Welcome to our final newsletter for the 2022 academic year. I hope you have found our newsletter engaging and informative, helping you to learn a little more about our school each fortnight. I would like to give a huge thanks to Brook Earle for her work in putting the newsletter together each week and leading our change to the ‘iNewsletter’ format. Thank you to our staff as well for their contributions.

I would like to share my thanks and best wishes to staff who will be heading-off on new adventures next year, including Selene Frai, Olivia Rogers and Ben Stuart (overseas); Jessie Burns and Doug Wicking (school transfers) and Michelle Sneddon and Kate Thompson (12-month school transfers). We also farewell Jacque Whittaker, Riley McDowell and Stav Mpakertzi from our Education Support Team. The contributions of these staff members has been significant to our school. We look forward to our 12-month transfer staff members re-joining us for 2024, whilst we hope to see our travellers and other transferring staff in and around our community again soon.

We have had multiple significant events since I last wrote, including:

2023 School Council Dinner
2023 Orientation Day
Grade 6 Graduation
2022 Semester 2 Reports
Christmas Concert.

An incredible amount of organisation goes into ensuring all these key events can run smoothly and there are so many people to thank who contributed to this. To our staff, students and families, please know that the time and effort you spend and volunteer to support our school is greatly appreciated. A couple of key themes from those events include:

Thank you to our parent and staff volunteers on the PMPS School Council for 2022. I am proud of the cohesive, supportive and constructive environment we have built and know our focus is always on how we can continue to improve this school for all students.
Congratulations to all of our Grade 6 students on their Graduation. I was proud of how formally you presented and the fun you had on the night. I would like to congratulate Saurav Mittal for being selected as our 2022 Dux of the School, and Elizabeth Mandravelos for winning the ‘Proud to be at Port’ Award, in honour of our late Office Manager, Helen Larkin. A full list of our award winners is published later in this edition of the newsletter.

Next Tuesday, our final day of school for the year, we will hold a special assembly for all students, with the focus on celebrating our Grade 6 Graduating Class of 2022. This will begin at 9:05am and will run for around half an hour. We look forward to seeing our families there.

School Sports Victoria Awards

Congratulations to our PE teacher and Specialist Team Leader Stephen Brewer, who has been selected as the winner of the 2022 School Sport Victoria (SSV) Award for the SSV District Sports Coordinator of the Year (Primary). This award recognises Steve’s outstanding leadership in overseeing twelve schools in the district, ensuring all students have an opportunity to both participate and excel in a vast range of sporting events across each year.

I would like to indulge in one final thank you for the year, to a very special person in our school community who, as of next Tuesday at 1:30pm, will not have any of her children left at our school. For the past ten years, Bre McGrath, mother to Oscar, Archie and Willow, has led our PFA, sat on our School Council, run our School Fete and spent countless hours of her own time contributing to the school for the benefit of all students. In all my time in schools, I am not sure that I have seen anyone put as much into a school as Bre has to Port Melbourne. Bre, on behalf of our school community, thank you so much for everything you have contributed. You truly are one of a kind.

As we draw to the conclusion of 2022, we look ahead to 2023. A couple of key early dates and milestones include:

Students in Years 1 to 6 returning to school on Tuesday 31st January.
Prep students starting school on Thursday 2nd February.
2023 parent information night (online) at 5:00pm on Monday 13th February.
Parent-teacher interviews from 1:30pm until 6:45pm on Tuesday 14th February.
NAPLAN testing period beginning Wednesday 15th March (until 27th March) for Year 3 and 5 students.
School photos on Wednesday 29th March.
Grade 4 Production on the evenings of Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th April.
Final day of Term 1 on Thursday 6th April (1:30pm finish).

For many events that have traditionally taken place outside of school hours, we may need to adjust how we have implemented them, due to the recently-signed Victorian Government Schools Agreement (2022). A key element of this agreement is the provision of ‘time-in-lieu’ for staff, applicable for events that staff are required to attend outside of their normal 38-hour week. The provision of this will require us to make some modifications to events such as school camps, parent-teacher interviews and information evenings. We will keep our community informed of any changes to our traditional practices via our newsletter.

An important change that you will observe at the beginning of the 2023 school year is the movement of the ‘Kiss ‘n Go’ area from where it is currently situated to the first 8 parking spaces on Clark Street from the corner of Poolman Street. The purpose of this is so that drivers can have a clear line of sight in regards to those spaces, with a knock-on effect of reducing the opportunity for dangerous double-parking that unfortunately we often do see. This initiative has been jointly led by the City of Port Phillip Council and the PMPS Traffic Safety Working Group.

Finally, for the last time this year, thank you for your ongoing support and keep doing your best. Have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year period and I look forward to seeing everyone again in 2023.

Rohan.

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