Principals Report 

Welcome back to Term 4, I hope everyone had a restful couple of weeks and are ready for a busy conclusion to the year. There is plenty going on at our school; please ensure you are across all information in our ‘reminders’ section, as I know it is a busy time outside of school for us all as well. 

2023 Enrolment

Confirmation of student enrolment is imperative at this stage of the year, as it informs our student-class placement and our workforce planning. A couple of key reminders for everyone:

1. If you have a child starting in Prep next year (or know someone who does), please ensure they are fully enrolled as soon as possible. Our transition program begins in November and planning for student-class placement for Prep 2023 is already well under way. 
2. If you know someone who is moving into our school zone, please encourage them to contact us and begin the enrolment process.
3. Please note that we will continue to run our school tours for new families each Friday at 9:30am (tickets here) throughout Term 4. If this time does not work for you, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office team to book an alternative time. 
4. If you are leaving our school zone and exiting our school, please notify our school in writing (port.melbourne.ps@education.vic.gov.au) by Monday 31st October.

Class Placement

In this newsletter, I have shared our annual information regarding class placement for 2023. Our teaching teams will soon begin to construct classes for next year and, under a strict set of guidelines, there is capacity for parents / carers to make specific student placement requests. This process is identical to the one we have implemented since 2020 and is shared as a separate tab in this newsletter. Please note that all requests must be submitted by Friday 28th October and will only be considered in alignment with the class placement process as outlined.  

Working Bee

Our Business Manager, Kaye Linsdell and I met with parents Anthony Moran, Melinda Williams and Spiros Savva to discuss plans for our upcoming working bee on Saturday 22nd October. On this day, we will look to:

• Top up our sand pits; including Prep Playground, Long Jump pit and Senior Playground surrounds,
• Clean up and fertilise Clarke St & Graham St garden beds,
• Mulch and fertilise around flame trees located adjacent to the outside Basketball court.

It is the first time in a long time that we have been in a position to hold an event like this and another opportunity to further enhance our school.

All going well, we will also look at some further opportunities to do some more ‘hard’ landscaping, including:

• Building garden beds to be placed within the courtyard of the two-storey portables. 
• Planting-out the new square garden bed outside reception. 

We are looking for some enthusiastic and skilled members of our community to help out with these projects. Please register here to help us with planning & catering purposes.  

Assemblies

We are delighted to also be in a position to come together for assemblies this term. We will ease into this, particularly with our junior school students, who have not experienced assemblies at all in their time here.

Students in Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 will participate in their first assembly together this coming Monday 10th October, whilst our students in Years 3 to 6 will have their first assembly on Monday 24th October. As our students familiarise (or re-familiarise) themselves with the process, we won’t be inviting an audience initially; however that is the next layer we will introduce later in the term. 

Thanks for your ongoing support and keep doing your best.

Rohan.