As I write this, our Year 1/2s are just finishing up their dinner having enjoyed a Disco and Activities evening whilst the Year 2’s prepare to sleepover at school.

Meanwhile, our prospective student leaders are preparing for their upcoming election day and our own World Cup soccer day was a great success more akin to the Japan victory over Germany overnight in comparison to anything the Socceroos put forward against France earlier this week.

Our Grade 6’s are preparing for Graduation and a moving up session and preparations for our Amazing Art Show and End of Year Concert are building up as we count down until the end of the year. Indeed, it is a very busy time at our school.

A look at the forecast for Friday points to 21 degrees with 0% chance of rain, which provides a great opportunity to join us for our final Working Bee of the year from 3:30 – 5:30pm.

I acknowledge the wonderful work of our PFC team that setup our participation in the National Garage Sale Trail, our sausage sizzle and cake stall helped to fundraise over $800 for the school. Thank you to all families that baked and supported this event.

It is hard to believe we are a month away from Christmas, the end of the year and the coming weeks will be busy both at school and in the personal lives of our school community, we look forward to sharing moments with you to celebrate a wonderful year together.

2023 Structure

The school has looked to finalise staffing arrangements for 2023. As we are aware, we are in the midst of a nationwide teacher shortage which has prompted the Federal Government to release a Draft National Teacher Workforce Plan that aims to address teacher shortage and retention throughout our system.

It is a significant consideration for all schools in Victoria, many schools have advertised (and re-advertised) positions throughout the year, I was recently informed of a school that has 23 positions that are required to be filled for 2023.

This also creates opportunities for teachers and for our current staff to pursue external opportunities. In 2023, Mr O’Boyle, Miss Gianarelli, Fukushima Sensei and Mrs Magila will be taking up roles in new schools with two of these staff taking up teaching offers from private schools.

We have undertaken recruitment over the last few weeks and look forward to welcoming Annika McCann, Carolina Guzman-Ramirez, Prabha Jones and Mayu Sakamoto to our 2023 staff.

Could I please extend my thanks to Mr O’Boyle, Miss Gianarelli, Fukushima Sensei and Mrs Magila for their dedication and commitment to the school throughout 2022 and in Mr O’Boyle’s case throughout a long relationship with our school.

I wish them every success moving forward and we look forward to welcoming our new teaching staff to our school in 2023. Over the coming weeks, they will attend our school to plan with their 2023 teaching teams and will attend our school on our Meet The Teacher day.

Our 2023 Class Structure will look as follows:

Kylie Newman	Prep A
Mayu Sakamoto	Prep B
Rika Klein & Sally Curlewis	Prep C
Rosemary Watts	1/2A
Noriko Kurata	1/2B
Carolina Guzman-Ramirez	1/2C
Ayaka Mori	1/2D
Prabah Jones	3/4A
Asami Onda	3/4B
Marianne Aiyelokun	3/4C
Hiroki Kurokawa	3/4D
Krystal Ryan	5/6A
Takako Morita	5/6B
Aya Hughes and Annika McCann	5/6C
Miho Suzuki - Bevan	Visual Art
Miho Okano	Performing Arts
Niamh Molloy	Physical Education
Jaime Lowy	Learning Tutor
Jennifer Parkes	Literacy Support/Library
Caroline Robertshaw	Wellbeing Coordinator
Azka Inayah	Education Support
Surabhi Singh	Education Support
Mary Sarailis	Education Support
Miki Takebayashi	Education Support
Tomomi Coster	Education Support
Therese Meiers	Business Manager
Jessica Walmsley	Office Manager

Congratulations

Noting the staffing structure for 2023, you would see a glaring omission from our school. Could I take an opportunity to acknowledge and thank Merryn for her commitment to our school.

Merryn first began at Caulfield Primary School in 2012 alongside Morioka Sensei and Caroline, the three of whom all started in the same year. She is a wealth of knowledge and support for our school community and our staff. She has enjoyed a very strong relationship with Peter Grey and Therese Meiers and has provided great input towards the direction of the school over the last decade.

