Message from the Principal 

GREENHILLS MUSIC FESTIVAL

We were treated to a wonderful range of performances at our 30th Annual Greenhills Music Festival. The bar is always set very high at this event and last week was no exception.

Our vision at Greenhills is for our students to be curious, connected, open to challenge and have a positive impact on our community. We call them our 3 x C’s and events like this really showcases all three in action and if you were lucky enough to be in the audience, you were certainly positively impacted! 

I would like to thank everyone who attended. Our young musicians really appreciate opportunities to perform and be heard. Having such a supportive audience really makes events like this so special. 

Well done to all our performers. It was a real treat to hear our Recital Choir, Training Choir, Year 3 Choir and so many other ensembles and solo performances. Thank you to the whole team who deliver and drive our Performing Arts program. 

On the night we also announced that Kate Stewart is retiring at the end of this year. Kate has been part of our Greenhills community for 20 years and responsible for providing so many rich opportunities, memories and musical experiences for so many students during this time.

We are so grateful that Kate has been part of our school, and we know that she will always a hold a special place in all our hearts. 

Kate has been our Greenhills musical powerhouse and to quote another, the late, great singer Aretha Franklin “Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It’s transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It’s uplifting, it’s encouraging, it’s strengthening.”

Kate – thank you for uplifting, encouraging and strengthening all of us at Greenhills 

CONGRATULATIONS & GOOD LUCK BECC STEPHENS

Congratulations to Becc Stephens who has accepted an Acting Assistant Principal role at Barrawang Primary School for Terms 1 -3 in 2025. Becc has been a Learning Specialist at our school for a number of years and is also a member of our Executive Leadership team. Becc has played a key role in developing student agency across Greenhills Primary school along many significant curriculum initiatives. Becc’s leadership has been instrumental in the strong learning and wellbeing outcomes our school has achieved this year. Something we will remember Becc for at Greenhills is the way she builds such strong connections with the students across the cohorts she has taught. She has had an incredible impact on our Year 6’s this year and I know this will be celebrated at our graduation this week.

CHRISTMAS CONCERT

Thank you for your understanding in our cancelling the Christmas Concert last Thursday evening due to the heat. We are also happy to confirm we rescheduled the event for Wednesday this week. 

It was interesting to see the passion around this decision, but we certainly appreciated the significant number of families that lets us know that they understood that it was both a difficult call to make but also the most sensible one.

A few parents suggested that the event could have been moved into our new gym. It is important for our families to know that we have a licence agreement in place to hire our gym out to Greenhills Basketball Club on weeknights. This means that unless we provide notice and communicate dates that we require the gym well in advance, that we are unable to use it in circumstances like this.

We also hire our gym out on Satursdays from 8am – 6pm and on Sundays from 9am – 11am and 4pm – 7pm for basketball competition and training. This provides both important revenue for our school and enables this wonderful facility to be used and enjoyed for its intended purpose.

Mind you with 500 students and then many more adults and family members inside the gym, it would also have been too hot to host in the gym anyway. Airconditioning is not funded in projects like this, but we do hope to put money away if possible each year so that this could be something that is installed at a later date.

CHRISTMAS TREE @ GREENSBOROUGH PLAZA

If you are shopping at Greensborough Plaza in the rush to Christmas, don’t forget that if you spend over $20 you can earn a token that can be put in our Greenhills Christmas Tree collection point. 

THANK YOU SCHOOL COUNCIL

As we move into the last week at Greenhills Primary School for 2024, I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank all members of our School Council this year for their significant contribution to our school: 

Sam Redman, Matt Mooney, Jessica Barden, Katrina Purcell, Adam Laws, Rosita Zakaria, Irina Fainberg, Caroline Bennett, Janine Hough, Brad Ryan, Shirley O’Shannessy and Victoria Harris as our minute taker.

This group of dedicated parents and staff have further strengthened the educational environment for our students.

In particular, I acknowledge Sam Redman for her leadership as School Council President. Sam’s leadership of Council has ensured that we have been able to successfully manage the challenge of providing time for rich discussion and debate whilst also ensuring that all voices are listened to. Most importantly Sam has managed this with a sense of fun and humour as well!

A special thank you to Adam Laws who will stepping down for his role on School Council. Adam has been a member for several years and in that time held the position of vice president and convened a range of sub-committees.

Overall, much has been achieved in 2024. We can all be proud of our school as it is today and excited about our school into the future.

Next year there will be number of vacancies to fill to form our 2025 School Council. If you would like to find out more about the role of a school councillor and the time commitment involved, please contact me. One of the strengths of our school is our strong parent involvement and support and we need this to continue with our School Council and all our sub-committees in 2025 so that all our work and momentum can continue!

BATTLE OF THE BANDS & FINAL ASSEMBLY

Don’t forget that our Battle of the Bands will be held this Tuesday from approximately 10am. This is where each of our Year 5 & 6 classes perform a song they have been rehearsing in Music in front of the whole school.

Our final school assembly will also be held on Tuesday 17th December at 2.30pm.There is no school for students on Thursday 19th December and then the last day of school is Friday 20th with a 1pm dismissal. 

START UP 2025 DATES & TIMES

School will begin for all students other than our Preps on Thursday 30th January at 8.55am. 

Prep students will commence via a staggered start on either Thursday 6th February or Friday 7th February. They will then attend each school day as normal from Monday 10th February as we have combined all our allocated prep entry assessment days into the first week of the school year.

James Penson,

Principal.