Assistant Principal's Report

Welcome back to the 2025 school year! I look forward to working with all students and families throughout the year ahead.

Student Medical Information

If your child suffers from asthma, an allergy, anaphylaxis or any other health condition, please ensure you have an Action Plan in place at school, if you have not already. Wendy will be able to assist you with this.

Compass - What can parents do on Compass?

Receive Newsfeeds: these are regularly used to communicate important information with families and as a means to circulate the school/class newsletter.
Community Calendar: as events and important dates are set throughout the year they will be added to the Community Calendar.
Attendance: view real time and historical attendance data & provide information about absences and late arrivals.
Events: electronically provide permission and payment for excursions, sports days, incursions and camps.
Achievements and Awards: receive notification from your child’s teacher about an achievement your child has been recognised for or an award they will be receiving at assembly.
Learning Tasks: families will receive six classroom based Learning Tasks each semester and one Learning Task from each Specialist teacher throughout the year. These underpin our ‘progressive’ approach to formal reporting, providing families with information about their child’s progress regularly.
Student Reports: issued at the end of each semester and are aimed at capturing your child’s overall progress at each point in time. Student reports are released to parents electronically via Compass in June and December.
Parent/Teacher Conferences: book a meeting time with your child’s teacher in Term 1 and 3.
Contacting staff: parents can contact staff through Compass.
Sick Bay: if your child is attended to in sickbay, an entry is made which triggers an alert to families. In more serious cases, parents/guardians are immediately contacted via phone call.
Payments: pay for your child's book pack, netbook and other school related fees and levies at the beginning of the year.

If you can not access Compass or have any difficulties, please contact myself or the office.

Katie Moss, Simone Fraser & Courtney Ireland - SGPS Allied Health Team

Our school is proud to have awesome allied health professionals on our staff again in 2025.

Katie Moss is an experienced Social Worker who is available to provide mental health and emotional support to students and families. Katie has expertise and experience in supporting families who may be struggling with issues relating to anxiety, poor mental health, trauma and navigating the NDIS (to name a few). Katie's work days are Monday to Thursday.

Simone Fraser is a Speech Pathologist who works at our school on Tuesday each week. Simone's expertise in speech and language development enable her to provide valuable advice to teachers and families so that they can best support students to develop their oral language and broader literacy skills.

Courtney Ireland is a Occupational Therapist who works fortnightly on a Thursday at our school. Courtney can provide valuable insight and expertise for families and teachers about how to support students who may be having difficulties with everyday tasks.

In addition to Katie, Simone and Courtney's roles, we also have an ongoing professional relationship with Kate Elizabeth, Play Therapist & Social Worker and Tara Byron, Psychologist. Kate runs her practice from our school fortnightly and Tara completes assessments periodically at our request and when available.

We feel very fortunate to have such a strong multidisciplinary team in place in 2025 to work alongside our staff, students and families.

Head Lice

All schools have issues with head lice from time to time. Anyone can get head lice. People get head lice from direct hair-to-hair contact with another person who has head lice. For more information from Victoria Health about the treatment and control of head lice, please follow this link: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/head-lice-nits

The information on this website includes finding head lice, treating head lice, the life cycle of head lice, regulations and prevention. I encourage all parents to read this information, and to regularly check your child’s head.

School Photos

School Photo Day will be held on Wednesday 19th March. Please refer to the flyer with the QR code below for ordering. Please note that the school has no involvement in the ordering process.

Visitors and Volunteers

As part of the DET Child Safe standards and our school's commintment to child safety, we are provding our community with a Volunteer Induction Pack (attached below). This document summarises the responsibilities of volunteers in our school and provides links to relevant policies that underpin our responsibilities and processes relating to Child Safety. If you are planning to volunteer at our school this year, either in classrooms (helping with reading for example), in the garden, on Fresh Fruit Friday or for any other purpose, we ask that you read this document. Feel free to get in touch with Francis or myself if you have any questions or require anything clarified.

Child Safety is our absoulte priority, so thank you for your cooperation.

SGPS Volunteer Induction Pack.pdf

Sunsmart

As a proud SunSmart school, students are required to wear broad-brimmed hats or bucket hats outside. This is in line with the Cancer Council’s SunSmart recommendation that hats be worn from mid-August through to the end of April. Although it may not feel like hat weather, UV levels can still be damaging on cool, cloudy days. Students without an appropriate hat will be asked to use shaded areas or suitable areas protected from the sun. Students without an appropriate hat will be required to remain in the shaded area around the hub during lunch and recess.

Too much of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation can cause sunburn, skin and eye damage and skin cancer. UV damage accumulated during childhood and adolescence is associated with an increased risk of skin cancer later in life. Skin cancer is the most common cancer in Australia. It is also one of the most preventable cancers. You can’t see or feel the sun’s UV. Whatever the weather, if the UV levels are three or more, it’s important to Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek and Slide!

Families are encouraged to access the daily local sun protection times via the SunSmart widget on the school’s website, free SunSmart app, sunsmart.com.au or bom.gov.au.

Hats may be purchased from our uniform supplier, Noone.

Noone's hours are Monday to Friday 9 am-5 pm and Saturday 9 am-12 pm.

21 Queen Street

Bendigo Victoria 3550

Phone: 03 7018 4199

Email: Bendigo@noone.com.au