Thank you, Merryn, for your contributions to our school and the support you have provided our families, students and staff. Throughout this year, I have greatly appreciated Merryn’s invaluable support as a source of knowledge, experience and detail. Congratulations on all that you have achieved and on behalf of School community I extend my best wishes to you over the exciting times ahead.

Lapathon

We are gearing up for our final significant fundraiser for the year, our 2022 School Lapathon. We are asking for your support to assist us to deliver a very fun and rewarding day for our students. Sarah B (Mother of Baxter - Prep) is still looking for volunteer support on the day and our goal of raising $10,000 can be achieved together if we look for each child to fundraise just over $30 each.

We look forward to seeing many families and parents assisting on the day, our students will have the opportunity to complete their fundraising run at the following times:

9:30am – Preps (45mins)
10:15am – Year 1/2 (45mins)
11:35am – Year 3/4 (1 hour)
12:30pm – Year 5/6 (1 hour)

Time in Lieu

We are looking forward to hosting a number of exciting events as we count down towards the end of the year. Our Art Show and School Concert are exciting community events that our teaching staff have put in a lot of preparation and work to support these events.

Delivering these events at different times than were previously held is as a result of the new time in lieu obligations that all schools are working under because of the new Victorian Government Schools Agreement (VSGA).

All schools are encouraged to rethink how they deliver programs offered outside of the 38-hour week teaching model. This has seen schools change times for graduations, concerts, Christmas picnics, information evenings. The Time in Lieu expectations recognises the significant workload that all teachers undertake in addition to their teaching workload. It is not out of the ordinary for a teacher at Caulfield Primary School to be working in excess of 50 hours per week and many of those hours sit outside of their salary and entitlements.

The school supports our teaching staff and the adoption of the VGSA, however schools are not funded to provide time in lieu hours therefore they must find ways to manage these commitments. The only manner in which this can be done is to offer events at earlier times in the afternoon and evening which finds a middle ground between supporting teacher workload and ensuring exciting community events are not compromised. The earlier timing of some events moving forward will be the new norm as schools work to negotiate the time in lieu requirements.

School Council

Our final School Council meeting for 2022 was held on Tuesday evening. I would like to express my sincere thanks to our School Council members for their commitment to our school. The time and effort dedicated to this role often goes unrecognised and whilst rewarding, it is a time commitment that seeks input on sub-committees and school council meetings throughout the year.

At Caulfield Primary School, we are fortunate to have a strong and committed collection of parents and staff led superbly by our School Council President, Mr James Macky. I have greatly appreciated the opportunity to work alongside our School Council and the support they have provided me in my first year at our school.

Each of our councillors have performed a very important role to support our school purpose and in doing so has made an extremely valuable contribution to the educational outcomes of each of our students. Our School Council has performed a very important role to support our school purpose and vision and in doing so has continued to support our teaching and learning programs, our policy and compliance and the promotion of our school community.

Thank you to our 2022 School Councillors:

Parent members:

James Macky (President), Candice Clynk (Vice President) Chris Sargent (Treasurer), Vicki Doust (Secretary), Emma Mattock, Kyoko Isono.

Staff representatives: Krystal Ryan, Merryn Samuelson, Edward Strain

The National Garage Sale Trail

Thank you to our wonderful PFC Volunteers that led a very successful National Garage Sale Trail event for our school on Saturday, combined with a sausage sizzle and cake stall, the school has managed to raise over $800 in fundraising. Thank you to all families that donated time baking, cooking and assisting on the day.

What a wonderful effort from everyone.

2023 Curriculum Days

Our School Council approved the following Student Free dates for 2023

Friday 27th January – Student Free Day 1:
Monday 3rd April - Professional Practice Day (Student Free Day)
Wednesday 21st June – Student-Free Day 2
Monday 6th November – Student Free Day 3
Monday 11th December – Student Free Day 4

These days are mandated by the Department of Education and Training and provide teaching staff and educators with the opportunity to undertake collaboration, planning, assessment, reporting and compliance training aligned to their roles and responsibilities. Throughout next year, I will provide a summary of how our school have utilised these days to support professional learning and collaboration.

2022 End of Year

School Council were provided input and approved the final day times, including the shortened day to end the school year. Students will be dismissed on the final day of term, Tuesday 20th December at 1:30pm. All students must be collected by 1:45pm at the latest (school supervision will not extend beyond that time). Camp Australia will operate an afterschool care program that will begin from 1:30pm onwards finishing at 6pm.

