Principal's report 

In our classrooms

It was a pleasure to welcome our local MP, Nina Taylor, to our school to award our Year 6 student leaders with their badges. Leadership is an important skill we foster in our students, and we are excited to see the positive impact these leaders will have on our school community. Congratulations to all our student leaders. 

In our community

We were thrilled to launch our new virtual tour video to the community. 

This video perfectly captures the essence of our school and the vibrant community that makes it so special. Well done to all the students involved; they all did so well in showcasing the school. 

This virtual tour is part of increased branding and communications activities we’re undertaking to ensure we remain the school of choice in the local area. With several new schools recently built around us and a new primary school being built in Port Melbourne (Fishermen's Bend Primary School), it's important that our community has a clear understanding of what makes PMPS so wonderful.

Our Prep enrolments this year are around 20% lower than previous years. This appears to be a trend affecting many schools in 2024, possibly related to the impact of COVID on childcare commencements and the expansion of "Free Kinder" programs. While we are not aiming to increase our enrolments beyond the 700-750 students we’ve maintained over the last 5 years, we do want to avoid any significant and sustained drop in Prep enrolments. This could impact our overall budget and result in reductions to programs and initiatives that benefit our students. 

We are conducting tours for prospective Prep parents and will hold an open morning on 22 March. If you have children in your household starting Prep, or know of others who do, please visit the enrolment page on our website for information about the timeline for Prep enrolments. I will also provide more updates via this newsletter as we get closer to the commencement of this process on 15 April.

Reminders

A reminder that students should not be at school unsupervised before 8:45 am. There is no supervision for students at this time, meaning we cannot ensure their safety and wellbeing in the same way we can during the school day. Our Outside School Hours provider, Team Kids, is the best place for students to be if they cannot be supervised by a parent before school.

Proud Port Behaviours

Congratulations to 5AB who received the most Proud Port Points in Week 4.

All classes are showing growth in how many points they earn each week and there is quite a bit of movement on the tables. 

Thank you and have a great fortnight.