Caulfield Primary School Newsletter

Principal's News

I have really enjoyed the last fortnight around our school for a number of reasons, having a chance to visit some classrooms, talk with our students and families and see some of the high-quality teaching and learning on display in all classrooms and specialist programs is a real highlight. As a professional learning focus, I am currently working with our specialist teaching team on a Wednesday afternoon. Our specialists, alongside all teaching staff engage in our Professional Learning Communities (PLC) approach and have focussed on evaluating student engagement in their individual programs. We have a very talented teaching team at CPS and seeing our specialist teachers come together each week to focus on student learning is a real highlight for me. 

 

Please take a look at the highlights and information pieces from around our school over the last two weeks. 

 

School Council

 

As a result of our school council nomination period, we received the following nominations:

  • Travis Ion (Father of Noah – Yr 5)
  • Kyoko Mahler-Isono (Mother of Aki – Yr 4, Haru – Yr 2)
  • Emma Mattock (Mother of Aisling – Prep, Euan – Yr 3, Callum – Yr 5)
  • Sara Ota (Mother of Lenny – Yr 5, Nico – Yr 2)
  • Miharu Morioka (Department of Education Representative)

I welcome Travis, Kyoko, Emma, Sara and Miharu onto our School Council and once again extend my sincere thanks to Candice Clynk and Chris Sargent for their contributions to our school council. This group will formally meet at our AGM and first meeting of the year the 19th March. All meetings held throughout the year are open to our school community, if you wish to attend please let me know via email. Formal leadership positions of council will be confirmed at our AGM. 

 

PFC

 

Thank you to those parents that have nominated themselves as class representatives throughout the school. These are a great support to our classrooms and our students. If you are able to provide any support over the course of the year, we would appreciate if you could fill in the following link.

 

Camp

 

We are looking forward to seeing off our Year 3/4s as they depart to Camp Oasis on Monday morning, a three-day camp and an exciting opportunity for students to develop relationships with peers and their teachers for the year ahead. Camps are an important opportunity to provide learning opportunities beyond the classroom and we often see students challenged and thrive in a new environment. I extend my sincere thanks to our teachers and Education Support staff who are attending, this is three days without their own comforts of home and a significant commitment to support our students. I look forward to driving up on Tuesday afternoon and spending Tuesday and Wednesday with our students. 

 

Swimming

 

Congratulations to our District Swimming Team that represented our school last Friday, without focussing on individual results, a collective team spirit, camaraderie and a representation of our school values were on display throughout the day. I extend my thanks to our parents who volunteered their support on the day and to Miss Molloy, Mrs Newman and Payal who helped our students throughout the day. Well Done Team CPS! 

 

St Kilda Football Club Visit CPS

 

It was really exciting to begin the week with a community visit from members of the St Kilda Football Club on Monday afternoon. Working with our Year 3-6 students we had players engage with our students, answer questions and sign autographs. It was really nice to hear some of the well-considered questions our students put to the players, exploring diets, training and managing competing demands including study and sport.  

 

Principal Conference

 

Miharu and I ended the week over the last two days attending the Bayside Principal Conference, ‘Leading in Complex Times’. This provided a great opportunity to network and explore overarching themes that are influencing education and school contexts. We spent a number of sessions exploring Artificial Intelligence and the evolving impact that this has on pedagogy and teaching and learning. The highlight of our conference for mine was a focus on cognitive load theory and the practicalities of how this influences our students and how they learn. Educational consultant and researcher, Dylan William describes cognitive load theory as ‘the single most important thing for teachers to know’. We explored this further as a group looking at practical support to introduce worked examples and expertise reversal into our lesson structures. 

 

Building Maintenance and Synthetic Turf

 

The Term 1 school holiday break is looking like a productive and busy period with the window repairs in our main building due to be completed. We are hopeful of having this work completed in a 10 day period. Further to that and with a slight adjustment to timelines, our synthetic turf will be replaced in the 2nd week of the school holiday break with this work completed in the first week of Term 2. This a small change to previously shared dates due to circumstances beyond the control of the school.   

 

Japan Trip

It was really exciting to meet with some families in year 5/6 on Monday evening to host an information session for our 2024 Japan Trip. Kurokawa sensei, Morioka sensei and I enjoyed feeling the excitement and energy in the room as we provided a snapshot of what our 2024 Japan Trip will look like. This is an optional trip for Year 5/6’s with the school making the commitment to running this every two years. Kurokawa sensei has worked to develop an exciting itinerary for our students for a 10 day trip. We look forward to working with families and students over the months to come as we target a November 11th departure.  

 

Thank You

A big thanks to our families around the school who are contributing to many wonderful opportunities for our students. Thank you to Ken F (Father of Ewan) and Sam B (Father of Naoki and Mika) who took time out over the weekend to put together a set of shelving for our 3D printers in our STEM room, the engraved CPS logo was a very special touch to finish off the project. 

 

Further to that, a group of our Year ¾ mothers’ took time out to complete some cooking for our students. My thanks to Kaori (Rinka’s mother), Shino (Ryan’s mother), Yoko (Aoba’s mother), Shiki (Haruka’s mother) Yuki (Hannah L’s mother) and Mari (Euna and Eugene’s mother) for helping to cook up chirashizushi for our Year 3/4s. 

 

Enjoy a great weekend ahead, I look forward to seeing you around the school over the next fortnight. Thanks for your support. 

 

Edward Strain 

Principal