Principal's Report

Welcome Back – It’s Term Four

Welcome back to everyone for term four. There is lots to look forward to over the next two and a half months, with excursions, the Year 4 camp, and performances including a Year 5/6 Concert, the Choir and Concert Band End of Year Concert, as well as the Year 6 Graduation.

We held our rescheduled assembly last week, and the packed agenda meant that we slightly overran. It was great to hear students explain their highlights of last term, to see our new Acknowledgement of Country plaques, celebrate our Nude Food champions, learn of the results from our recent House Sports Carnival, and also to hear from Josh F in Year 6 who described his experience when participating in the Team Victoria Australian Football, under 12 team.

It has been a great start to the term. Students are happy to be back and have settled very quickly into their routines. Congratulations to everyone for this successful start.

School Council Matters

Our excellent School Council continues to make valuable contributions to our school. Our next meeting has been rescheduled to 30th October where the main focus of the meeting will be our Out Of School Hours Care Provider. The current contract expires at the end of this year, and the school received multiple proposals for the new contract. The providers who submitted proposals have been invited to present at our meeting on the 30th. We will inform the FPS community of the selected provider once this process is complete.

School Council is also working through the yard redevelopment. This project requires approval from the Department of Education and Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA), with the school having been asked to provide further geotechnical reports as part of this approval process.

Year 2 Letters

Following on from the persuasive letters I received from 2C students last term on how the school can be improved, below are suggestions written by students in 2A.

Rex – padded floors to the amphitheatre
Jules and Harvey – swings in the playground
Frederick – a food truck at school
Finn – every class to have a class pet
Gia and Olivia – every class should be allowed on the oval at lunchtime
Rosie and Jemima – a teddy bear picnic day
Harry and Lewis – a Dungeons and Dragons Club
Billy and Will – a canteen
Zahi and Emily – a pond
Charlotte – more climbing equipment
Emily – a quiet space in the playground
Theda and Reggie – a swimming pool
Etta – more bins
Hazel – more climbing equipment

I will publish letters from the other Year 2 classes in future newsletters.

Planning for 2024

This term, staff will begin to draft student class groupings for 2024. As part of this process, students will be asked to write down the names of five peers who they work well with. We aim to accommodate at least one of these requests. Staff will use their knowledge of individual students to help create classes, ensuring a balance of abilities, gender, friendship groups and room for social expansion.

Whilst recognising that staff are generally best placed to make decisions about their students’ future placements, there may be specific considerations of which they are unaware. If there is an important situation that parents need to communicate to the school for 2024 class placements, please email Paul Wallace no later than Friday 27 October.

Please note, we do not accept requests for teachers (also, we have not finalised which teachers will be teaching which year levels).

Any families who are planning to leave the school this year are required to inform the school office to support the planning process.

Referendum Day – Volunteers Required

Our Social Club has organised a sausage sizzle and cake stall to take place when our school is a polling station on Saturday, however, those sausages won’t cook themselves! If you have a spare hour or two to donate, please do so. If baking is more your deal, then we greatly appreciate your donation of cupcakes, brownies, cookies, etc.

Enjoy your week.

~ Paul Wallace, Principal