Principal's Report

Principal’s Message

Welcome to Term 3!

Reminder: 2024 Enrolments - Open now

If you have a child who will be commencing Foundation at Roberts McCubbin PS in 2024, or know of a friend/relative/associate who is considering joining our wonderful community, enrolments for the 2024 school year are currently open.

Early enrolments greatly assist us in important planning decisions, particularly in preparing our staffing requirements. Fortnightly tours have been held throughout this year and are continuing throughout term 3.

Conversely, if your family are planning a move elsewhere for 2024, early notification also greatly assists our forward planning.

Temporary Heating!

A great relief this week as temporary heaters were installed in all classrooms in the building along Devon Street. We have been working with the Department and VSBA for some years in trying to reach a resolution for our heating and cooling problems in that building and are very pleased to at least have a temporary solution. We are assured that a long term solution is being planned for and will hopefully come to fruition in the coming months.

Kinder Visit

As detailed in the "What's Happening" part of the newsletter, yesterday we welcomed the happy smiles of groups of kinder students from Box Hill South Kinder and the Canterbury Rd Goodstart Early Learning Centre. The students enjoyed some performances from our talented and enthusiastic choir, before watching our STEM group's robotic interpretation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Thanks very much to our Transition Coordinator Kate Pickburn for organising the visit, along with Erin Cheung, Melinda Browne, Engineer in Residence Michael, as well of course the choir and STEM groups.

Deck Project Update

Mrs Pickburn and FP were ecstatic last week when part of the temporary fencing was removed, enabling access to part of the new decking, the ramp and the stairs. No more needing to do a lap of the building to get to the playground or specialist classes!

With concrete going in this week, the project is moving ever closer to completion, with the builders confident that their projected completion timeline of mid-August is still on track.

Our ongoing thanks to staff, students and parents/carers for your patience and flexibility while we've had reduced accessibility to our classrooms.

Staffing Updates

With the term in full swing and nearly all of our parent/carer-teacher meetings complete (thanks for your patience FC!), I would like to formally welcome some new staff to our community for the remainder of 2023.

As previously mentioned, our 3W and 5K classes have welcomed Ms Mollie Trounson and Mrs Micah Gonzales-Rivera respectively, filling the big shoes of Tess Walker and Nick Kong who are on leave for the remainder of 2023. With Stephen Roche officially filling the substantive Assistant Principal role, were are also thrilled and grateful that familiar RMPS teacher Lena Zappia also agree to continue working in 6R for the remainder of the year.

In our Education Support staff, we have welcomed Marcelle Abrahams and Finn Corbett-Davies to our classroom support team. Marcelle and Finn will be working with a range of students throughout the school. Finn is actually a former student of Robbie Mac, so welcome back Finn!

Department of Education Parent/Carer Survey

Our school is again conducting the Department of Education survey to find out what parents / caregivers / guardians think of our school. The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional but we encourage all randomly selected families to participate. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. 

Following DE guidelines, a random sample of approximately 30 per cent of parents / caregivers / guardians will be selected to participate in this year’s survey. Selected families will be notified and provided with a link to access the survey.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open from Monday 7 August to Friday 8 September 2023.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Thank you in advance to all selected families who take the time to complete the survey this year!

Financial Assistance

We are well aware that many in our community are currently experiencing significant financial hardship at present. In keeping with our strong commitment to inclusion at Roberts McCubbin Primary School, if your family is finding payment for a school event to be prohibitive, please contact myself or Business Manager Melissa for a confidential discussion of options.

Peter Watson

Principal