Intra-School Transition Sessions

Students got to experience the chance to 'step up' to the next year level last week as part of our Intra-School Transition program.

Our Intra-School Transition program aims to:

Develop familiarisation with new learning spaces: Students have the opportunity to experience different classroom environments and become comfortable with various spaces in the school.
Build social connections: These sessions allow students to interact with others they may not typically work with; allowing opportunties for new friendships to form.
Reduce apprehension and anxiety: Students can approach the new school year with greater confidence and reduced uncertainty.
Inform placement decisions: Sessions help us make thoughtful, informed decisions about class compositions for the following year.

It is important to note that Intra-School Transition sessions are not a definitive indication of your child's teacher, room or which students your child wil be grouped with.

Students will complete a second session on Tuesday 9 December with final classes being confirmed and announced in the final week of term on Thursday 18 December.

Respectful, Safe, Engaged: shared expectations to support student behaviour

You may have seen in the media recently the announcement from the Deputy Premier, Ben Carroll MP, regarding the launch of updated expectations to support student behaviour.

We know and achieve the best outcomes when schools, families and students work together. These partnerships are essential to creating school environments that support all students to belong, learn and thrive.

At Lalor East, all students are expected to be respectful, safe, and engaged. These behaviours help make our school a place where everyone can achieve their best.

As a parent and carer, you play a vital role in helping your child to understand and meet shared behaviour expectations. By modelling and encouraging positive behaviour, you help your child build the skills and habits they need to be successful at school. At our school, we teach these behaviours through our School Wide Positive Behaviours (SWPBS), our Respectful Relationship lessons and other wellbeing programs. We also reinforce these behaviours through our Focus on the Good acknowledgements.

You can see the Respectful, safe, engaged: shared expectations to support student behaviour statement on the Department’s website. This outlines the shared expectations and how you can help.

Our school will update our 'Statement of Values' and other local policies to reflect these changes over time as part of our policy review process. We are also undertaking work to review and update our Behaviour Matrix as part of our School Wide Positive Behaviour framework.

Further information, resources and support are available at Supporting positive behaviour in Victorian government schools.

Social Media Bans

From 10 December 2025, the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 will require social media platforms to:

prevent children and young people under 16 from having a social media account
deactivate or freeze existing accounts held by people under 16.

Delaying access to social media protects the health and wellbeing of young people and gives them extra time to build real world connections and digital literacy skills.

The responsibility will be on the social media platforms, not parents, carers, children or schools, to implement these new restrictions.

Most popular social media platforms will be age restricted. These include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Reddit and YouTube.

Messaging services and online games, as well as apps and platforms that support health and education, can still be used.

How to help under 16s prepare for the change

Parents and carers play an important role in supporting their children to be safe online.

To help get under 16s ready for the social media minimum age requirements, you can go to the eSafety website to learn more about the social media age restrictions and find tips on how to talk about social media age restrictions with young people.

What the change means for our school

At our school, all age-restricted social media platforms are blocked for student use on the school network.

To keep up to date about the new social media age restrictions, visit the eSafety website.

Promotional Video for The Smith Family

Last Friday (28 November), several of our students were invited to participate in the filming of a promotional video for The Smith Family in partnership with Officeworks.

The video aims to promote The Smith Family, their Learning for Life scholarships and a number of other programs they operate. The video will be used for event promotions and to seek donations from other companies and individuals.

The film crew and the team from The Smith Family were very impressed with our students. Our students were equally impressed and appreciative of the package of stationary goodies they received for their involvement.

We will share photos and videos from this event through the next newsletter and our social media pages once they become available.

Thank you to the team from The Smth Family for choosing our school to be part of this opportunity.

Christmas Raffle

With only a few weeks left to go in Term 4, our end-of-year Christmas Raffle was launched at assembly yesterday. In the past, this has been an exciting and well received activity to finish off an amazing school year.

Each class will have the opportunity to win a hamper of prizes, plus all tickets will go into the draw for several whole school hamper prize packs.

If you are able to do so, we would love donations of items and prizes we can add to our hampers. These can be sent to school with your child or dropped off at the office.

Tickets will be sent home with students soon.

Tickets cost $2.00 each for $20.00 for an entire sheet with money raised from ticket sales going towards school based projects.

Tickets will be drawn at our final school assembly on MONDAY 15 DECEMBER. Make sure you're in it to win it!

New Year of Learning Website

A new school year is an exciting time for students and families, but it can be a big step – particularly for those starting Prep, secondary school or VCE.

The Department of Education has launched a new webpage with resources and information to help you prepare for the new school year.

During the school holidays, please consider reading through the resources, which include:

tips to help transition from kinder to Prep, primary to secondary school, and Year 10 to VCE
what to expect at school
help with school costs and fees
health and wellbeing guidance to support children’s mental health.

Please refer to the New year of learning webpage at

https://www.vic.gov.au/new-year-learning

Student Absences

Regular school attendance is one of the most significant factors in student success. Every day at school provides valuable learning opportunities. Regular absences from school can have a substantial impact on your child's educational progress and their friendships with peers. Research suggests that students who miss more than 10% of school days (approximately 20 days per year) are at significant risk of falling behind academically.

This year, our school has over 40 students (nearly 20% of our school) who have had more that 30+ days absence from school. Whilst some of these are unavoidable due to extended illness or other circumstances, there are many absences that could be avoided. Shopping trips, family outings, staying up too late, sleeping in, bad weather or siblings with appointments or who are unwell should not be reasons for not attending school.

Our school has set a target in 2026 to reduce the number of students who have 30 or more days absence over the school year.

You can help support our goal by ensuring your child attends school every day, on time and ready for learning. For routine medical appointments, we encourage families to schedule these outside of school hours whenever possible. If this isn't possible, please aim to schedule appointments at the beginning or end of the school day to reduce disruption to learning.

By working together and by attending school regularly we can give all students the best possible opportunity to succeed. If you have questions about attendance or need support in ensuring your child attends regularly, please speak with your child's teacher.

Start of Year Travel Plans

Following on, we understand that families occasionally need to travel at the start of the school year once we have returned to learning.

If your family is planning to travel at the start of the 2026 school year, we ask that you please inform the school as soon as possible.

This is important because our school funding for the entire year is calculated based on student attendance data collected at the beginning of the year. When students are absent during this Census period, it directly reduces the government funding we receive by thousands of dollars and impacts the support and programs we can provide all of our students.

2026 Parent Payments - Friendly Reminder

The LEPS School Council have approved the Parent Payment letter for 2026. A copy of the letter has been sent home with all of our students (including our new families in 2026). These letters are also available on our school website. The Parent Payments cover the cost of everything that the students need for school in 2026, excluding camps, excursions/incursions and uniform.

To date, we have had approximately 20% of our families pay these important contributions.

Unfortunately if families do not pay these contributions, other areas of the school may have resources and programs impacted as a result.

Please reach out to the office on 9465 4350 if you have any questions, we are more than happy to take payments over the phone via EFTPOS if you can't attend the office.

Last Day of 2025 School Year

A reminder to families that the final day for our 2025 school year will be on FRIDAY 19 DECEMBER. Students will finish at 1:00pm on this day. Please make arrangements for your child to be collected at this time as younger students can often become distressed when they are not collected.

Their Care will be operating a service during the afternoon for families that require assistance with the supervision of their children. Any students who have not been collected from school by 1.15pm on this day will be sent to TheirCare to be supervised, and a fee will be incurred to the family for this service. See details later in the newsletter on how to book in for this service.

SCOTT DUNCAN

Assistant Principal

Year 5/6 Endangered Animal Showcase