitting around 242 for 2026. 

Prep Team 2026

I would like to announce our Prep teachers for 2026 as we begin to advance towards our formal transition program.

Ms Ashlee Merchant and Miss Mattea Coppe will be our Prep teachers next year and we look forward to this new team leading and supporting our Prep students as they enter formal education. 

The rest of our staffing profile for 2026 will be communicated in December when all elements of recruitment is complete.

Prep transition dates:

Library Borrowing

Library borrowing will continue to occur throughout the month of November, closing off in early December. We are very lucky and appreciative of our Library Volunteer Jenny Schmidt who is slowly making her way through our library system and cleaning up the space. We do have an extremely large number of overdue books- around 170, that need to be returned to our system which you would imagine is very costly if they remain missing, so we ask that any families with library books at home that are overdue, to please return them ASAP.

Year 1/2 Stay Late

Coming up very soon is our Year 1/2 stay late evening on Thursday 13th December. Our 1/2 team have been busy organising and preparing for this event with lots of wonderful activities for the children to do. 

Kahoot & party games - 

Make your own T-shirt-  

A disco dance party - 

Pizza dinner - Popcorn & Zooper Doopers- 

A movie to finish the night!

The evening finishes at 6:30pm and is a great way to begin to prepare students for camping experiences in the years to come. We are looking forward to the fun!

Colour Run

Another fun event on our school calendar is the Colour Run which is going to occur on Thursday 18th December.

This is a huge community day and a major fundraiser for the school which our PnF crew will no doubt be most supportive of. 

Last year our PnF team supported the event organising hay bales, obstacles, the local fire truck and parent volunteers spraying students and staff which our students absolutely loved! It was a wonderful and fun community event and this year again, our PnF team will be looking for support and volunteers to help make this happen. Please keep an eye out when the callout comes as we welcome all families to give them a hand.

In the meantime, please see the targets and process below which was sent out via compass as a news event. Soon a permission event will also be pushed out on compass with further details.

Week 1 target:

• Goal: Every class reaches 40% of students signed up
• Prize: The students with new profiles this week win an icy-pole at lunch 

Week 2 target:

• Goal: Have as many students in your class sign up and raise $20 or more 
• Prize: The class with the most amount of students who have raised $20 or more get an Icy Pole & Movie Class Party

Extra Incentives along the way!

• $100 Club: Any student who raises $100+ goes in the draw to pick the Teacher SLIME a Teacher/ES at assembly.
• Top Fundraiser: The highest-raising student gets to choose which teacher/ES is slimed on Colour Run Day - 18 Dec
• Wristband Comp (Thu 21 Nov): Students will come home with a wristband and unique code. The winning code scores $500 of prize credits!

How to Help in 2 Minutes

1. Sign up your child’s profile (use THIS LINK or attached QR code
2. Share the profile with family/friends.
3. Talk targets with your child: “$20 this week, $100 next week if we can!”

Thanks for getting behind this! Every sign-up helps us reach

our goal and makes Dec 18 unforgettable for the kids. 

If you haven't already signed your child up, please do so using the QR code below.

BYOD Program

Recently as previously communicated to our school community via compass a few weeks ago, there was a media announcement to all schools regarding a change to the BYOD- digital technology program that many schools implement. This announcement was very timely and not at all expected informing schools that all BYOD programs would cease from 2027 onwards to support families under financial pressure. This announcement came out of the blue on the day of our new BYOD Device information parent evening which some might say was excellent timing and others (myself mainly) may say, not so excellent. 

A great deal of work had already gone on in the background engaging with a new company that would provide our new devices, building an online portal, discussing at school council the many different options across the entire year and building a new program at the school to support our students to move from iPads to Chromebooks.

I would like to inform ALL families that the school and school council do not support implementing the BYOD program in 2026 for one further year as it does not seem fair to ask families of students in Year 3 in 2026 to purchase a device for one more year only to be told the year after that they are no longer required. We will not be expecting families to purchase a device next year and instead will at the minimum do the following:

Year 5/6 students in 2026- will continue to utilise and bring to school their iPads which will support the digital technologies curriculum, online assessments and NAPLAN. We will also implement the moderated time of 90 minutes a day at the maximum as recommended by the announcement.

Year 3 Students in 2026- will not be required or asked to purchase an iPad or device for school as we hope to utilise our school owned iPads for our students as required. 

Year 4 Students in 2026- may be asked to continue to bring their iPads to school but this will be confirmed later this year/early next year and dependent on how many school owned devices we have that are in good working order. 

As a school, we are NOT funded for digital devices that we are now required to provide in 2027 and beyond. Currently there is no funding model for this and as Principals across schools in the Barwon area, we are advocating for this with feedback of our individual circumstances being passed onto the Department Heads in this space. I will update families on this as more information becomes hopefully available and will be continuing to discuss this space with school council as a recurring agenda item.

Leadership for November- 5/6A Change

During the next 4 weeks over the month of November, Mrs Erin Gleeson will be taking some extended leave as she heads away in the van with her family and does a bit of travelling. As it is such a busy time for schools in general, Mr Dale Evans will step up into the role of Assistant Principal in her absence to continue to support the work in our school leadership team. On the days that Mr Evans would normally teach 5/6A, Mrs Matilda Brown who is a well known emergency teacher at our school will step into teaching the students in 5/6A. 

During this time, please continue to engage with Mr Evans anything that Erin would have normally been working through as a thorough handover has been completed. We know both Mr Evans and Mrs Brown will continue to provide our school with support and we wish Mrs Gleeson all the best as she travels.

Have a great long weekend and a reminder that Monday 3rd November is a pupil free day alongside the Melbourne Cup public Holiday.

Mel Maccora