Principal's News

Hasn’t winter hit with us hard?! We have certainly encountered some challenging weather over the last couple of weeks and we thank you for supporting your child by ensuring they are wearing the appropriate clothing to cater for the conditions.

We do try to ensure all students have the opportunity to partake in physical exercise and go out at recess and lunch to burn off some energy, but in the event that it is raining we do call a wet day timetable and have students supervised in our classrooms. We have had a couple of wet day timetables over the last few weeks and I anticipate we will be holding a few more while this winter blast stays around.

Importantly, we are also managing a very challenging period of COVID combined with cold and flu. Please make the best decision for your child and whilst we actively encourage student attendance, we would like to ensure all children are healthy and happy at school. I would ask that if you child is suffering from cold, flu or COVID symptoms that you are keeping your child at home and using RA tests to identify whether this might be COVID related.

Thank you kindly to families that are informing the school of your child’s absence in relation to COVID, we greatly appreciate you supporting the health advice and following the 7 day isolation period. We are also in the position where we are still managing staff absence as well, this can once again be COVID and/or cold and flu related. All staff working at our school are triple vaccinated and staff were provided the opportunity to receive their flu vaccinations as well.

We are taking all preventative measures to ensure we are able to navigate the months ahead but sometimes unfortunately there is still no escape from cold, flu and COVID which might see a teacher absent for a period of time.

Swimming

Thank you for supporting our swimming program over the last two weeks. We have asked all students to be organised and flexible during this time. They have modelled this throughout our swimming program and have demonstrated wonderful behaviour in the pool by supporting one another. Importantly, thank you kindly to our parent volunteers that have assisted us on a day to day basis, your attendance and support of our students and staff is greatly appreciated.

We recognise that our swimming program was delivered during Term 2 and was met with some really cold weather. This is a booking that was setup last year and was caused by the cancellation of swimming programs throughout the state during 2020-21 and therefore we were essentially given no other options.

We are currently working extremely hard to find an alternative block of time to deliver our 2023 swimming program and importantly, the feedback from our students has been really positive. They have enjoyed the program and it is a valuable opportunity to get back to some of the exciting programs that were absent in all schools over the last two years.

Reports and Parent Teacher Interviews

Teaching staff have worked incredibly hard over recent weeks to formalise assessment and begin documenting this for our Semester One reporting period. All reports will be distributed via email over the coming weeks. To support this process and allow feedback and further information to be shared with families, the school will deliver Parent-Teacher interviews on Wednesday 27th July.

This is a scheduled student-free (curriculum) day for the school and will allow the opportunity for families to make a time that is convenient for them to discuss their child’s progress. Further information will be shared about this early in Term 3. We would like to offer this in a hybrid model with the opportunity to make an online booking or alternatively a face-to-face booking providing the opportunity for families to make the most appropriate booking for them. Further structure and information will be shared early in Term 3.

Student agency and transparency is really important in our reporting process so we do look forward to the exciting opportunity to further support your child with a valuable discussion early in Term 3. Further to that, I have asked all teachers to provide three students per class to receive a Principal Award each semester. These awards are not purely academic achievement based but can be reflective of significant growth or work that underpins our School Values. They are an acknowledgement of the work your child has undertaken in first semester and a celebration of this. I look forward to writing these and celebrating the achievements of students in every class.

2023 Enrolments

We are beginning to have an eye towards the 2023 school year and families are making important decisions on where to send their child for the year ahead. Could I please encourage your family if you have a sibling or have a child currently enrolled at The Glen (Formerly GEKA) and would like to confirm your enrolment at Caulfield Primary School that you do this with our office team over the weeks ahead.

Alternatively, if you are seeking further information about our school, I would be more than happy to assist you. We are running fortnightly school tours and have an Open Day for prospective families on Saturday 18th June. Further to that, if you have any questions please pick up the phone or send me an email and I would be very happy to discuss anything with you further.

End of Term

A reminder that the final day of Term (June 24) finishes at 2:30pm, an assembly will be held (weather permitting) to celebrate the term, parents and families are very welcome. Further information about the Assembly will be released via SchoolStream in the week ahead.

Welcome to Glen Education

Formerly known as the Glen Eira Kindergarten Association (GEKA), GEKA have been working with their community to develop a new name and brand to better reflect who they are and who they will continue to become into the future. They are excited to share their new name: Glen Education!

Glen Education, formally known as the Glen Eira Kindergarten Association (or GEKA), is a funded, not-for-profit Early Years Management (EYM) organisation based in Melbourne.

