From the Principal ...

Dear students, families and staff of Cheltenham Primary School,

A warm welcome to all our students and families for the new school year. Particularly our new Foundation students who had their first full day at school last week, and their families and all other new students and families joining Cheltenham Primary School this year.  We hope that this will be the start of a very positive journey in learning for all. 

The children have returned to school and settled into their new classes brilliantly. I have enjoyed learning about their holiday highlights and seeing their happy, smiling faces. 

Our smooth commencement owes much to the efforts of our amazing staff who took time during the holidays to set up their classrooms, learning spaces and work areas to organise everything that our students required for their return. 

Despite some staffing and recruitment challenges faced across the state, I am proud that we have commenced the year with a full complement of wonderful classroom teachers, specialist teachers and leadership staff. 

New staff

We welcome Judith Harrington to Cheltenham Primary School, as Assistant Principal. Judy brings many years of experience as an Assistant Principal, from the North Western Region of Melbourne.  Judy's main responsibilities at Cheltenham are focused on student well-being and engagement in learning.  Judy has received a comprehensive hand over from Vicki John over the last two weeks and has started building her relationship with students, staff and families and her understanding of our school culture. 

Joining Judy as a senior member of the school's leadership team is Michael McKinnon, formerly of Bentleigh West Primary School.  Michael has been appointed as our Numeracy Learning Specialist.

Michael is a very experienced Learning Specialist in Numeracy and we are looking forward to his contribution (with Jordan Orr STEAM Learning Specialist) to the introduction of a problem based Mathematics approach in Years 3-6 and the consolidation of our Early Numeracy approaches in F-2. 

We congratulate Prafulla Shetty, who joined CPS as an Education Support Officer two years ago and has now been approved by the Victorian Institute of Teaching for full registration to teach!  Prafulla has moved into the role of teacher/Librarian at CPS, working closely with Holly Smith, our Library Resource Centre Manager. 

Also joining us this year:

Nicola Lane (Visual Arts/Performing Arts teacher) 

Madeleine Daniell (Year 1 teacher)

Trevor Snelling (Year 3/4  Leader)

Caroline Wainrib (Year 3/4 B teacher with Jessica Kennedy)

Bernard Hickey (Year 5/6 Leader)

Tal Slome (Year 5/6 teacher)

Adam Williams (Year 5/6 teacher)

Holly Hayne (Education Support Officer)

Parent Payment Arrangements 2024 

Thank-you to all families who have contributed or committed to contributing to our school via Parent Payment Arrangements on Compass (formally known as school fees). If you have not given this your attention yet, please refer to Compass - 2024 Curriculum Contributions to make a contribution online. 

This School Council letter outlines how the contributions you make support your child and all students at CPS.

If you have any queries or require a more flexible payment plan, please email the school office at  cheltenham.ps@education.vic.gov.au

NAPLAN 

The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) are a nation-wide, standardised series of tests for children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 which cover writing, spelling, grammar, reading and numeracy skills. NAPLAN is now held in March of each year.  The testing schedule this year commences Wednesday 13 March and concludes the following week, Friday 22 March. 

A NAPLAN update for families with children in Years 3 and 5 is in today's newsletter.  Our Learning Tutors and Intervention staff are currently working strategically with students and classroom teachers in Years 3 and 5, to ensure that the children are comfortable with the technology they will be using, the testing format and the time requirements, to give their Personal Best. 

Building and Ground Works

Prior to the school holidays and during the holidays painting works proceeded with many areas internally and externally receiving a painting 'refresh' as a result of the facilities audit report completed in Term 1, 2023. 

After school ended in 2023, all flammable material such as wood, leaves and grass, likely to be ignited and capable of burning, was cleared to create a 'firebreak' around the Sanctuary to mitigate the risk of a fire spreading to residents and a few minor dead trees removed for safety. Regular police patrols of the Sanctuary area were also actioned.   

The tender for our Inclusive Play Space is complete, with works scheduled to commence later this term. 

Meet and Greet Meetings 

Meet and Greet meetings commence today, Tuesday  20 February and continue, Tuesday 27 February from 3.40pm to 5.50pm. These short 'in person'10 minute meetings are an opportunity for parents that have not yet met their child's teacher to put a face to a name and vice versa.  It is also a time during which you can communicate confidentially about your child's well-being or learning needs.  If meeting in person is difficult at this time, please communicate with your child's teacher so they can make a personal arrangement with you. 

Teachers are unable to report on your child's progress (yet) as they are just in the early stages of relationship building and developing their understanding of each child's academic and social and emotional needs. If you have already met with your child’s teacher, there is no expectation that you need make an appointment. 

Curriculum Overviews for Term 1

To support families to understand what is happening with learning and events in each Year Level PLC (professional learning community), we will continue to provide termly Curriculum overviews and learning reflections. These summaries give a snapshot of what is happening in learning - Literacy, Mathematics, STEAM and specialist disciplines- in addition to relevant year level information.  They are also provide an opportunity for families to understand how the challenge changes - how it deepens and extends - as children progress from Foundation to Year 6.  Today's newsletter has all the class overviews and our next one, will have the specialist overviews. If you would like to develop a sense of how learning progresses,  please do review all of these in today's newsletter.

School Photographs

School photographs are scheduled for 21 March.  The flyers outlining the various photograph options and the online ordering system are in the Community Notices section of today's newsletter.  Once again we have selected the Classic class photograph option,  which is a group photograph of each student's class which we returned to in 2022.

PTFA

The Parent Teachers & Friends Association (PTFA) have scheduled a Second Hand Uniform Sale for Monday 26 February at 3.00pm and another series of engaging events for this term. Please review on the PTFA page of this edition of the newsletter. 

DET Schools' privacy policy

In accordance with privacy legislation our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to remind yourself of our School’s Collection Notice, found on our website For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages.

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese

We look forward to working in partnership with all our parents and carers this year to ensure high levels of engagement and learning for all our students!

Kind Regards,

Bronwyn