Assistant Principal's Report

Dear families,

It has been another busy few weeks at EPS, with our students continuing to embrace new opportunities, support one another and bring great enthusiasm to their learning.

Child Safety and Inclusion

Last week provided some great examples of our ongoing commitment to the Child Safe Standards.

Our Year 1 Poetry Recital was a wonderful opportunity for families to celebrate student learning. As this was a participation event, attending adults were required to hold a valid Working With Children Check (WWCC). Thank you to our families for supporting this important requirement. 

This aligns with Child Safe Standard 6: Suitable staff and volunteers and Standard 4: Family engagement.

I also had the privilege of hosting a Koorie Yarn alongside our Koorie Engagement Support Officer (KESO), John Murray. It was a valuable opportunity to listen to our families, strengthen relationships and continue ensuring EPS is a culturally safe and welcoming environment. 

This directly supports Child Safe Standard 1: Culturally safe environments.

Child safety is more than policies and procedures. It is reflected in the everyday actions we take to ensure our students are safe, included, heard and valued.

Policies

The following policy updates were recently presented to the Education and Policy Sub-Committee and, where required, approved by School Council:

• Dogs at School (Including Wellbeing Dogs): Updated to remove information relating to wellbeing and engagement animals.
• Camps and Excursions: Minor updates, including removal of the reference to ‘Big Question’.
• Fundraising: Addition of an optional communication section.
• Electronic Funds Management: Minor updates.
• Photography, Filming and Recording Students: Updated to include CCTV.

Homework and Device Policy Reviews

This term, we are continuing two important whole-school reviews that will help shape learning at EPS moving forward.

Homework Policy Review

Our staff recently came together to review our current Homework Policy through three key lenses:

• What did our community tell us? Reviewing feedback from our parent/carer survey.
• What does Department policy require? Ensuring our approach aligns with current Department of Education expectations.
• What does the evidence tell us? Considering current research about effective, purposeful and age-appropriate homework.

This information will now help inform the next stage of the review and the development of our updated approach to homework at EPS.

Student Device Review

This term, staff are also commencing a whole-school consultation and problem-solving process to determine what digital learning and student device use at EPS will look like from 2027 onwards, in response to changes to the Victorian Government’s approach to student device programs.

The review will consider the Victorian Curriculum requirements, current research and evidence, practical classroom considerations, and the financial implications for the school.

We look forward to keeping our community informed as both reviews progress.

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