I am pleased to provide an update on our recent initiatives, progress, and future plans. Our collective efforts are paving the way for continued academic excellence and community engagement at our school.

Excellence in Teaching and Learning  

AERO Project and Coaching
AERO Project: We are advancing effectively with the AERO project, which emphasises the implementation of explicit instruction, the establishment of consistent routines, and uniform teaching practices across all classrooms. This approach is designed to enhance the educational experience by ensuring that all students benefit from a coherent and predictable learning environment. Our commitment to these practices is aimed at improving academic outcomes and fostering a supportive learning atmosphere.

Coaching with Matthew Pepi: Matthew Pepi (a learning specialist, has proven invaluable this year. Matt’s expertise in instructional strategies has facilitated significant improvements in our teaching methodologies this year. Matthew’s coaching sessions with teachers this year have focused on aligning our instructional practices with explicit teaching principles, reinforcing consistency across classrooms and enhancing overall instructional quality. This ongoing support is critical to our success and ensures that our planning remains synchronised and effective.

Professional Learning

• State Principal Forum: At the recent State Principal Forum, Chelsea Primary School, in conjunction with the AERO team, presented this conference on our change model and successes.  We received positive feedback from peers in the educational community. This recognition highlights the success of our school's implementation of explicit teaching and phonics-based approach to teaching literacy and is a testament to our staff's hard work and dedication.

• Professional Development:
• Trauma-Informed Practice PD: We continue to prioritise trauma-informed practices, equipping our staff with the skills and knowledge needed to support students who have experienced trauma. This ongoing professional development ensures that our approach to student well-being remains compassionate and effective.
• Morphology PD for Grade 1 Teachers: Specialised professional development on morphology has been provided for our Grade 1 teachers. This training is essential for enhancing literacy instruction.
• Ongoing PLC Work: Our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) actively collaborate to drive continuous improvement. These communities facilitate regular discussions and shared learning experiences among teachers and educational support staff, contributing to a unified approach to teaching and learning.

Infrastructure/Facilities

• Grass and Synthetic Turf: The new grassed area will be ready to be opened at the beginning of term 4. We want to give it time to establish before we let the students on it. Additionally, the new synthetic turf installation is nearing completion and will soon be available for use. This upgrade will provide a high-quality surface for physical activities, enhancing safety and playability.
• Bike Shed: Plans for the new bike shed are progressing steadily. We anticipate that construction will commence shortly, improving our facilities for students who ride, scoot or skate to school.

Thank You – Jacky Russell's retirement
Dear Jacky,

As your time at Chelsea Primary School comes to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your incredible 23 years of dedication and service as our Business Manager. Your unwavering commitment, expertise, and care have been instrumental in our school's success and smooth running. Your contributions have not only shaped our operations but also touched the lives of countless students, staff, and families during your years at CPS.

On behalf of the entire Chelsea Primary School community, thank you for everything you’ve done. We will miss you greatly and wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

Jacky’s last day at CPS is Thursday, 19^th of September.

Curriculum Days Term 4

• Monday 4^th of November (Melbourne Cup weekend) – Report writing day for teachers
• Monday 2^nd of December – professional practice day for teachers – Curriculum planning for 2025

TWILIGHT ON THE TURF
We are thrilled to announce our upcoming fundraising event, 'Twilight on the Turf,' promising an unforgettable evening of community spirit and entertainment. Mark your calendars for Friday 25^th October and join us for a celebration filled with delightful food, engaging activities, and opportunities to support our school.

