Education Week 2026

18/5-22/5

Showcasing Surfside

Our school is celebrating Education Week 2026 from Monday 18 May to Friday 22 May.

This year’s theme is ‘Showcase your school’, encouraging school communities to celebrate what’s great about their school.

There are so many great things about Surfside Primary School, from our people to our school facilities, our learning programs and our supportive school community. It's all here at our school!

It has definitely been a busy start to the term with some major events, announcements, a continued focus on learning and enhanced engagement opportunities for students.

We were privilidged to welcome some special guests on Wednesday with the Regional Director - Chris Thompson and Area Director - Cat Salt who completed a tour of the school visting our preps who were completing a fact fluency session, year 3's who were completing a morhphology session with a focus on reading fluency and of course had an opportunity to visit our award winning kitchen and garden program.

Below are some recent snapshots which definitely showcase what has been happening at Surfside Primary School.

Gym Announcement - Funding for Surfside

WOW - what exciting news we received last Friday and we were so pleased to announce at our week 2 assembly that we will receive $11.6 million in State Government funding to build a brand new competition grade gymnasium and required upgrades to the school. We are very grateful for this allocation and a massive thank you goes out to those who have advocated for our school over the past 7 years. A special shout out to former school council president Eloise Cann and current school council president Sabrina Lunn who have advocated this need for our school throughout this time. We are thankful to the state government for their support and look forward to working with the Victorian School Building Authority throughout the planning process. We will keep our school community updated as we progress through the planning process.

Colour Run Total - Special Lunch Winners

We thoroughly enjoyed our recent Colour Run and we are so thankful to our school community as this is one of our major fundraisers for the year. We are pleased to announce that as a school community we raised a whopping:

$10,375.85

A big congratulations to J10 who will be the recipients of a special lunch who were the class that raised the highest ammount with $704.

We have some more photos from the afternoon so please check out our galleries below. A big thank you to Mr Chapman and Joanne Curtis Photography for the great shots!

Upcoming Dates

It has been a busy few weeks to start the term and there is plenty more on the horizon so please keep track of our Dates for your Diary page. Below is a snapshot of the next fortnight.

May

Mon 11th - 2027 Foundation School Tours 9.30am

Year 4 Mother's Day/Special Person Morning 8.30-9.15am

Tues 12th - 2027 Foundation School Tours 9.30am

GRIP Leadership (Year 6 Student Leadership Team)

Thu 14th - Breakfast Club @ 7.45am in the kitchen

SSV Winter Lightning Premiership

Fri 15th - Assembly @ 2.30pm - courtyard

Digital Tattoo - Cybersafety - Years 4 & 5

Education Support Staff Appreciation Day

18 - 22/5 - Education Week - Celebrate your School

Mon 18th - 2027 Foundation School Tours 9.30am

- Book Fair (all week) 3pm-3:45pm

Digital Tattoo - Cybersafety Parent Session 6.30pm

Tues 19th - 2027 Foundation School Tours 9.30am

School Council 5.30pm (Finance 5.00pm)

SSV Division Cross Country - Qualified students

Wed 20th - Emergency Management Drill

Thu 21st - Breakfast Club @ 7.45am in the kitchen

School Sport Victoria Winter Lightning Premiership

Fri 22nd - Trivia Night 7:30pm Start

Student Voice and Agency at Surfside

Our student voice and agency representatives worked heavily during term 1 to enhance our clubs and activities program at Surfside. They have sought feedback from every class in the school, they have compiled the data, they have analysed the data and developed a program that hopefully engages and supports a large majority of students at Surfside. The leadership team have utilised their work to develop a timetable that is teacher supported and spread out across the days and engages a variety of students and year levels. We have ventured out throughout the week to get a snapshot of what has been happening across the school and have included the timetable below. The timetable will be up in classrooms, around the school and we are advertising over announcements before recess and lunch:

Craft Club

Outdoor Connection Games in the Outdoor Classroom

Dance Club

TTRS & Numbots

Netball Club

Supervised Card Trading

Student Leadership

Movie Club

Dodgeball

State Schools Spectacular Rehearsal

Bluey & Trains

Snack Shack

Band & Academy

Soccer Challenge

Sports Coaching

Colouring Club

Lego & Dinosaurs

Courtyard Disco every fortnight – assembly weeks

Lego and Chess

Art Attack with Ms Mac

Sports Club

Breakfast Club

If your child(ren) are looking for something of interest or maybe a place to meet some new friends discuss with them the collection of activities that are on offer at Surfside.

Horseriding

The RDA Horse Riding Program is underway at Wallington Park Equestrian Centre, and this week our Surfside students were enjoying the opportunity to ride and lead the horses around the outdoor arena. The year long program gives students the opportunity to gain horse control skills, whilst working on their confidence, resilience, balance, coordination, staying calm and managing emotions. We look forward to seeing their progress throughout 2026.

ANZAC Day Service and March - Ocean Grove & Barwon Heads RSL

We were thankful to our school community who participated in the recent Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads RSL ANZAC Day service on Saturday 25th April. A big thank you to our school captains who represented our school during the service.

Happy Mother's Day

A big thank you to our Mum's and the Special People in our young people's lives for the work that you do to support your children and our school community. We wish all of the special people in our lives a great weekend.

