A Year in Review: Reflections from Maddie

Dear GIPS Community,

As we wrap up another remarkable year at Glen Iris Primary School, I'm filled with pride reflecting on our collective achievements and growth. After considerable consultation with our students and staff, with generous help from parent helpers, our school improvement team has developed a school vision, "Growth through belonging; a community where every child thrives." Please watch the video below, created by one of our parents, Christie, that helps exemplify why this vision is so important to us. Thank you to our students and leadership team who helped us develop this video!

Throughout the year, we've seen our students embody our core values of empathy, honesty, resilience, gratitude, and respect. From our Prep students' impressive literacy gains after the introduction of decodable readers to the leadership demonstrated by our Year 6 Student Action Leadership Team (SALT), every child has contributed to our thriving community. This year has been marked by numerous highlights from our students:

Academic Excellence

Our students have made significant progress across all year levels. Notably, our Preps have made substantial progress in their reading after the introduction of our synthetic structured phonics program. Further, our Grade 3 students performed better than ever on NAPLAN in writing. Our dedicated teaching team have worked hard this year in ensuring our writing program is rigorous and consistent thanks to the help our learning specialist, Miss Cofield. We also focussed improvement efforts in mathematics, with a focus on the common misunderstandings in numeracy. Across all year levels students engaged in number talks to deepen conceptual understandings in mathematics.

We also proudly introduced two new classes this year: STEM Design Learning and Spanish! Our students have taken on these two new specialist classes, demonstrating the character strength of 'love of learning' across the board. We are proud that these two classes emerged after community consultation.

Next year, our improvement efforts are focussed on bringing our synthetic and structured phonics programs to grade Prep through to Grade Two classrooms, with Grade Three through Six students engaging in deeper morphology phonological studies to improve their spelling. Thus we will have a focussed P-6 phonics scope and sequence. Further, our improvement efforts will be focussed on extending our learners so that they are all feeling challenged. Halfway through next year we have our school review, where we are looking forward to deeper learning on the ways in which we can continually improve for our students.

Community Spirit

Events like our Evening on the Green, school production, Harmony Day and community led events like our Mother's and Father's Day events brought us together, strengthening our sense of belonging. This year, our community events have played a vital role in fostering connections and reinforcing our sense of belonging together. The Evening on the Green was a highlight, bringing together families for an evening of popcorn, music, and face painting. Our School Production celebrated our students, who all shined. These gatherings not only strengthened our bonds but also created lasting memories that remind us of the importance of unity and support in nurturing every child’s potential.

Next year, we are looking forward to our first community event: Evening on the Green. Please see the below important dates to mark your calendars. We are also bringing back the biennial art show! Thank you to all of the parents and community members who have supported our school through volunteering from working bees to excursions and make and bakes.

We also did many building and grounds improvements this year including the renovations of two portables. Thanks to the generous donations to our Buildings and Grounds fund from our school community, we are able to renovate our Prep classrooms for 2025.

Student Leadership

Our SALT program empowered every Year 6 student to take on meaningful leadership roles, driving real change within our school. From the newly formed student voice and agency team, who revitalised our assemblies, to teams such as our digital learning team, who led student clubs, we enjoyed our students' innovative ideas to help make GIPS better. We also had a very successful SRC this year, who contributed to three different charities over the course of the year. Our House Captains brought school spirit, with several Big Days In and different House events for students of all ages. We also were so proud of all of our buddies this year who helped our Prep students grow into their first year of school.

Next year we have a new student action leadership team: cultural connections. Part of their leadership work will be creating a school-wide club focussed on integrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, histories, and traditions. This committee, "Always Was-Always Will Be", will be open to students in grades 1-6 by application. We are looking

Wellbeing Initiatives

We've continued to prioritize student wellbeing through programs like the Resilience Project and the Berry Street Education Model, ensuring a supportive environment for all. This year we introduced two new wellbeing roles: our school psychologist and our leading teacher wellbeing and inclusion role. We focussed on school improvement initiatives such as introducing Morning Circle to every class every day, and students have been using their own differentiated ready to learn plans that offer a range of regulation tools when they aren't feeling ready to learn. We are so proud of our students who have been settled, engaged, and ready to learn in their classes. We also had an amazing Prep to Grade Six camp program, heaps of incursions and excursions designed to balance improving belonging and connecting to our integrated studies, and lunchtime clubs were very popular this year.

Next year, our staff will be doing three full days of Berry Street Education Model training with the director, Dr Tom Brunzell.

A Few End of Year Reminders

Semester Reports

Semester reports are coming out today. The reports are a time to celebrate what our students have accomplished this term. Take time to read the report with your child/ren, and consider setting goals for next year. What's one thing that they want to focus on improving next semester? What's one strength that they want to keep doing in their learning next year?

Semester Reports for Students Exiting

For students who are exiting our school, please be sure to download all of your reports from this year and previous years from Compass as the reports won't be available via Compass after your child exits. If you happen to not download the reports, no worries! Give our friendly team a call in the new year and we can email them to you.

2025 Parent Payments

While we celebrated numerous successes this year across academic, wellbeing, and infrastructure domains, our leadership team and School Council acknowledge that we fell short of some key targets. Our ability to provide the highest quality education relies significantly on parent contributions. Unfortunately, in 2024, we did not meet our anticipated parent payment targets, which impacted several planned improvements. As a result, we were unable to proceed with replacing two broken teaching screens, upgrading our assembly audio equipment, or renewing some of our aging furniture. These items were initially budgeted as part of our school-wide enhancement plan. Instead, we redirected these funds to cover essential student resources, including educational apps and classroom materials crucial for daily learning activities, originally budgeted from our parent payments. We value your partnership in creating an optimal learning environment for our students. Parent payments for the upcoming year are now available on Compass under the Curriculum Contributions tab. Your continued support is instrumental in helping us achieve our educational goals and providing the best possible resources for our students.

Grade 3-6 Sports Uniform Transitioning Out Commencing 2025

Three years ago, School Council determined that the Grade 3 – Grade 6 sports top was not SunSmart and that the shorts needed to be improved.

After consultation with the students, teachers and community, new SunSmart Sports top and shorts were designed.

School Council decided to make this transition from the old sports uniform to the new sports uniform, a 3 year transition, beginning 2022.

Therefore, commencing at the beginning of Term 1 2025, the old-style PE top (V neck) and old-style basketball shorts, will no longer be part of the GIPS uniform.

Please find a link to the PSW website.

You will be able to utilise the $400 School Savings Bonus to assist in purchasing these new items once it commences.
To learn more about the School Saving Bonus, visit School Saving Bonus | vic.gov.au

Happy New Year

As we bid farewell to 2024, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to our students, staff, School Council, and families. Your dedication, passion, and support make GIPS the extraordinary place it is. Together, we've created a community where every child can truly thrive. Looking ahead to 2025, I'm excited about the opportunities that await us. Our commitment to fostering excellence in learning and supported wellbeing will drive us. I wish you all a joyous holiday season and a safe, happy New Year. May this break be a time of rest, reflection, and rejuvenation. I look forward to welcoming you back in 2025 for another year of growth, learning, and belonging at GIPS.

Warm regards,

Maddie Witter
Principal, Glen Iris Primary School