Principal's News

What a busy school term we have enjoyed, whilst it was the shortest term of the year, we had so many events and celebrations to enjoy, it certainly felt like a really exciting term throughout the school. It is hard to believe that when we return in Term 4 we have hit October. 

I greatly appreciate the collective support offered by our families and staff over the course of this term, we have enjoyed terrific moments over recent weeks and throughout term 3, undoubtedly the highlight for the school was our school production. Over the last week our teaching staff have spent considerable time planning for term 4, we have a host of activities and events planned and we begin welcoming our 2026 preps to our school next term with our transition program occurring. 

A snapshot of highlights from around the school are detailed in our newsletter, thank you for taking a moment to review these. 

Around the School

Our Year 3/4s put together a fantastic celebration of culture and global citizenship last week, showcasing their group projects in our Mulipurpose room for families, students and staff. I had a great chance to learn from our students about various countries from around the world and enjoyed listening to their oral presentations. There was considerable effort put into this work and it was so nice to see – well done Year 3/4s. 

Our book parade was a huge success, thank you to families and our student leaders for their involvement in this event, I was so sorry that I missed our parade, it is always such a highlight. 

Our Premier’s Reading Challenge has concluded and a huge congratulations to all our readers who participated in particular: Diana P – 94 Books read (Prep), Henry M – 96 Books read (Grade 1), Emma A – 53 Books read (Grade 2), Tami P – 179 Books read (Grade 3), Lena D-F – 35 Books read (Grade 4), Aidan R – 27 books read (Grade 5), Vivien M – 40 books read (Grade 6). 

Parent Info Session

Thank you to those families in attendance at our School Review presentations over recent weeks, it was wonderful to share with families and detail the school review process and the work that the school is set to embark upon over the years ahead in alignment with our strategic plan. Whilst it was widely acknowledged last week that sharing the slide deck with families without context would present challenges, I will attempt to provide a summary video over coming weeks and look to hold a further session next term with a view to holding this online. 

School Athletics Team

Congratulations to our school athletics team who represented our school at the District Athletics last week. We had 39 students participate and they did themselves proud, representing our school and themselves in their events We had great success this year, with most students returning to CPS with a ribbon. We also have 15 students qualify to the Beachside Division Athletics. A wonderful achievement and a great testament to their hard work, training and the support of Miss Molloy and our parent volunteers who assisted their preparations. Well Done Team CPS! 

Footy Colours Day

Thank you to our students and families for finishing the term off on a high with our annual footy colours day. I was disappointed not to see more navy blue amongst our students but I am also a realist and looking forward to a great weekend of football in Melbourne with two preliminary finals at the MCG which is rather rare event over recent years. 

Our students fundraised for the Fight Cancer Foundation, a wonderful course and one that I am sure is close to many of us, you can still donate to this cause via our portal and online fundraising page here: Caulfield Primary School Footy Colours Day Online Fundraiser  which will help us reach our fundraising goal of $500 for kids fighting cancer!

School Council

Our school council met for the final time for Term 3, last Tuesday evening and were able to discuss various aspects of governance and policy. We also discussed the full report from our school review and were able to table discussion from school council members who were involved in this process. 

• Education and Policy: Policies detailed by the sub-committee and approved include the Class Placement Policy, Cash Handling Policy and Communication to School Staff Policy, these policies and all available on our website. 
• Finance: Staffing for the 2026 school year was detailed aligning this with forecast student numbers. The finance sub-committee explored minor adjustments to the cash handling policy. Whilst the budgets were discussed in line with our account balances including our high yield and official accounts, building, library funds and our PFC sub-program. 
• School Engagement: School engagement meeting continued to explore the links between school and home and refining communication channels. The group also explored further opportunities to plan for future refurbishments in the school. 
• Buildings and Grounds: A working bee was set for the 28th November, the costs of carpet replacements was detailed and aligned to our building fund. The junior playground upgrade is back with our landscape designer and we are awaiting further amendments to the designs. We have received a quote for internal painting with costings shared with the sub-committee. 

Car Parking

When we return in Term 4, could I please ask that we have a considerable focus on car parking etiquette and safety for everyone. I have had a number of parents provide me with photos of vehicles that are defying road safety, creating car parks where they don’t exist and impacting on other drivers and traffic flow. In particular the angled parking on Poplar street is regularly used illegally, please be mindful of our students and the safety of our school community and comply with local road rules. 

Recruitment

The exciting news is that our school is growing, we are currently undertaking recruitment for 2026 with a view to creating a further Year ½ classroom, we are also currently looking at adding to our education support team. We look forward to beginning to plan for 2026 and shape our workforce to align to our strategic goals and aspire to provide our students with quality teaching and learning in every classroom. 

