Assistant Principal Update

Hello to all families,

It has been great to reconnect with members of our school community this term since returning from my maternity leave. It has been lovely to hear about all the wonderful things that have been happening at MEPS so far this year and to see student learning in action across the school. Over the past few weeks, we have welcomed our 2026 prep students to MEPS with story time sessions in our library, what a great place to start their learning journey at our school. I have visited some classrooms to share with them my son Noah’s, favourite story - ‘Hairy Maclary’ by Lynley Dodd - and it is Noah who has inspired this newsletter article. 

Reading has always been a passion of mine as an educator and since becoming a parent, I have rediscovered my love for reading finding such joy in seeing Noah happily engage in story time at home! From an educational perspective, research has shown that the frequency of reading to children at a young age has a direct causal effect on their schooling outcomes, having a significant positive effect on their reading skills and cognitive skills (i.e., language and literacy, numeracy and cognition) later in life (DoEECD). I have found as both a teacher and a parent, the key to building such a love of literacy is finding the right book series or author that captures your child’s interest and imagination. As such, my family now owns more than ten of the Hairy Maclary series! 

Students at MEPS engage with a range of picture story books and novels as mentor texts to expose them to a wide range of literature and different authors. I encourage you to chat with your child about what they are reading in class, can they recount the plot, describe a character or perhaps what new vocabulary they have explored? On that thought I will leave you with a few interesting words that Noah and I have encountered in our ‘Hairy Maclary’ stories, I wonder if you and your child can brainstorm what they might mean and use them in a creative sentence!

• cacophony

• caterwaul

• scarper

• foozle

• rumpus

• fiendish

• pillage

• rapscallion

• bustles

   

There are still lots of learning opportunities left for the remainder of the school year for all students and teachers are planning multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning across the curriculum. I am at MEPS on Mondays and Wednesdays, please come and say hello if you see me out on duty of a morning or afternoon.

Kind regards, 

Jessica

Jessica Merritt 

Assistant Principal 

Respect, Resilience, Responsibility, Connectedness and Challenge