Principals' Message

It’s hard to believe we have already passed the halfway point of Term 3! While the weeks are certainly flying by, there is still plenty of excitement and activity ahead. We have a busy few weeks to finish the term with Book Week, the State Schools Spectacular, Trivia Night, Junior House Athletics Day and Footy Day all still to come. We look forward to seeing our students and school community getting involved, having fun and making the most of all the wonderful opportunities ahead.

NAPLAN 2026

We are incredibly proud of our 2026 NAPLAN results, which reflect the hard work of our students and the dedication of our teaching staff. Our Year 3 students achieved positive results across all areas, performing at or above the State in the percentage of students achieving Strong or Exceeding in Reading (73%), Writing (80%), Numeracy (76%), Spelling (73%) and Grammar and Punctuation (59%).

Our Year 5 results were particularly outstanding, with Donvale students performing well above State results across every NAPLAN domain. An impressive 96% of students achieved Strong or Exceeding in Reading, 91% in Writing, 94% in Numeracy, 85% in Spelling and 85% in Grammar and Punctuation. Our Year 5 mean scale scores were also substantially above the State average across all five areas.

Equally pleasing is the growth our students are making over time. In Year 3 to Year 5 Numeracy relative growth 87% of students achieved Medium or High Growth, compared with 80% for similar schools, 84% across our network and 74% across the State. 

These results are something our whole school community can celebrate. While NAPLAN is only one measure of student achievement, the results provide strong evidence of the impact of our teaching and learning programs. We are particularly proud to see our students not only achieving at high levels, but also continuing to make strong learning growth. Congratulations to our students and a huge thank you to our staff and families who support their learning every day.

Parent/Carer Opinion Survey

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Carer Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies. 

The Parent / Carer Opinion Survey will be until Friday 18 September 2026.  All families are invited to participate in the survey. 

Please look out for the Compass message with the link and PIN number required to access the survey.  

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents / carers who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out to the school office directly for survey guides in your language.

Please speak to Michelle Rassias or Beau Robertson if you would like more information.

Lions Public Speaking Competition

Last Friday, our talented Donvale finalists - Campbell, Isabelle, Insiya, Hugo and Jayden competed in the next round of the Lions Public Speaking Competition, held at Firbank College. 

Our students confidently presented their award-winning prepared speeches, with our senior students also taking on the added challenge of delivering animpromptu speech on the topic, “If I were the principal of my school, I would…”

We are incredibly proud of the confidence, courage and skill our students demonstrated. They represented Donvale Primary School beautifully and should be very proud of their achievements. Congratulations to all of our finalists!

Science Week

It has been an amazing week at Donvale Primary School this week celebrating Science Week! The theme for the week was "the Seeds of Science." The highlight of the week was, undoubtedly, Tuesday's Science Day.

The day kicked off with a fabulous parade where students showed off their scientific outfits. We had astronauts, scientists, doctors, nurses, biochemists, geologists, vets, robots, aliens and even a rocket! It was the perfect way to get into the swing of the day.

Students then broke off into their House Matters groups to engage in a range of science-related activities. They designed imaginary creatures using clay to create unique features to help them survive. Students explored chemistry by making their own playdough and learned about Earth/Space sciences by considering how living things need air, water and sunlight to grow, survive and thrive. The day finished off with a Paper Plane Competition!

Sincere thanks to Mrs Sage and the Science Committee for organising the day, Mr Simpson for rocking the mic during the parade, all of our amazing teachers and Education Support staff for making the activities run so smoothly, all of the parents for organising such amazing costumes and, of course, our beautiful students who got into the spirit of the day so well!

On Wednesday, over 30 students from grades 3-6 participated in the ICAS Science competition where they tested their knowledge across a broad spectrum of scientific domains. We are proud of them all for giving it a go!

During the week, all students wrote a narrative from the prompt: The Potion. Teachers will read pieces over the next week, celebrating create ideas, wonderful word choice and, hopefully, some lucky students may get to read their piece aloud at assembly!

FINALLY... We are so grateful to Mrs Hodgson who worked her magic to gather over 1,200 books from the CSIRO! These have helped enrich classroom libraries and our school library. Books have also been donated to our local kindergartens, and each Donvale Primary student also got their very own book to take home. Thank you, Mrs Hodgson!

Book Week

Book Week started a little early at Donvale Primary this year, as our students enjoyed a wonderful incursion from Meerkat Productions on Friday morning.

Meerkat Productions bring two CBCA short-listed books to life! Our Prep-2 students enjoyed a performance of Dear Broccoli by Jo Dabrowski and Cate James, while our 3-6 students loved Inked, by Karen Wasson and Jake A Minton, a show about a kid who just wants to blend in and an opera-singing octopus who loves to stand out!

This year we celebrate a Symphony of Stories during Book Week. Next week we will also be having our Book Week Dress Up Day on Tuesday 25 August. 

Students are encouraged to come dressed as their favourite book character or in a costume inspired by a story they love. There is no need to break the bank to participate — we encourage students to use their creativity and imagination to create costumes using items they may already have at home. It’s all about celebrating books and having fun! We have attached some costume ideas for inspiration. More information about what time the parade will take place will be shared closer to the date.

There are also a range of student and classroom competitions to participate in. We have already been blown away by student entries for the Story in a Box and the Potato Characters. Walking around the school has also been extra exciting this week as many classroom doors are looking AMAZING in their re-imagined states celebrating great literature and all things Book Week.

Hats

There have been plenty of signs of Spring in the air this week. Some warmer, sunnier days as well as some windy and wetter ones have made the traces of Spring present in the air. With this in mind, we would like to remind families that students are now required to wear hats during outside playtimes from September 1 to April 30.

We encourage our families to consider their child's summer clothing and skin protection in preparation for the warmer, sunnier days ahead.