Principal's Report 

 We, at Miners Rest Primary School, would like to acknowledge the Wadawurrung people of the Kulin Nation.

We pay our respects and thank the Wadawurrung people. May we share your land. We promise to look after it, as well as the animals and people too.

Student Led Conferences

We are very much looking forward to hosting families at our Student Led Conferences in the final week of this term.

Teachers and students have commenced planning and preparation for this important event, which promotes student voice and learner agency and enhances our home-school partnership. The students are looking forward to sharing their achievements and highlights from across the year so far. 

Please remember, as families, you play a very important part in this three-way partnership during the conference and always. If however, you have questions about your child's learning/behaviour, or other matters to discuss with the teacher, you are very welcome to contact your child's classroom teacher to make a mutually agreeable time to have further discussion.

This year, we are aiming to use our schoolwide Sentral communication platform to make bookings for the Student Led Conferences - further information about the booking process will be communicated to families shortly.

We look forward to seeing you and your child on Wednesday September 17.

This day will be a 'student free' day, with OSHC available to support working families.

School Hats

The first day of September is next Monday and, as of this date, staff and students at Miners Rest Primary School are required to wear a broad-brimmed hat to engage in outdoor learning and play while at school.

As stated in our Sun Safety Policy...'From September 1 to April 30, all students must wear a sun protective hat that shades the face, neck and ears for all outdoor activities. Hats may also be worn for all outdoor activities outside of the September to April time period, by parent or student choice'.

Regardless of the weather from day-to-day, as a school we must comply with the Department of Education guidelines and therefore hats will be expected as part of school uniform from next Monday. Reminders to students will be issued on Monday and Tuesday of next week, with our 'No Hat, No Play' process being enforced from Wednesday September 3. We thank our families in advance for their support in implementing our Sun Safety Policy.

Open Gymnastics Program

Come along and enjoy observing our Miners Rest Gymnastics Program in action next week! This Foundation-Year 6 Program has been a highlight for all students (and staff) and we cannot express enough how grateful we are for the generosity of our families and our Junior School Council in supporting the vision for our F-6 onsite Gymnastics Program. A Sporting Schools Grant, as well as fundraising across the school lead by our JSC and direct financial support from the JSC has allowed the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment. The program is being delivered to the quality standard expected by Ballarat Gym Sports, and our school has been referenced to a number of Melbourne Primary Schools in relation to the quality of the experience being delivered. A visit from the Department of Education also saw the Senior Education Improvement Leader for the Central Highlands City Network spend some time enjoying our facilities and equipment.

Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Survey

Thank you so very much to our families who have taken the time to provide feedback to our school through the Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Survey. To date, we have had a 7% response rate - meaning 18 of our 244 families have participated in the survey so far.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies that will directly impact student learning and wellbeing.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Thursday 21 August to Friday 19 September 2025. All families are invited to participate in the survey, with one survey to be completed per household. Details as to how to login were provided to all families via email last week.

For further information, please contact our friendly administration team.

Maths for one and all!

This Friday, we are excited to be hosting James Russo and Jane Hubbard (from Monash University) to deliver a full day of professional learning with many of our staff, focussing on how to develop and deliver challenging maths tasks. 

Several schools across the Central Highlands Network have also expressed interest in engaging in this professional learning and therefore will be joining us at our school for the day.

The session will cover how to develop tasks that challenge student learning, as well as staff being able to observe both James and Jane in action as they deliver the task.

James has a wealth of classroom experience, he has connections with leading experts in the area of Maths, including Peter Sullivan and expertise in developing rich, challenging tasks. He and his brother developed the SURF maths website.

Rolling on from Friday, we are looking forward to welcoming over 100 people to our Family Maths Night on Monday evening (September 1). Pat Withell, our Maths Learning Specialist, has done a power of work in preparation for an evening promising to be filled with engagement, challenge and lots of fun for everyone. See you there!

With best wishes for an enjoyable rest of the week,

Kylie Nissen.