Event Highlights:

• Delicious Food: Indulge in a variety of yummy treats and gourmet delights.
• Spectacular Entertainment: Enjoy live performances and entertainment throughout the evening, showcasing the talents of our students and local artists.
• Engaging Activities: Participate in games, activities, and interactive stalls designed for all ages to enjoy.
• Impressive Art Show: Explore and appreciate the creativity of our students with a display of artwork from our talented young artists.
• Vibrant Market Stalls: Browse through a selection of market stalls offering unique crafts, gifts, and local products.
• Silent Auction: Bid on exciting items and experiences generously donated by our community and local businesses.
• Backyard Cricket: Join in the fun with a friendly game of backyard cricket with Bonbeach Junior Cricket Club under the twilight sky.
• Teacher Race: Cheer on your favourite teachers as they compete in a thrilling race! We are currently seeking local businesses interested in sponsoring this lively event. Sponsorship includes advertising opportunities for your business, so don't miss this chance to showcase your support for our school community.

How You Can Get Involved:

• Sponsorship Opportunities: Local businesses, join us in sponsoring our teacher race and gain exposure for your business through event advertising. Contact our fundraising team for details on sponsorship packages.
• Donations for Raffle Prizes: We welcome donations for our raffle prizes. Your contribution will help make our raffle an exciting part of the evening, with all proceeds supporting our school's programs and initiatives.

Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm. We look forward to seeing you there for a memorable evening under the stars!

Dear Families,
We’ve had an action-packed term so far filled with learning, creativity, and celebrations! Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to and what’s coming up in the next few weeks.

100 Days of Prep: A Milestone Celebration: Our Preps reached the incredible milestone of 100 days of school, and what better way to celebrate than by dressing up as 100-year-olds! The creativity on display was amazing—students came with glasses, walking sticks, and grey wigs, really getting into the spirit of the day. We had so much fun having a parade to start our day where the whole school clapped and cheered us on. Well done Preps, on reaching this milestone!

Book Week: A Celebration of Reading: Book Week was another highlight of the term, with everyone coming dressed in absolutely amazing costumes! It was wonderful to see so many beloved book characters brought to life. We also had the pleasure of hosting Natashia Curtin, who read her book Vernon the Penguin to the students. The children loved the story and enjoyed participating in related activities throughout the week. Our Book Week parade was a huge success, and we were thrilled to have so many parents come down to watch. Thank you for your support—it was an awesome time!

What We’re Learning:

• Maths: We’ve been focusing on different addition and subtraction strategies, exploring place value, and learning about money. The students are developing their problem-solving skills and gaining confidence in working with numbers.
• Literacy: We’re working on extending our sentences using ‘but’ and ‘because,’ which helps the students add more detail to their writing. We’ve also been using a range of rich literature as mentor texts to guide our lessons, which the students have really enjoyed.
• Phonics: We’ve reviewed the different spelling rules of Magic e and the Floss rule. We’ve also been looking at some ‘spicy’ sounds on Fridays and have recently learnt the two different sounds that ‘oo’ make.
• Integrated: Our focus this term has been on history. We’ve covered our personal history and are now delving into the local history of Melbourne and Chelsea. The students are fascinated by the stories of the past and how they connect to the present.

Upcoming Events: Mark your calendars! Our school production is coming up on the 12th of September, and we couldn’t be more excited. There will be both a day show and a night show, and our dances are coming along beautifully. The costumes are all ready, and the students can’t wait to perform on the big stage. It’s going to be a fantastic event! Please see Compass for additional details on ticketing.

Thank you for your continued support and involvement in your child’s education. We’re looking forward to finishing the term on a high note and can’t wait to share more exciting moments with you soon!

Warm regards,
The Prep Team

The Junior School have had a jam-packed August, filled with lots of fun activities, new learning opportunities and being a part of memorable experiences. Throughout the month we had the pleasure of hosting visits from Lauren, an Urban Planner, and Kirsty, who works at the Zoo, both of whom shared fascinating insights with us.

A standout moment of the month was getting the students actively involved in the Olympics. They eagerly watched the events, cheered on their favourite athletes, and each class created a medal tally to track the progress. The students absolutely loved this experience. Additionally, we hosted our own Chelsea Primary School Olympics Day, where students had the opportunity to participate in a variety of Olympic-themed events, making it an unforgettable and enriching experience for all. Additionally, that night was the school disco. The school disco was an absolute hit, with students dancing the night away, having a blast with their friends, and making memories that made the event an unforgettable and resounding success.

