Message from Bev and Kim

Over the past two weeks, our school community has had much to celebrate, most notably the completion of our recent School Review. Every four years a school undergoes a review, where a panel consider whole school data sets, observe classrooms and speak to key stakeholders to gather information against goals and targets set out over a four year period. 

Congratulations to our teachers and students on the outstanding way they showcased our school in action and we extend a sincere thank you to our parent group for their support and involvement. It was a highly successful day, highlighting the significant growth and achievement of our students against our School Strategic Plan (SSP) goals from 2022–2026.

Some of the key highlights included:

*Consistency in the delivery of a rigorous literacy and numeracy program observed across classrooms within a teaching team

*Evidence of effective routines and classroom procedures, which maximise learning time

*Student ability to articulate what they are learning, why and how they can access support and extension tasks

*The sense of trust and community ethos across the school

*Strong academic results, particularly in measures of students needing additional support (0-2% in all areas) and growth data in reading

*Outstanding wellbeing outcomes, with all areas above similar schools based on student feedback data

*Receiving an overall rating of Excelling or Embedding according to the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (2.0) in the domains of Leadership, Teaching and Learning, Assessment, Engagement, and Support and Resources. 

The review day also provided an important opportunity to look ahead, helping us shape the direction for the next four years. Our future focus will centre on 

Learning—through responsive teaching practices that support and extend every student within the learning sequence

Wellbeing—by continuing to build positive classroom communities where strong student-student and student-teacher relationships thrive. A key part of this work will be strengthening the collaborative partnership between home and school to support the development of resilient, confident young people. 

We also recently held the first School Council meeting for 2026. We look forward to working closely with this dedicated group of parents and staff throughout the year. Our 2026 School Council members are: Merline McGregor (SC President), Lynne Donnelly (Vice-President), Simon Birch (Treasurer), John Larman (staying on as Community Member), Niels Boehm, and Beverley May, Kim Ancrum, Will Crossland and Kylie White as Department of Education members. A warm welcome to Peter Mouchtouris (Noah, gr 2) and Reenu Jayakumar (Zane, Prep), who join the team. 

At this meeting, several key areas were discussed:

Finance: A continued focus on Parent Payment contributions and careful consideration of the impact of contributions on the breadth and quality of our school programs as cash budgets for 2026 are finalised. On average, 25% of each year level has currently paid their parent payment contributions.

Marketing and Publicity: A sincere thank you to Lynne for her work in supporting the development of a marketing campaign to promote our wonderful school and its outstanding learning program.

Education and Policy: Feedback was sought for the Student Dress Code as part of the annual review cycle, no changes to be made. The updated Asthma and Anaphylaxis policies were shared – these can be found on our school website LINK.

Buildings and Grounds: Extensive general maintenance has been completed over the past month, including a recent playground equipment audit, the completion of the repair works on Exon, replacement of air conditioners, repairs in external toilet block and decking. 

Other highlights over the past two weeks:

Thanks to Marnie Bignell who hosted our first Little Listeners, a 0-5 years Reading Rhyme Time in our library on the first Friday of every month. We invite all our little siblings to join us for the next one, on May 1st - put the date in your calendar!

Well done to our students, who sensibly rehearsed school processes for an Emergency Lockdown Drill. During a lockdown drill, students remain inside their classroom with the doors locked, blinds drawn, and stay quiet and calm while the teacher accounts for all students and follows safety procedures. Teaching staff guide students through the process in an age-appropriate way, reassuring them and maintaining a calm environment until all students and staff are accounted for, and the all-clear is given. In the event of a real lockdown, once safety checks are completed the school would communicate with families via Compass to confirm processes and actions moving forward.

Congratulations to our Grade 3 and 5 students, who this week completed the NAPLAN testing period and gave it their absolute best. Thanks to our brilliant teachers, who supported our students with this process. Results are forecast to be shared with schools early Term 2.