Glen Education began operations in 2012, after a group of four parents, all on their kindergarten’s Committee of Management, came together in 2011, in pursuit of a better way to manage and sustain quality early years services. Originating in the City of Glen Eira, the Glen Eira Kindergarten Association was formed.

Since then, the scope has evolved beyond Glen Eira, to manage an expanded number of kindergartens, in Monash, Kingston and Bayside, and to deliver the provision of holiday care, parent education, inclusion and education support and the delivery of professional development.

The new name honours the legacy of the historical roots in Glen Eira. The word ‘education’ aptly reflects all that they do. Educating children, families, people and the wider community, using their knowledge, wisdom, and expertise.

State Principal Conference

Monday and Tuesday of last week provided all Principals throughout Victoria the opportunity to work together face to face for the first time since 2019. The theme for the conference was Stronger Together: Every Student, Every School. There were a number of keynote and breakout sessions, including the opportunity to engage with the work of the Minister of Education, James Merlino and the Deputy Secretary, Dr. David Howes.

One of the highlights for me was the presentation from Dr. Ryan Dunn (Academic at Melbourne Graduate School of Education). Dr. Dunn spoke about the need to create adaptive and responsive experts, whilst as teachers recognising the complexity and nuances of the work that we do. Putting forward the view that there is a need to isolate the simplicity and refine a single focus allowing us to work towards improvement. Leaning on the work of Professor David Hopkins (2009) who indicated “Unless you can define practice and make it common, you can’t improve the quality of teaching”. The provocation for our school was, what are some practices we might need to define clearly to support our improvement work? The idea of working towards defining practice, collaboratively constructing an expertise pathway and then moving towards the formative evaluation to enable real time monitoring and adjustment.

The clarification here was that an expertise pathway can be considered an improvement journey, so in essence at Caulfield Primary School, what is our improvement journey? What are our big-ticket items that we are working towards? Developing an expertise pathway allows us to become clear about the incremental steps to improved practice.

Another significant highlight of the conference for me was the keynote address by Graeme Innes, Graeme is legally blind, a lawyer and company director and was the commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission for nine years. He contributed significantly to the creation of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) that sit alongside the equal opportunity act (2010) and the disability standards for education (DSE).

A thought provoking two days and an opportunity to lean on a body of work that will support our work at Caulfield Primary School moving forward.

Graeme put forward a compelling case for schools to work towards further inclusive practice and for society to embrace the individual needs and talents of adults and children with a disability. Elements of Graeme’s keynote address are covered in his Pathways 15 closing address located here.

Staff News

I would like to acknowledge and congratulate Ms Campbell on her appointment to the role of Acting Assistant Principal at Ripponlea Primary School. This role will begin at the commencement of Term 3 and over the next few weeks Ms Campbell will be working towards completing a handover document to support these changes. This is an acknowledgment of the very talented staff that we have at the school. We are currently in the process of working with a recruitment process to support the Year 5/6C classroom and will keep you informed of this moving forward.

In further news, I am excited to share the appointment of Mrs Lowy to our school beginning in Term 3, Mrs Lowy is a very experienced teacher and will be working to help us implement our Tutoring program in Term 3, we look forward to welcoming Mrs Lowy to the school and for her to share her significant teaching experience with our students and staff.

Professional Learning: Reading and Literacy

Over the last month I have delivered an online learning course for the Department of Education and Training focussed on Significant Reading Difficulties and Dyslexia, this has provided the opportunity for teachers throughout the Southeast Victorian Region to collaborate and build upon their knowledge and experiences when working with literacy and reading development.

The following resources are shared as a part of resources put forward by the course and provide some terrific links to support your child in their literacy development at home.

An End of Term Coffee

Once again, we are drawing towards the end of the school term, another very busy, productive and successful term and another term of onsite learning which has relied upon the support of our families to continue to exercise the COVID safe practices that have ensured we have maintained our learning programs with a level of consistency.

Could I please invite all families to join us on the final morning of term for a morning coffee and an opportunity to connect with one another. We will host our Coffee Van from 8am on Friday 24th June and encourage parents and families to attend as a means of celebrating the end of the school term together. It is a warm acknowledgement of the support that you have provided our staff and school throughout Term 2.

A very wet and cold couple of weeks, thank you for supporting us, I look forward to striking up a conversation with you in and around the school before the end of term, stay warm!

Many Thanks,

Edward Strain

Principal