Principals Report 

Welcome back to school for Term 3, I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable school holiday period. It has been wonderful to see our students back at school and straight back into learning. In our newsletter today, I would like to touch on a variety of areas to set the scene for this term.

Enrolment for 2023

By the mid-point of the academic year, our planning for the following year begins to really ‘ramp-up’. This includes reviewing our staffing model, reflecting on our budgeting processes and projecting our student enrolment. It is integral to our planning that we secure all new enrolments (and particularly enrolments for our Prep Class of 2023) by the end of August. A couple of key reminders:

• We run school tours each and every Friday morning from 9:30am (book via Compass Tix here).
• Submit a request for enrolment forms by sending an email with the subject line Enrolment Forms Request here.
• Learn more about our enrolment processes from our school website (link here).

COVID-Safe Practices and Combatting the Flu Season

Can you believe that this is the first Term 3 that we have resumed onsite since 2019?! Whilst we are obviously delighted that this is the case, we do need to ensure we are taking all precautions regarding the health and safety of students, staff and the broader community. The DET continue to impress upon us the importance of ‘the three V’s’;

• Vaccination – ensuring we are up-to-date with our COVID-19 and flu vaccines.
• Ventilation – our learning spaces will be well-ventilated via open doors and windows, as well as air purifiers in all learning and working spaces. 
• Vital COVID-Safe steps – including mask-wearing being ‘strongly-recommended’ indoors and a focus on maintaining physical distancing, reducing mixing of students, staying home when we are unwell and continuing rapid antigen testing (with all students to receive kits of five in approximately three-week intervals this term). 

If your child/ren test positive to coronavirus, please contact our School Office (port.melbourne.ps@education.vic.gov.au) so we can support continuity of learning whilst they are at home and also inform our broader school community where required. 

Event Consent and Payment

As we continue to refine our practices across the school, we have streamlined our event payment processes for Term 3. With significant thanks to Jessica Lechte (Office Manager) and our Office Administration Team, we will now be bundling all events and payments together for each term, enabling our families to give consent and payment in one easy step each term. As always, if you need financial support for camps and excursions, please don’t hesitate to contact our office team for support. 

School Review

Today our senior leadership group were joined by regional staff for day 1 of our DET School Review. This process, which occurs in all schools at the conclusion of the four-year strategic plan cycle, allows us to reflect on our practices, celebrate our successes and plan-forward to address our challenges in the ongoing improvement of our school. Thank you to our staff, students and families who contributed to the pre-review process and we look forward to sharing the outcomes from the review with you later this term. 

Something New – Join Me for Morning Tea! 

Through the pre-review process, I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet with parents and students and discuss whole-school priorities, successes and challenges. In recognition of this, I would like to schedule some informal events across the term, including meeting with our families for morning tea, with a particular focus for each event, including student learning, student wellbeing and family supports. 

I would like to invite you to join me for morning tea in our new staffroom on Wednesday 27th July straight after drop-off (book via Compass Tix here). Our focus for this session will be Family supports in our community. I hope it will also be a great opportunity to simply enjoy each others company; feel free to bring along any questions you may have too and I look forward to seeing you there!  If you have a topic you would like to discuss in future sessions, I encourage you to drop me an email. 

Student Focus – Attendance and Uniform

Two simple areas of focus for me this term:

• We have another 45 days of Term 3 remaining after today; I expect every single one of our students to arrive in their classroom between 8:45am and 8:55am and sitting on the floor ready to learn at exactly 9:00am. 
• I am proud of our school uniform; the royal blue and red colours are intrinsically linked to the Port Melbourne community. I expect every student to wear our uniform with pride every day. If you are having problems with the affordability of school uniform, please contact our school office and we can arrange support for your child/ren.

Being here every day and in uniform isn’t difficult. We take great pride in our school and in recognition of that, let’s ensure we wear our uniform with pride every day and we are sitting on the floor by 9:00am each and every day.

Thanks for your ongoing support and keep doing your best.

Rohan.