Principal's Message

Principal's Message

Well, we have reached the end of the line. The year 2023 is nearly done and dusted. We conducted our last assembly on Friday where Santa made a visit. He sure is a funny, old fellow, that Santa!

It was a great assembly with hundreds of parents in attendance. We had the chance to farewell our wonderful Grade 6 students who have done themselves proud throughout their time at South Melbourne Primary School. I had the pleasure of attending their graduation ceremony on Thursday night last week. The staff are extremely proud of the students and wish them all the best in their secondary school endeavours. We know they will do well.

We also conducted our annual Staff versus Students basketball game. The students won for the very first time ever and they were jumping for joy. Earlier in the week we had the chance to thank our parent volunteers via our special morning tea. We are incredibly indebted to these helpers who have been so generous in their support this year. It certainly was a busy week.

Please remember the arrangement for this coming week. Most parents have indicated they will be taking an early holiday and their child will not be attending on Monday. The school is operational on Monday but with a modified program due to the low numbers. Students will not be in their normal classes but instead will be involved in cross-age activities. The start and end time of the day will be normal for students to attend.

There are no classes on Tuesday. Please do not send your child. Tuesday is a Professional Learning Day for all staff. The OSHClub will be operating and you will need to book online to be involved in this service. It will run all day but no normal classes will occur.

I want to finish by thanking the wonderful parents of SMPS. Your support of me, as principal, and the entire staff is truly amazing. We could not be more grateful to have such a wonderful community.

Lastly, thanks to the most wonderful students in the UNIVERSE. We really love these kids and will miss them during the break. Well done and good luck to any families moving from the school. Thanks for your support too.  Have a safe and happy journey through life.

If you celebrate Christmas - have a merry one. To everyone else, stay safe and have a happy holiday. See you back at school on Tuesday, January 31 at 9am.

Specialist Subjects

This time last year, we announced that we would be trialling Visual Arts as a specialist subject and teach Science within the generalist classroom. Throughout the year we have been overwhelmed by positive feedback from students and families about this arrangement. It has allowed students to spend double the time previously spent on Science and to see close connections between Science and the topics being studied within other subjects in class. It has also allowed our students to explore Visual Arts with an incredibly passionate art teacher in a well-resourced space built for the joyful mess often needed in the creative process. The Art Show highlighted the many successes of the 2022 Visual Arts program. It likely comes as little surprise that we will continue with Visual Arts as a specialist subject in 2023 and science covered in the generalist classroom.

We value the teaching of a Language Other Than English (LOTE) and are proud of our Mandarin program. As I write this message, we have had a number of unsuccessful attempts to recruit a suitable Mandarin teacher and the search goes on through the summer months. We are doing our best, but the teaching job market is quite 'brutal' at the moment with lots of vacancies across the state not being filled. We are not prepared to just get someone who speaks Mandarin - we need someone who can teach it effectively. 

Whilst we are committed to our language program, we may have to come up with a short-term plan to replace Mandarin whilst we search for a suitable candidate. I will update you in the first newsletter after the holidays, but I wanted you all to know the dire staffing situation in languages across the state ahead of time. Rest assured we are committed to providing an outstanding teacher in front of every class across the school. Near enough is never good enough at SMPS.

New and Exiting Staff in 2023

The following pages are filled with welcomes and farewells - as is always the case towards the end of any year. There is also information around which teachers are in which classes in 2023. Last week, we operated a very successful "meet your new teacher" session and lots of smiles came back as the children finished these sessions. We are very excited about our new staff team as we seek to get even better in 2023 and beyond.

It is a time of dramatic change in people's lives due to COVID and 'life stuff", as well as promotion opportunities that present themselves each year in the government school system. I wish all departing staff the very best and thank them for their passion and dedication during their time at SMPS. We hope they always feel part of our family and consider our doors open. 

Whilst it is always sad to say goodbye, it is also wonderful to recognise and be grateful for the connection made to students and our community along the way. Take the time to read the stories of these wonderful people. They will all be missed. How lovely to have met them along the way. At our final assembly on Friday, we farewelled these wonderful people in person. 

Please check out all pages for welcomes and farewell messages.