Social Media safety
As technology, social media and artificial intelligence expands and invades almost every part of our lives, our children are getting caught up in the excitement of what is offered. The difficulty is that they don’t have the maturity to exercise judgement on how to use this technology. Through our STEM lessons and our SWPBS/Respectful Relationships lessons, we encourage children to make good choices and think before they act.
To further this learning process, support you, as parents and provide you with invaluable information and a range of tools to help your children, we have engaged in discussions with the Cyber Safety Project to deliver a range of programs. In early Term 3, Grade 1 – 6 children will have in person sessions at school, and Preps will engage with a video-based program. In addition, parents will be provided with links to a series of recorded sessions covering critical topics designed to stimulate conversations in your home around cyber security, safety and digital wellbeing
Many children/families have access to sufficient CSEF or School Savings Bonus funds to cover the cost of these essential programs. Keep an eye out for more information over the coming weeks.
Fee payments and school programs:
Our school has experienced significant changes in enrolment over the past few years which has resulted in a substantial reduction in the amount of money coming into the school. We receive some funding from the Department of Education, but we depend heavily on other sources of income. One of these is fundraising, which is often a challenge for us. The remaining source of income for all government schools is parent voluntary contributions. We have kept these to a very modest amount and delayed the payment period to accommodate the two camps that have taken place this term. We would like to encourage all parents to contact the school to establish a payment plan where a full payment is not possible right now. If the rate of payment does not improve, our Leadership Team and School Council may need to reduce the programs and resources available to children in the coming school year. Unfortunately, this will impact what teachers can plan to do, however, there may simply be no choice.
Enrolments 2026:
We have been conducting tours every second week, with approximately 14 families attending each time. Many of these families reside outside our school zone. It is critical that any MPS family with a child who will be in Prep in 2026 completes the enrolment process in the next couple of weeks. By the end of July, we are required to commence offering places to out-of-zone families but of course need to guarantee space for siblings and in-zone children first.
Curriculum Day:
Last Tuesday our staff were engaged in a variety of sessions across the day on a range of topics. The Education Support staff worked with consultants to deepen their understanding of ways to support students with additional needs. Teachers worked on ensuring that their judgements about student understanding of mathematics concepts is consistent. The discussions around student work samples was very powerful. Teachers also worked in their Vertical Teams to continue to develop resources for our school. The Curriculum Team are working on documents to support teacher planning using the new curriculum; the Wellbeing Team is working on tools for teachers to monitor understanding of Personal & Social Capabilities; and the Engagement Team is working on the development of tools to gather student feedback.
