Principal's News

Welcome Back

It gives me great pleasure to welcome everyone back to the beginning of Term 2. I hope our entire school community enjoyed a wonderful break together, whether there was time for day trips, travel – locally or abroad or time at home, I hope the break provided you with an opportunity to recharge and refresh. I hope families and our community that celebrate Easter and Eid were able to enjoy time with family to mark this occasion. We have a very exciting term ahead and we were busy over the school holiday break preparing for Term 2. We have shared some local news and highlights to focus on over coming weeks, we look forward to sharing in the term ahead with our community. 

Term 2 Events

Term 2 is really busy which is great, I would ask that you navigate our school calendar for the upcoming events hosted throughout the school. I am really excited about a number of things happening including our whole school Swimming Program, our CPS Cross Country carnival, the Year 5/6 Camp. Gala Days, incursions and excursions. We will always attempt to keep you informed throughout the term but if there is ever any hesitation please always ask. In anticipation, thank you for supporting us over the term ahead.   

Congratulations and Farewell

As our first week draws to a close we extend our best wishes to Jenny Parkes and Surabhi Singh. Jenny will commence a period of family leave with an addition to her family to be welcomed in the weeks ahead. We look forward to sharing this exciting news with our school community and wish Jenny, Simon and Sadie all the very best as they welcome their new addition to the family. 

I also extend my sincere thanks to Surabhi Singh who has worked with us in an Education Support role at the school since 2022, Surabhi is off to pursue further passions and we wish her every success moving forward. Surabhi has worked alongside our Year 3/4 and 5/6 teams and was a wonderful contributor to our school during this time. Thank you Surabhi! 

Welcome

As we shared last term, we are very excited to welcome Emma Campbell to the STEM teaching role at our school, Emma has had a chance to work alongside Ms Parkes over the last few weeks and is well placed to continue to build our STEM program moving forward. I also extend a warm welcome to Asako White, Asako has joined our Education Support team, she has previously undertaken a period of work in the Year 1/2 area and as a volunteer in the school. We welcome both Emma and Asako to our school. 

Term 2 Message

The Minister for Education and Deputy Premier, Ben Carroll has welcomed all students and families back for Term 2 and shared the following video message with families – linked here. 

Congratulations

We have an incredibly talented and driven workforce at our school, delivering some amazing outcomes for our students reflective of all roles and responsibilities. I am very pleased to share that Tina Pyrcz was recently recognised by Monash University as a recipient of the Bank First Aspiring Teacher Award. This award recognises the top two graduating students of the Bachelor of Education (Honours) in 2023. Alongside this, Miss Pyrcz also received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence recognising the top graduating student in her course specialisation. Congratulations Miss Pyrcz! 

Swimming 

Our intensive swimming program begins on Monday 29th April at GESAC. I understand that many of our students already undertake private swimming classes which is fantastic. Any opportunity to be in the water and develop water safety and confidence should never be dismissed. Throughout each year, there are preventable drownings in Victoria as a result of a lack of awareness and ability to be safe in the water, it is an obligation of all Victorian schools to deliver swimming and water safety as a part of the Victorian Curriculum. For primary aged students, the more time spent in the water the greater confidence can be built as they grow older. Please ensure you have signed up to our swimming program. Thank you Miss Molloy for putting together such a great program and for working really hard to keep costs as low as possible for all families. 

ANZAC Day

The school will be closed next Thursday (25th April) in recognition of ANZAC Day. A short ANZAC assembly service will be held on Wednesday morning (24th April) at 9am for students in recognition of this important day. Unfortunately I will be an apology at this assembly due to an existing meeting. The service will be coordinated by Morioka sensei with support from students and teachers. 

