Principal Report

I hope many families were able to take the opportunity of having a mid-term break over the Melbourne Cup weekend and enjoy some quality family time. Many of the children were very tired after participating in a busy early term of class work, excursions, assessments, and the P-2 children also participated in a strenuous 10-day swimming program. A good rest was well earned.

Art Show

The school’s biennial Art Show is currently being conducted in the school’s Gym. This year’s ‘Magic Fantastic’ Art Show features a piece of work from every student and highlights the excellent standard of work being achieved by our students in their weekly Visual Arts lesson.

The Art Show is open to parents between 8-9am and again after school between 3.30-4.30pm all this (short) week.

The show closes tomorrow afternoon so if you haven’t been able to get to the exhibition as yet, I highly recommend that you attend tomorrow.

Transition - Pre-school to Foundation / Primary to Secondary

Today we welcomed our 2024 Foundation (Prep) children to Newport Lakes Primary School for the first of their three sessions of pre-school to foundation transition program. In 2024 we have 99 new children beginning in our foundation classes.

Later in the term, the Year 6 students will have the opportunity of visiting their new state secondary school on Tuesday 12th December 2023. This is a state-wide Yr.6-7 transition day for all state secondary schools. Some Independent and Catholic secondary colleges may have chosen an alternate date and parents will need to check with the school for details.

2024 Student Charges

In line with the Parent Payment Policy, a detailed letter in regard to Student Charges went home last week via Compass to every Prep – Yr. 5 child. The letter is also available on the school’s website. We have included all the known 2024 school year costs in the list of expenses.

School Council have again included the option of a 2-instalment payment (4th December 2023 and 18th March 2024) for student payments of Voluntary Curriculum Contributions, Other Contributions and Extra-Curricular Items and Activities.

Alternatively, they can be paid in a single payment by Monday, 4th December this year. We appreciate that the first instalment is paid by the 4th of December to ensure that we order enough curriculum supplies for the beginning of the 2024 school year.

If any parents or family have trouble in payment of the 2024 student charges the School Council will provide opportunities for them to enter alternative payment arrangements with the Business Manager / Principal.

School Organisation for 2024

Although there still may be changes between now and when we begin the new school year, based on the numbers that we currently expect, we are planning to have 24 classes in 2024 with straight classes from Foundation to Yr.4 and composite grades in Yr. 5/6. Our current enrolment is 561 and we are expecting to increase to approximately 570-575 in 2024 but it is the uncertainty of enrolments that make it difficult to confirm the final school organisation for next year.

The proposed school organisation is as follows.

Principal / Assistant Principal

24 classrooms

Specialist programs;

Physical Education & Sport
LOTE (Auslan)
Library
Visual Art
Performing Arts ~ Music and Drama
Tutor Learning Initiative / Intervention Program

The decision of school organisation including the choice of straight and composite classes is based on the number of students we have at each year level, available staff and leadership, parental feedback and the funding available to the school from the education department.

Victorian state schools are primarily self-managed and staffing decisions, including how many teachers a school employs, what areas they teach and the programs a school conducts (specialist areas, intervention programs, extra curricula etc.) are decisions made by the principal in consultation with staff. Each school receives yearly funding, and it is the principal’s role to ensure the school operates within this budget. The funding is based on a formula involving the actual number of students enrolled on census day (February 28, 2024) and then additional funds for special needs for which the school may be eligible.

These include low socio-economic, EAL (English as an Additional Language), remote location, etc. Much of this information is gained when parents complete their enrolment form when their child first begins school. Questions such as the parent’s present occupation, highest level of education, language spoken at home, etc. all go towards determining a children’s level of need. At Newport Lakes Primary School we are classified as ‘high’ in the level of socio-economic and ‘mid-low’ in the area of EAL thus qualifying the school for very little additional funding.

When determining class sizes in a primary school, the funding formula allows for, as a general rule, 1 classroom teacher for every 25 students. After this has been established, we then look at differing models involving straight classes, composites, or a mixture of both.

We look at the numbers in each grade level, the social groupings of the children, any additional needs, parental expectations, and departmental requirements. It is also a department expectation that the F-2-year levels will have less numbers, on average, than the upper grades.

At NLPS we will have 6 specialist teacher programs (PE, Visual Art, Performing Arts –Music/Drama, Library and Auslan LOTE-language Other Than English) all with their trained and qualified teacher and a tutor learning initiative / intervention teacher.

We will also continue to employ Education Support staff in numeracy intervention programs and continue to provide additional assistance programs wherever possible in 2024. Although there will never be sufficient funds to provide the level of assistance to every child that many parents and we would like, we will continue to do the very best with the limited resources we receive.

The school will also continue to employ Carolyn, our first aid assistant, in 2024. The education department does not provide any designated funding for a first aid assistant in a primary school, so the position is self-funded by the school. Many of your children have been to see Carolyn during the year and their visits have been expertly followed up with the parents. We believe the appointment of the ‘First Aid assistant’ has been very successful and an excellent addition to the services we offer the families of our school.

Remembrance Day 11th November

Remembrance Day is one of the most important days on Australia’s commemorative calendar. It's a day when we acknowledge those who died while serving in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.

Remembrance Day is held on 11 November each year. As this date is a Saturday in 2023, at Newport Lakes we will conduct our own school commentative service on the Friday morning and all classes will attend. The school captains have also made daily visits to classrooms with Remembrance Day red poppies for $2 & $5, wrist bands $3, and bag tags ($4) for sale to the children. All proceeds from the sale of the items will go directly to our local Newport RSL.

Have a great fortnight.

David Moss

Principal