2026 Term Dates

To assist with the coordination of the 2026 Commonwealth Games, the Victorian Government has revised the school dates for the 2026 school year. This information is shared, noting that many families plan holidays around the school term and is given with notice so these dates can be taken into consideration.

The 2026 Victorian school term dates are:

Term 1: Tuesday 27 January to Friday 13 March 2026
Term 2: Monday 30 March to Friday 19 June 2026
Term 3: Monday 6 July to Friday 18 September 2026
Term 4: Monday 5 October to Friday 18 December 2026.

PFC Thanks

Could I extend my sincere thanks to Jenni W and Kylie F in their work as co-presidents of our PFC throughout 2022. Jenni and Kylie are wonderful supporters of our school and have coordinated some wonderful fundraising events and activities to benefit our students and our school community. Both of whom are looking to support some fresh faces in the PFC for 2023 and would like the opportunity to share some of their knowledge and support to assist a new president or co-president in the role next year. On behalf of our whole school community, thank you Kylie and Jenni for the wonderful job you have done this year.

SAGE Meeting

At our SAGE Principal network meeting yesterday, we were prompted to dive into the historical gender gap that exists in our system for female student achievement in mathematics when compared to boys.

We identified the evidence base that highlighted from Year 3, the mathematics gender gap deepens by Year 5 with little improvement into lower secondary school. Girls are 25 per cent less confident in their self‑perceived abilities to learn mathematics than boys.

Declining faster than the OECD average, Australia’s PISA Mathematical Literacy ranking dropped from 5th place in 2000 to 25th place in 2015. Interventions to address student attitudes towards mathematics learning, particularly among girls have been shown to be effective in changing self-perception and increasing engagement. Some of the targeted strategies we looked to put forward included:

Supporting Teachers

Equip teachers with adequate mathematics knowledge and teaching strategies to improve capability and confidence and address maths anxiety in the classroom.
provide professional development in mathematics content and pedagogy to improve capability and confidence and address maths anxiety.
Provide training to teachers to support student transition from primary to secondary school, with a focus on the continuity of mathematical learning.
Provide better access to growth mindset resources to pre-service and in‑service teachers to support maths learning outcomes and engagement.
Provide access to professional development for all teachers to improve understanding and implementation of emerging teaching strategies, in particular growth mindset approaches, for improving girls’ confidence and self-perception.

Supporting Parents

Create positive home learning environments through better access to resources including those supporting growth mindset learning.
Develop stronger engagement between school and home with access to better information for parents about the application and value of maths as an enabling discipline and career pathways, particularly for girls.

Mathematics will continue to be a priority in the creation of our 2023 Annual Implementation Plan and we will look to include further support to assist our students to develop their confidence when working mathematically.

Before School

A reminder that students are not permitted to be left at school unattended in the morning, students are required to be either booked into before school care or arriving at school once the supervision time has started. We are beginning to see large numbers of students congregate in the staff carpark area before supervision time has begun.

Families are reminded that students are not to be left unattended outside of the school gates before the 8:45am supervision period starts. The office and leadership will be monitoring this and will ask make a phone call in the morning if a child is left unattended with the request to pick them up or supervise them until the commencement of morning yard duty at 8:45am. Your understanding is greatly appreciated on this matter, it is a request with the best interests our students and student safety front of mind.

Japan Local Government Visit

Last week, the school had the pleasure of hosting a delegation from the Japan Local Government Centre. This provided the opportunity for Morioka Sensei and I to showcase our bilingual program and provide a summary of the contextualised programs offered to support our successful bilingual education. Noting the important and obvious links Australia has with Japan and its place in Asia, it was a highlight to be able to demonstrate our teaching and learning programs. We provided a tour of the school and the opportunity to see some of our teaching programs throughout the day. A formal letter of appreciation will be received over weeks ahead from Mr Torita who is the Executive Director at Tokyo HQ and led the visiting delegation. We look forward to further opportunities to partner with the Japan Local Government Centre moving forward.

Wishing you a lovely weekend

Edward Strain

PRINICPAL

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