Professional Learning

A key element of the work of any school leader is to lead teaching and learning practice and research relating to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. This is an expectation from the Department of Education and aligning this to the work as instructional leaders in our schools. Recently, we have had the opportunity to undertake a precision series working with other leaders to refine practice and explore other school environments, this has provided opportunities to collaborate with Toorak Primary School and look at refining transitions and specific codified, consistent routines in our school and classrooms with a view to promoting a shared vision of effective teaching, fostering collaboration around student-centered practices and encourage data-driven and research-informed instruction.

Last week as a principal network team, we also had the opportunity Vic Zbar who has a strong reputation in school improvement, authoring a book on practical strategies for school improvement for school leaders. 

Our teaching staff have had the opportunity to work closely with our School Wide Positive Behaviour Coach over recent weeks exploring desirable behaviours, routines, plotting data and defining minor and major behaviours in our school and aligning this to expectations and teachable moments in our classrooms. 

Inspire

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to be a very proud principal and overseeing Mrs Curlewis and Miss Guzman’s final presentations as participants of the Inspire: Emerging Leaders professional development. Sally and Carolina have worked with over 20 other teachers from the Bayside Peninsula area over the last 5 months developing their leadership capacity and collaborating with others. I have enjoyed working with four other principals to facilitate this program with a view to enhancing the leadership of our teachers and staff. Sally and Carolina both completed a presentation detailing their leadership journey and their area of focus. Congratulations Mrs Curlewis and Miss Guzman.   

Sports Uniform

Bayley Mifsud (Merindah-Gunya) is a proud Peek Whurrong woman of the Maar nation who began doing Aboriginal art from a very young age, now working as a full time artist and using art to showcase generational storytelling. Our students and Year 5/6 Leader (Mrs Newman) have began working with our Bayley to design a unique Caulfield Primary School sports uniform for our Year 5/6 students for 2026. Our students were excited to meet with Bayley on Friday and took their opportunity to have agency and voice in the design process. 

We have decided to take on this project as a means of incorporating further Aboriginal perspectives and influence into our school and as a fantastic opportunity to create an exciting sport uniform for our Year 5/6 students. 

When our students are participating against other schools, they frequently note how lucky other schools are to have a sports uniform and how great it looks, we wanted to provide equal footing for our students and give them a chance to celebrate Caulfield Primary School and also acknowledge and enhance our cultural understanding and developing appreciation of the traditional owners of the lands that our classrooms are built on. 

Victorian Education Excellence Awards

 It is a great pleasure to share with our school community that our school and school leadership team (school improvement team) consisting of Asami Onda, Krystal Ryan, Takako Morita, Miharu Morioka and myself are finalists for the 2025 Victorian Education Excellence Awards - Dr Lawrie Shears Outstanding Global Teaching and Learning Award.

This is a wonderful achievement and recognition of the work undertaken and the work of our leaders to continue to invest in high quality teaching and learning as a designated bilingual primary school. The school was shortlisted as a finalist after a nomination period, written application and interview process and we join Albert Park College and Yuille Park Community College as finalists in this category.

The 2025 VEEA finalists are published on the VEEA website. We look forward to attending the Awards Ceremony in October.

I extend my congratulations to our leadership team for the work that is undertaken throughout our school, much of which is not seen by our students or families but directly benefits our pedagogical approach and our instructional methods. It is great validation for the work the school has done over the last 12 months.

ThinkUKnow – Save the Date

We are fortunate enough to secure a ThinkUKnow Parent Information session to begin Term 4, this session will be held in the Common Room at 6pm on Monday 6th October and is a great follow up opportunity to the ThinkUKnow sessions we ran with student from year 1-6 in Term 3. It is an open invitation to attend this session. The program involves resources and advice for parents, carers and educators, children and young people to prevent online child sexual exploitation. This is led by the Australian Federal Police.

Our facilitator, Gary is an IT Executive with over forty years’ corporate experience. Following a thirty year career with IBM, Gary moved to Epworth Healthcare as Deputy Chief Information Officer for five years. He then moved to Microsoft Australia in a senior Delivery Executive Role, supporting the Department of Health and Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and Ambulance Victoria. Gary is also a Board Director of FVREE (https://fvree.org.au/), a not-for-profit organisation, providing a broad range of response support services for people experiencing family violence.    

For further background information his LinkedIn profile can be access via this link: (22) Gary Trytell | LinkedIn

Thank you for supporting a fantastic term around our school, I extend my sincere thanks to our staff for their work over term 3 in our classrooms and around the school. Term 4 commences on Monday 6th October and I look forward to seeing everyone back at school in a few weeks. 

Happy Holidays, Take Care, 

Edward Strain

Principal