State School Spectacular

Rehearsals for the 2026 State Schools Spectacular are well underway and the crew headed out last Friday for their group rehearsal. They have been given videos of their dance performance to take home and are participating in school based rehearsals once a week. They are enjoying the opportunity to bond together as a group and learning some amazing dance skills. A big thank you to the staff supporting the group and parents and carers. The performance day will be here before we know it but there is still plenty of work to do.

SSV District Cross Country Championships

Our students who qualified for the SSV District Cross Country headed to the new venue of the Geelong Racecourse for the 2026 event. A big well done to all the competitors and the speed and endurance of the competition definitely went up a few notches. Congratulations to the students who have qualified for the upcoming Division Championships which will be held at Geelong Racecourse on Tuesday 19th May. We also had the opportunity to present our placegetters from our school based Cross Country with their ribbons during the most recent assembly and announced our champion house for 2026. A big thank you to Mr Baker for his support and organisation.

PLACE	HOUSE COLOUR
1st Place	Blue House - 542 points
2nd Place	Red House - 468 Points
3rd Place	Green House - 398
4th Place	Yellow House - 364 points

Junior Sport Load and Management

With an increased amount of physical activity during term 2 with the re-commencement of community sport and a large range of school based events fopr years 3-6 this can place strain on our young students bodies. Below is some information that may assist in supporting and managing your young person in sport and supporting an active lifestyle

Recognising pain in kids due to sport overload and growing bodies.

We are very lucky to live in such a beautiful place and very lucky to have so many beautiful sporting communities around to keep us and our kids active.

While keeping up with our active lifestyles, we and our kids can sometimes experience pain and injury.

Recognising pain in kids can be hard and often we find ourselves dismissing because kids bounce back easily, right?

Yes, while in many cases that is 100% accurate, they do bounce and they usually recover fairly easily and quickly without the need for any intervention however, sometimes they don’t and need a little help.

If your child is experiencing pain that is

reoccurring, so the same pain in the same location on and off over 2-3 weeks or more
persistent pain, so pain that they regularly complain about that lasts longer than 4 days
Pain that is impacting their daily life, so you notice they are avoiding activity, they’re not keeping up with their peers, they’re having to stop because of the pain.
Pain that is impacting their sleep

You can try rest, gentle massage, stretching and icing the area daily if this does not help ease it over a few days, it might be best to seek help from one of the many amazing allied health practitioners in our area

The Ocean Grove Youth Program from the community centre is back up and running so please feel free to make a visit

Term 2 Half Day Stop Work Action - Update - Tuesday 26th May

As parents and carers know, staff at our school who are members of the Australian Education Union (AEU) have been involved in long-running negotiations with the state government and the Department of Education for improved conditions including adequate funding for government school education.

Despite an increased number of ongoing negotiations and the commencement of industrial action, AEU members will be taking further industrial action, including half-day stopworks on a rolling, region-by-region basis as well as other school based measures. This means each school will be affected once. We understand this can cause disruption for students and families. Staff are taking this action because they care deeply about public education and want to see our schools properly and adequately funded, and to receive fair conditions, all of which are critical to a prosperous future for Victoria’s public school students.

Union members at Surfside Primary School along with Geelong schools will stop work for half a day on Tuesday 26th May.

UPDATE: Currently the AEU has placed a pause on Stop Work Industrial Action from 4th May to 15th May. We will continue to update once we are informed about future dates.

We will communicate further advice closer to the date and will continue to keep families informed about any action that may affect our school community. We appreciate the support of our school community to ensure that we have adequately supported staff and government schools in the state of Victoria.

Enrolment Time at Surfside

Enrolments have now opened for new students and families who will be joining the Surfside family in 2027. If you have a sibling of a current student at Surfside they will also need to complete this enrolment process. We will be conducting tours on the following dates for prospective families and bookings can be made via the school website or the google link below. Check out our enrolment pages on the newsletter for more information:

Foundation 2027 Tour # 1 – Monday 11th May – 9.30am
Foundation 2027 Tour # 2 –Tuesday 12th May – 9.30am
Foundation 2027 Tour # 3 – Monday 18th May – 9.30am
Foundation 2027 Tour # 4 –Tuesday 19th May – 9.30am

Bookings are now open – PLEASE CLICK HERE TO BOOK A SCHOOL TOUR

Surfside PS - How to Enrol

School Council 2026 - May Meeting

Our next meeting will take place on Tuesday 19th May

Finance Meeting - 5.00pm
School Council Meeting - 5.30pm

Parents Battle of the Bands 2026

Attention musical parents,

We are currently gathering expressions of interest from parents who would like to form a Parent Band and compete in the Parent Battle of the Bands in our region.

If this is something you would be interested in, please complete the Google Form linked below and we will be in touch.

Parent Battel Of The Bands Google Form

Student Attendance

Regular attendance at school is very important for your child's learning and social development. Very good attendance for a child is 95% and above.

It is important that children are at school as much as possible to ensure the BEST opportunity for learning growth. We need to utilise every available minute to ensure student growth academically, socially and emotionally, in and out of the classroom.

If early collection for a shopping trip or to beat the traffic happens on a regular basis this can take away from valuable learning time throughout their schooling life. Please take the time to read the graphic below and to understand the long term affect this can have on student development. We understand that students are impacted by illness, injury or other ailments. If your child is going to be absent you are required by legislation to notify the school by:

Logging onto Compass and
Enter the absence for full days only
If your child/children arrive late or are being collected early, the office staff will enter this onto Compass for you.

Teaching & Learning Page

Ms Charleston & Mr Chapman (Learning Specialists)

Literacy Support