There are many ways that parents can get their children involved in the Anzac Day experience and enable them to gain an understanding of the important place Anzac holds in Australia’s history. Firstly, historical knowledge is important and there are many high quality, child friendly accounts of the Anzac story, and the Anzac characteristics that resonate with Australians. Many of these books are available at local libraries; they are also available through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs free of charge.  These books make it clear that Anzac Day is not an event glorifying war, but exactly the opposite. It is a time of reflection and remembrance. Endurance, resourcefulness, courage, teamwork, loyalty and mateship are key attributes. These are virtues to be encouraged and emulated at any time and are a part of our national story we can focus on around Anzac Day.

There is also of course the experience of taking your children to a Dawn Service March or other commemorative activities on Anzac Day. All this will be more meaningful and educational if some of the previous reading and discussion has occurred. In any event, the questions that come from watching a march, studying a war memorial or experiencing the emotional stillness of the minutes silence and bugle call are opportunities to talk about the impact of war on Australia and the significance of the Anzac Story.

PYJAMA Day

There is anything better than wearing your PJ’s to school? That is certainly what our Junior School Council members would argue. They are beginning their 2024 fundraising campaign by inviting us to their Pyjama Day next Tuesday, 23rd April with all fundraising going directly to the school. This will be a gold coin donation in exchange for the opportunity to wear our most comfortable and warm PJs for the day. Our Junior School Council would like to commit their 2024 fundraising work towards purchasing and installing another water bubbler in the school to replace our aging taps and drinking troughs. 

Building Work

The Term 1 holiday break was really successful from a maintenance and project completion with some major work occurring over the break. We worked alongside KLM Build and PerfectTurf to complete projects in the school including the replacement of our timber window frames in the main building corridor, retaining the heritage overlay of the building and also replacing our tired synthetic turf with a brand-new pitch. The final touches on our soccer pitch were completed on Tuesday with students free to use this from Tuesday afternoon. 

All work completed was school funded but importantly, the synthetic turf work was the direct result of the amazing work of our school community, including the Parents and Friends Club and our 2023 School Fete Committee. The fundraising efforts throughout 2023 directly resulted in this fantastic outcome for the school. I extend my sincere thanks to our whole school community for supporting this project, we have some very happy students that are enjoying their upgraded play space and pitch. 

Professional Learning – Term 2

Once again, a great credit to our staff who are always looking to build capacity and ensure they are delivering exemplary programs for our students. We have two English teachers partaking in the Academy of Teaching and Leadership professional development course, ‘Leading Literacy’. This course will begin this term running over the remainder of the course on set dates. I look forward to joining and working alongside Mrs Newsman and Miss Ryan as we look to explore our literacy program at our school and take an agile approach to improvements to support our students. 

Leadership Acknowledgement

We finished the end of term 1 with a visit from our local member for Caulfield, David Southwick. David was in attendance to present our Year 5/6 student leaders with a leadership certificate recognising their achievements and extending his best wishes to our student leaders for the remainder of the year ahead. It was a great way for our students to finish off a really accomplished first term. 

School Review

I will be working alongside Malvern Central Primary School to support their upcoming school review. This will see me based at their school on the 29th and 30th April. I was requested to attend this by our Senior Education Improvement Leader to work as a ‘challenge partner’ for their review. All schools must participate in a school review every 4 years. The school review informs the development of the school’s 4-year School Strategic Plan. School reviews are conducted alongside Department of Education staff and an external reviewer. From my perspective, it is a great opportunity to see how another school in our local area are supporting their students as they set their direction and their new strategic plan. 

Open Days

We are enjoying high levels of interest in our school at the moment which is a great credit to our teaching and education support staff. We had six new students begin with us at the start of this week and we are seeing large numbers of families booking and attending school tours. This term, running alongside our school tours, we deliver two Saturday Open Days. With a PFC Sausage Sizzle and Cake Stall and the school open throughout the morning, this is a great opportunity to visit our school if you interested in enrolling or learning more about our bilingual immersion program. Come down and hello. 

With the first week in the books, we have really enjoyed getting back into flow and resuming Term 2, we look forward to sharing and working alongside you throughout this term. Have a great weekend ahead and we will see everyone on Monday. 

My Thanks, 

Edward Strain

Principal