Principals' Update

Welcome Back!

We have had a great start to the term with all of our students excited and happy to settle back into the routine of school. We have an extremely busy Term 3 as we have many exciting events coming up including:

Trivia Night
Parent-Teacher Interviews
Athletics Day - Years 3 to 6
School Production
Science Works Excursion Year 5/6
IMAX Excursion Year 5/6
Year 3/4 Camp
Year 1 Dinner Year 2 Sleepover

Cross Country Division

Congratulations to Ahmed 56O, Ava 56O and Quinn 34B for their magnificent efforts at Division Cross Country this week. All three students made it through to the Regionals.

Matilda Jr. Production

During the first week of the school holidays, a number of our lead roles in the production attended rehearsals at school. During these rehearsals we ran through the show from start to finish a number of times and marked down all of the blocking. The class rehearsals are coming along extremely well and the songs and dances are looking amazing.

At this stage we are hoping to be able to hold the performances at Collingwood Town Hall in Week 9 - Tuesday 31 August and Wednesday 1 September. This is dependent on density restrictions at the Town Hall. We currently have a number of parents sourcing other possible venues as we would really love our students to be able to perform to a live audience. Worst case scenario is that we might film the production at the Collingwood Town Hall with no audience and then have a screening at Coburg Drive-In in Term 4.

Trivia Night

Next Friday Night we will be holding our Trivia Night at 75 Reid Street Fitzroy North. This will be the first whole school social event since the End of Year Concert in December 2019. We are disappointed that not everyone is able to attend due to density restrictions. We do have a waiting list and ask anyone who has booked a ticket but is unable to attend to please contact the school.

Meeting with Ellen Sandell MP - Tuesday 15 June

On Tuesday 15 June, Rachel, Erin and Trish met with Ellen Sandell to discuss concerns that we have previously raised with her in terms of the lack of funding for maintenance of our school buildings and grounds. Trish is in the process of composing a letter to VSBA outlining the scope of works at CNPS including all proposed future maintenance works for our heritage listed buildings. The meeting was extremely positive and Ellen was able to outline a plan to campaign for funding for the school. Ellen recently spoke about Carlton North Primary School in Parliament, where she used the opportunity to invite Minister Merlino to come and visit the school to see these issues for himself.

You can see Ellen's speech here. We will now wait to hear back from Minister Merlino and hope that he will take up the invitation to visit the school to see the needs for himself!

Professional Learning

Yesterday, teaching staff were involved in classroom observations with literacy consultant Lisa Keskinen. Lisa modelled whole class writing sessions within three classrooms across the school. After working with Lisa last term, teaching teams had further areas of interest and questions that they wished to explore so Lisa modelled strategies and teaching practices which provided answers to these questions. Staff were then involved in professional learning with the opportunity for debriefing and thoughts about future writing sessions within teams. We are so grateful for this chance to work with Lisa again and to focus on extending our teaching practice.

Staff News

Chris Atkins on Leave

It is with mixed emotions that we share that Chris Atkins will be taking 6 months leave from CNPS. Chris was successful in applying for a 6 month contract teaching PE and Drama at Wesley College. This is an exciting opportunity for Chris to further develop as a teacher and we are very happy for him. However, he will be very much missed by our school community during this time.

Sam will be replacing Chris for the next 6 weeks as we advertise the position on the Department of Education's recruitment platform, Recruitment Online.

Exciting Baby News

We are very excited to share that Mary and her partner Tom are expecting a baby girl in early January. Mary shared this news with her class and their families yesterday and we are very excited to be welcoming another CNPS baby to our school community.

Parent-Teacher Interviews

We will be conducting Parent-Teacher Interviews in Week 4 on Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 August. These interviews are an opportunity for parents and carers to discuss the Semester 1 Student Reports and their child’s academic and social-emotional progress with their child’s teacher. Further information on how to book a Parent-Teacher Interview will be published next week.

Susan McLean Cyber Safety Session Term 3 - Tuesday 17 August

We are excited to share that we have booked Cyber Safety Expert - Susan McLean to conduct four sessions for students, staff and parents/carers on Tuesday 17 August.

Susan McLean is Australia’s foremost expert in the area of cyber safety and was a member of the Victoria Police for 27 years. Widely known as the ‘cyber cop’ she was the first Victoria Police Officer appointed to a position involving cyber safety and young people. Susan has conducted cyber safety sessions with CNPS students, staff and parents/carers for a number of years and each presentation is extremely informative and relevant to the online activities of our children at the time.

Susan will be conducting the following sessions:

Cyber Safety Session for Year 3/4
Cyber Safety Session for Year 5/6
Professional Learning Session for Staff
Cyber Safety Information Session for Parents and Carers (F-6)

We are fortunate that these sessions will be partly subsidised by funding through the School Focused Youth Services. We would like to thank Sally Ball - School Focused Youth Services Coordinator at Berry Street for assisting us with this funding.

The Principal Team

Rachel Corben, Erin Brown & Jane Bilby

Library News

Kim visiting Uluru