Principal's Report

Improvement in Attendance

Attendance is the most fundamental factor in student learning ad connectedness. If students aren’t at school, they’re not learning, socially or academically. We therefore monitor our data very closely. When compared to last year, we have seen improvements in a range of areas which is a credit to families. The most pleasing is a decrease in students arriving late at school (down 2.5% on Term 1, 2024). 

The impact that arriving late has on a student is significant. Walking into class even 10 minutes late means a student misses either an entire social and emotional lesson/focus or the entire explicit instruction component of the lesson. Not only do they miss these components, but it then requires significant cognitive load for the student to work out what is going on, catch up, problem-solve, etc. An analogy often used is it is like walking into a movie 10 minutes late. 

So congratulations on reducing this overall percentage this term, and let’s see if we can further reduce it in future as we know in each of the 597 instances of late attendance this term, we know that your children’s learning has been negatively impacted.

Parents' Battle of the Bands Success

Congratulations to the Hamptones who competed recently in the Bayside Parents Battle of the Bands competition. Paul, Pete and Nick rehearsed for months and ‘wowed the crowd’ with their performance and despite not winning, did our school and themselves proud! The night was a lot of fun and we thank these dads for their commitment and for getting involved; we hope to see an encore later this year with a return leg in the process of being organised. 

Lost Property

As you are aware, all lost property is deposited into locked bins and then re-distributed weekly depending on the below factors. 

• Items that are clearly labelled are returned to their owner via the teacher’s pigeonhole
• Unlabelled items are either donated to the Salvation Army (non-uniform items) or the Second Hand Uniform Stall (uniform items) held termly. 

Over the past term, there has been a significant drop in the number of items in Lost Property (well done children!) and in the success rate of it being able to be returned (well done parents/carers) due to clear labelling. 

We would love to continue to see the number of items decrease, so please keep encouraging your children to take responsibility for jackets and lunch containers in particular. We would also love to be able to return all items that are lost to their owners, however, we often see labels that have washed off or are not clear (see examples). 

Please ensure you continually check that the label is still intact and easily read and that your child’s full name is on the garment; initials and a first name are not enough to ensure it goes back to the correct person. We always try but cannot guarantee it as some names we have as many as 10 of in the school, and the same goes for initials as well as the fact that we have no way of searching for them in our system. 

Keep up the great work!

Mother’s Day Stall

Congratulations to the Parents' Association for running such a successful Mother's Day Stall. Not only does it each year hopefully provide our wonderful Mums with some very well-deserved treats, but also for your children to select something independently. This year it also raised an incredible $4,300! As with the Dad’s Club Man Cave event, these funds will be put toward the purchase of a Precious Plastics Workstation which will enable us to recycle our milk lids and make re-usable items for students (pens, bag tags, etc.).

A huge thank you goes to all the parents who helped on the day, and Carlo and Nat who coordinated much of the background to enable it to be possible. 

New & Important Dates

• Grade 1 & 2 Swimming Begins: 11th June
• Grade 4 Night of the Notables: 19th June
• Semester 1 Reports on Compass: Wednesday 26th June @2:30pm 
• Term 2 Concludes: Friday 28th June @2:30pm
• Curriculum Day: Monday 15th July
• Term 3 Begins: Tuesday 16th July
• Prep 2025 Enrolments Close: Friday 26th July