What a Fortnight

With a celebratory two weeks for Australian (and Japanese) athletes in Paris it was so wonderful to integrate these Olympic festivities into our teaching and learning programs here at school. We have enjoyed our Mini Olympics for our junior students last Friday, followed up by a really successful House Athletics competition for our Year 3-6 students on Wednesday of this week. We were so lucky with the weather on both these days and we were incredibly fortunate to have so many volunteer helpers and supporters on both days. My sincere thanks to Miss Molloy, our teaching and education staff who all assisted to create such fun opportunities for our students.

There is plenty happening around the school and many highlights to share from the last two weeks. Thanks for taking a minute to read over these.

100 Days of School

Congratulations to our prep students, their families (and our teaching staff) on celebrating their first 100 days of school. There are so many milestones that occur in those 100 days of school and every year, I am always absolutely amazed at the progress and routines that become second nature to our students as they begin to adjust to school life. Our 2024 preps are so confident in our school grounds and classrooms, they are learning new things on a daily basis, challenging themselves and working together. Well done on your first 100 days of school Preps!

Parent Opinion Survey

Many thanks to the 63 parents/carers who have already supported the school by completing the annual parent/carer opinion survey. It is greatly appreciated. The Parent/Carer Opinion Survey is available until Friday 30 August 2024.

Website Updates

Have you checked out our website recently? We always endeavour to keep this updated and relevant for our school community. A big thanks to Jess in the office who has embedded a school calendar onto the site, this is a great portal to stay up to date with our events and activities and you can sync these dates into your own device calendars by clicking on the links. You can check it out via CPS Calendar.

Parent Request – Classes

How is the grade structure decided?

I thought I would get in early and keep you informed of our processes and planning for the year ahead. The reality is that schools begin looking at 2025 plans into Term 3 and 4. At CPS, our policy is to create a whole school grade structure which is either single year levels (prep) or multiage (across 2-year levels). The structure is dependent on the numbers of students in each year level, the dynamics of students in each year level, our knowledge of students in the school and the best operational timetable and staffing arrangements that can be created within the budget provided by the Department of Education. The exact class structure is often not finalised until all of our future enrolments for 2025 are confirmed.

Can parents choose teachers?

The short answer is no. Given that classroom teachers are generalist teachers and can be placed in any year level from Prep – Year 5/6. The request for certain teachers is often made redundant when teachers regularly move between year levels.

What can parents request?

That their child might be with (or not with) another student based on education needs, or if there may have been a past incident or negative history with another student. Parents may request something like, having your child separated from a good friend to help them focus or have the opportunity to make new friends.

Who do I send my request to?

You may send any requests to our office email address, these will be filed for reference as we begin to discuss our 2025 classes. No later than Friday 25th October, 2024 (no exceptions)

How do we make grades for 2025?

We start by asking students to identify ‘friends’ they might like to have in their grade for the next year. When we say ‘friend’, we mean someone who they would work well with, not always their best friend. Students have ample time and opportunity to be with their best friend, outside of school and classroom hours. Importantly we don’t guarantee these requests, usually students will get one or two of their ‘friend’ requests. Sometimes not getting requests upsets students and their families. Invariably however, we find that students meet new friends (in their new grade) that they wouldn’t have met if we hadn’t encouraged mixing the grades, across their years at school. So, this is a deliberate strategy that supports students building their friendship groups across the years.

Who makes the grades?

Classroom teaching staff and specialist teachers all contribute to making the grades. This sits alongside a class building application that takes into account age, gender, year level, academic abilities, behavioural needs, friends and separations, language ability (English and Japanese). It is a complex process. The Principal Class Team then decide on the final grades. As a rule, we never make changes after the grades have been made. So please make your request before 25th October.

What factors do we consider when we make grades?

When we make grades, we consider things like: Academic capabilities/friendships/ students’ behaviour. We want to ensure that grades have an even spread of boys and girls.

I trust this explains how we do this process; this is consistent with most schools. If you are uncertain, please always feel like you can ask me further questions.

Book Week Next Week

Book Week is celebrated next week. Our annual Book Character parade will be held next Tuesday morning. I am sure, as always, there will be some wonderful characters represented in the parade! The celebrations of literature will continue throughout the week with our Book Fair held on Thursday and Friday. It is a great opportunity to pick up a book and do some reading at home in English or Japanese with your child.

Athletics

The Melbourne weather cooperated on both of our sports days last Friday and Wednesday of this week. It was a real highlight to see our students having so much fun together and trying their best in a host of events and activities. Days such as these cannot occur without a level of detail behind the scenes to get everything organised. I sincerely thank Miss Molloy who put on two fantastic days for our students and allocated responsibilities to staff and volunteers to support the day. Our Year 3-6 Athletics Team will be finalised based on the results from Wednesday with the team to be announced over the coming week. Well done to all our students for the manner in which they represented themselves and their houses on the day. A special thanks to our parent and family helpers for assisting on both days.

Working Bee

We have a collection of jobs to be completed around the school and it feels like a perfect time to come together to achieve this at our Working Bee on Saturday. Beginning at 9am, if you are able to assist us with these tasks it is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Congratulations

A quick but important note of acknowledgement to Miss Pyrcz who has undertaken and completed her Victorian Institute of Teaching accreditation project. A requirement for all graduate teachers within Victorian schools. Miss Pyrcz showcased her work with Morioka sensei, Miss Ryan and I at a panel presentation focusing on significant professional learning around oral language strategies to enhance and engage students in writing explanation texts. Miss Pyrcz has demonstrated evidence and accomplishments in all 37 Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Well done Miss Pyrcz!

The less spoken about football the better, bring on cricket season. Thanks for a great week, I hope to see some of you at our working bee on Saturday morning.

Thanks again,

Edward Strain

Principal

Community News