Dear Parent and Caregivers,

As we near the business end of the semester and head into the assessment and reporting period for semester one, I encourage you to ensure your child is on time and at school every day to ensure they are in the best possible position to ‘Achieve SuccESS @ ESS’.

Following the busy assessment and reporting period we will celebrate the close of the semester with some fun activities in the last week of school including, the Principal’s Award’s Assembly, Junior and Senior Sports Days, Slime Run for Chaplaincy and the Under 8’s morning on the last morning of term.

CHAPPY WEEK

This week nationally we celebrate Chaplaincy Week.  This is a week where we acknowledge the great work our Scripture Union Chaplains do in schools to support the emotional wellbeing of students, staff and families every day and also an opportunity to raise funds to cover the shortfall in government funding. 

Whilst we had our launch of the Slime Run for Chaplaincy this week with the Colour Explosion Dress Up Day and some other activities planned, our big fundraiser for Chaplaincy for the year will be the Slime Run on the afternoon of Thursday June 22.  Students will require a white shirt on this day so the colour shows up and to protect their uniforms.

Following the COVID wages support we benefitted from for our Chaplains, we now are faced with a shortfall in wages this year to keep a Chaplain in our school moving forward for two days per week.  So, I encourage you to set up a profile for your child and to dig deep fundraising online outside our school community to support this.  We very much value the work of our Chaplain and wish to retain the current model, with our community’s support.

In case you are still not clear on what Chaplains do in schools I encourage you to look at the document below called the Chaplaincy Spotlight which highlights the focus of their work.

P AND C

Recently we celebrated P and C Week where we acknowledge the wonderful work our P and Cs do in schools.  We are particularly lucky here at ESS to have a very active P and C who work tirelessly under the leadership of the President, Dean Collings.  Their major project for the past 4 years has been the roof on the multi-purpose court which is finally coming to fruition.  Doesn’t it look great?

As you may be aware we are currently planning the next project and fundraising focus for the school and P and C.  Parents and carers were encouraged to have their say to P and C members who voted at the meeting last night.  We are very happy to announce that the next focus of the P and C will be the lights for the multi-purpose court which is due to be completed by the end of term.  This is dependent on the success of a ‘Stronger Communities Grant’. 

The next project will be a new Prep playground in the new grassed area beside the pool.  We are currently getting quotes and applying for a ‘Gaming Benefit Grant’ to contribute towards this project, which will most likely happen early next year with grant funds, P and C funds and school funds. The third project discussed was the heating of the swimming pool and we are applying for another grant called the ‘Go For Gold Grant’ with the DoE which is to upgrade sporting facilities to ultimately increase participation in the Olympic Sports.

The future at ESS certainly looks bright as the P and C and school work together for the benefit of our students, so please get behind our P and C with their fundraisers coming up such as the Trivia Night, Family Fun Day and Father’s Day Stall on the back of very a successful Disco, Mother’s Day Stall and High Tea afternoon.  We thank our wonderful P and C executive and members who organise these events for our school community.

FULL SCHOOL REVIEW

Our full school review was completed in the last week of term with some very positive feedback from the three reviewers who spent three days in our school interviewing staff, students and, parents and community partners.  Our reports have arrived and I encourage you to read the Executive Summary attached, which details the affirmations and recommendations.  This report will go up on our school website shortly. They have also produced an infographic of the review which is below.

This information will be used to plan and guide the quadrennial school review process and ultimately our next four-year strategic plan for the school.  Taking on the feedback from our School Council the collection of further data will be collected using a range of surveys around different topics.  We are currently working on these and I hope to have them out prior to the school holidays.  Next term the various executive teams from the School Council, P and C and School Leadership team will come together to utilise the data to plan our next 4 years.

Again, thank you to those parents who were able to speak with the reviewers and provide such positive feedback around the school and the work that we do here.

On May 26 we will hold our first Open Day for this year aimed at families who are looking to enrol here for 2024 either in Prep or other year levels.  If you know of families who live in our catchment and are hoping to come here please let them know of the coming Open Day which will commence in EPAC with a talk about the school which will be followed by a tour of the facilities.

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal