Principal's Report

Farewell to Staff

We have a number of staff members that will be ending their association with SGPS at the end of the year. Miss Claire Feldtmann will be leaving to take up a teaching position much closer to home. Claire has been a wonderful teacher at our school for the last two years and we will miss her expert knowledge and skills. 

Mrs Julie Baldwin will finish her position as our German language teacher at the end of the year. Julie took over this role in the middle of this year, when Frau Woodward retired.

Miss Ash Lockett will be leaving at the end of the year but only for 12 months. Ash has been granted leave to teach in Canada. Mrs Lauren Starr (Intervention) has also been granted leave for 12 months. We wish them well and look forward to their return at the start of the 2024 school year. 

Miss Taylah Collins and Miss Aimee Powell (Education Support) will be leaving at the end of the year, having worked with us for the last 18 months and 12 months respectively. We wish them well and thank them for their important contributions to our school.

We also farewell Andrea, our Social Worker. She has been an important part of our school by supporting many students and their families throughout the year.

I would like to thank all of these staff members for their undoubted dedication to our students, staff and school community. I wish them all the best for their future endeavours

Student Leaders for 2023

Our Grade 5 children recently had the opportunity to submit applications to be our school captains, school vice captains and house captains in 2023. In addition to a written application, our aspiring school captains had to participate in an interview with Mr Parkes, our current school captains (Frankie and Cai) and myself, while our aspiring house captains had to deliver a speech in front of their peers.

This process resulted in the following appointments: 

School Captains 

Emma McCann

Neel Girish

School Vice-Captains 

Remy Kearns (SRC Leader) 

Hunter Antonowicz (SRC Leader 

House Captains 

Alex Rodda (Ashby)

Joshua Richardson (Tingay) 

Harvey Long (Savage) 

Isabella Herdman-Yamine (Pollock) 

Vegas Blake (Harley) 

Alana Borchard (Godber) 

We hope that all parents will be able to attend an assembly early next year to see their children receive their leadership badges. 

Below is a photo of our 2023 Student Leaders with the outgoing 2022 Student Leaders just after the announcement.

Auslan in 2023

After much consultation with our staff and School Council, a decision was reached earlier this term to offer Auslan as our Language in 2023. We have a number of hearing-impaired children attending SGPS and would like to further our level of inclusiveness across our school and community. 

Once this position is filled, I will provide some further details. German will not be offered next year.

Grade 6 Graduation

Our Grade 6 Graduation will be held on Thursday, 15th December from 7.30pm in The Hub. We would ask everyone to be seated by 7.20pm. This night celebrates the achievements of all of our Grade 6 students. Prior to the formal part of the evening, the children will have a dinner at school with their friends and teachers from 6.00pm - 7.00pm before for the formal part of the evening commences at 7.30pm. 

Step-Up Day

While our Grade 6 students are involved in their transition day on Tuesday, all remaining children will participate in our Step-Up Day. This will give every child the opportunity to ‘have a go’ at the next year level, in preparation for 2023. While some transitions in a primary school are relatively straightforward, some can be significant, and for some children the move can be daunting. By giving every child the opportunity to ‘see’ what it is like in the next class we aim to build confidence in every child so that they are ready to go at the beginning of next year, having some idea of what to expect. 

On the Step-Up day we will be able to introduce our confirmed teaching teams for 2023 to the children. Confirmed class placements, including each child’s new teacher (from Grades Prep-6), will be sent home to all families on this day. The task of constructing the grades is always a very complex one that has taken the teachers significant time to complete. Every child is in a grade with one of the friends that they wrote on their list. We take in to consideration a considerable amount of information and try our utmost to get the best balance for everyone. All parent requests were given due consideration as part of this process. Many of these requests were fully met or partially meet. In some cases, we were not able to cater for parent requests. Given these thorough processes, I haven’t moved any children from their allocated class during my 18 years as Principal and that will continue to be the case.

Interview Day - 2023

Although we are still very busy finishing off 2022, we have been completing many tasks that relate to 2023. One of these tasks is organising an opportunity for all of our families to meet with their child’s teacher on the first day of Term 1, 2023. Information that explains this process will be posted via Compass during the holidays (see Mr Parkes’ section below). 

Our 2022 Prep students will have a slightly different schedule for their interviews. Details relating to these interviews will be circulated during the holidays also.

 A summary of our start to 2022 is below:

 • Friday, 27th January – Compulsory Curriculum Day (PUPIL FREE DAY)

 • Monday, 30th January – Parent Interviews for Grade 1-6 (11am-7pm) AND Prep Assessments (8am-4pm) 

• Tuesday, 31st February – Prep Assessments (8am-4pm)

 • Wednesday, 1st February – Prep Assessments (8am-4pm) 

• Thursday, 2nd February – First full day at school for Prep

Curriculum Days in 2023

Below is some advanced warning of our Curriculum Days in 2023:

Term 1

Friday, January 27th – Compulsory Curriculum Day (First Day for Teachers)

Term 2

Monday, 24th April – Numeracy Professional Learning Day

Wednesday 24th May – Reporting & Assessment Day (Professional Practice Day)

Term 3

Monday 17th July – Literacy Professional Learning Day

Term 4

Wednesday 15th November – Reporting &Assessment Day

Lunch and Recess Times in 2023

To allow for a slight increase in Specialist Class duration next year, from 45 minutes to 60 minutes, we will be making a slight adjustment to our recess and lunch times. Currently we have a 30-minute recess break and a 60-minute lunch break. Next year both break times will be 45 minutes. No other changes have been made. We will still start school at 8.45am and finish at 3.15pm.

A summary is below:

Final day of 2022 - early dismissal and final assembly

 The final school day for Spring Gully PS students will be Tuesday 20th December. Parents should note the earlier finishing time of 1.15pm. Students will be dismissed from The Hub at 1.15pm. We will hold a short assembly at 1.00pm.

School Bus

The school bus will be leaving our school at approximately 1.45pm on Tuesday, 20th December. The school bus will operate in line with BSE for Term 1 next year. 

Final Newsletter Still to Come!

We will have one brief extra newsletter in the final week for the year. Please keep an eye out for this.