PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE

Only 6 More Sleeps

Family Fun Night is fast approaching with only six more sleeps until the big day. Thank you to the many families who have returned their raffle tickets and are in the process of purchasing coupons. Our parent volunteer workshops to prepare items for the fun night have unfortunately had low attendance, which obviously makes it harder to share the workload. If you are a parent who can assist on the night, please contact Laura in the office urgently, as we can use all the help we can get. I am looking forward to seeing lots of excited students and parents on Thursday night. 

Welcome to School Council

Next Tuesday night is the first meeting for our 2026 School Council. After our recent elections, we have several changes for this year. We thank Kristina Petrovska for her services to the school during her time on our council.  We welcome new member Vera Milosevski and look forward to adding her skills and knowledge to this important group, who help me as Principal run the school. Thank you to all parents who ran for election. It is great to see so many people prepared to serve their school community. 

Extension Program

Our Year 1 numeracy extension group had their first session with me yesterday. We had eight students in attendance, and I was amazed at their ability to work at a Year 3 or 4 level in various mathematical activities. I’m looking forward to the next nine weeks of the program and seeing just how far these students can go. 

Breakfast Club

This morning we completed our fourth breakfast club event. We had a smorgasbord of options which included three different cereals, toast with honey or vegemite and a range of different fruit. We had close to 100 students enjoying the options today, which is evidence of the importance of this type of initiative. Please remember each Friday this special service will be available to your children. A special thanks to the volunteer staff and to those parents who followed our directions and attended with their child in the case of food allergies.

NAPLAN

Students in years 3 and 5 have been participating in NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) testing over the past two weeks. Students have sat assessments in writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. The questions assessed content aligned to the English and Mathematics curriculum. All tests have been completed online, except for the year 3 writing test. Fortunately for us, we were not impacted by the technical difficulties experienced by some schools on day 1 of testing. Our students have shown personal achievement and resilience throughout the testing. Results will be available to parents in early term 3. 

Year 6 Camp

Our Year 6 City Camp last week was a success with 93 students and 12 adults enjoying three days and two nights in the centre of Melbourne. Highlights included a tour of the MCG and a trip to the Shrine of Remembrance. This camp was the first of five that we are running across the year. The participation of volunteer parents on camps is essential to us being able to continue to offer these valuable experiences. If you have a child in Years 2, 3, 4 or 5 and are contemplating volunteering for their camps, please see your child’s teacher for more information. 

Strike Action

The Australian Education Union has called on its members to take strike action on Tuesday 24th March 2026. Based on the current information I have, close to 40 of our staff will be participating in the strike action. I have been informed that the majority of our 31 classes will not be running next Tuesday. 

I will provide further communication with families on Monday 23rd March, when I receive the names of staff taking action, to confirm exact arrangements for the day. 

Please note that TheirCare can only offer before and after school care sessions on this day. Our school canteen will be closed due to very low student numbers on the day. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to work through this process.

Have a great weekend,

David Whewell | Principal