Book Week was an exciting and engaging time for the students, filled with opportunities to discover and learn about new books. The week was packed with fun activities that sparked their imagination and love for reading. One of the highlights was the fun dress-up day, where students came to school dressed as their favourite book characters. The celebration culminated in a big, whole-school parade, where each class proudly showed off their creative costumes, adding to the vibrant and joyful atmosphere of the event. It was a week full of learning, creativity, and fun for everyone involved. The Junior School were also lucky enough the have guest speaker Natashia Curtin come and read a couple of her stories. The Grade 1s especially loved that she read ‘Vernon the Penguin’, a book we focused on in English! We also found loved seeing pictures of Nastashia reading the book to actual penguins!

Whoever said Term 3 was a quiet term, obviously didn’t go to Chelsea Primary School!

Since our last newsletter, the middle school have enjoyed incursions galore! We loved listening to our science week experts and learning more about urban planning and zoo-life.

For Book Week we met an Australian author, Natashia Curtin. Natashia read her book, Just Like You and then showed us how to tell stories through dance like her Elders taught her when she was young.

Also, who can forget the fun of the disco! Judging by the smiles on students’ faces – and their families – it was a true highlight of the term. Hot Dog Day and the CPS Olympics were close seconds.

In our classes, the Year 3’s have continued their focus on Ancient Rome and are learning so much about Julius Caesar, the Mediterranean Sea and Ancient Roman life. Alongside this new learning, they are writing persuasive texts with topics ranging from ‘Why 3E should get a class pet’ to ‘Why the weekend should be longer’. It’s been a delight for their teachers to see them so engaged in topics they are passionate about.

In Year 4, students have been engrossed in their novel study unit. Their book, Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo tells the story of an eleven-year Michael, whose family decides to sail around the world after his parents are made redundant from the local brickworks. Be sure to ask your child for a more detailed synopsis and series of events.

Maths in Year 3 has turned to fractions, with students adding and subtracting fractions already - some are even working on finding common denominators through multiplication. Amazing!!

For Year 4 maths, students are measuring perimeters, calculating areas, and making comparisons between the two concepts. It looks like we have some budding engineers and architects in the mix. Well done everyone!

Lastly, a massive shout out to our middle school teachers who gave 100% effort to their Book Week costumes. Mr Pepi was finding red paint for days after the event.

SENIOR SCHOOL NEWSLETTER 

It feels like August has come and gone in a blink of an eye for the Senior School, as we transition from Term 3 ‘just beginning’ to “how is it so close to finishing?!” 

English & Maths 
In English, we continue to enjoy reading and analysing our term novel ‘Holes’ along with our weekly fluency reading, and comprehension sessions supported by BTN Classroom news. We have been using our novel reading to support our writing focus - first on poetry (limericks, ballads, free verse) and now on developing our narrative writing via enhanced descriptive writing techniques.   

In Mathematics we have completed units on volume & capacity, angles & shapes, decimals, length and most recently percentages. This has included various real-life scenarios, including the Grade 6s learning how to calculate shopping discounts, tax and bank interest. Term 3 will be complete with a focus on interpreting data and graphs, including using the students’ data collected on their times tables homework.  

Humanities  
Our Humanities unit on Australian Colonial History has included the students researching the formation of the different colonies in Australia – and the impacts on the local indigenous population, as well as investigating what life was like for a child in 1800s Australia compared to current day. Let’s just say, many students have a newfound appreciation of their own quality of life after that! We will complete our unit with a focus on the ‘Gold Rush’, with students creating a presentation on a select country’s migration impact on Australian society due to coming to ‘strike it rich’ in Australia.  

Sport 
Despite a few Interschool sport (ISS) Fridays being cancelled this month due to other schools having to forego the competition, ISS is back with a bang and will conclude for this term on 6^th September vs Bonbeach at home. The school sporting highlight of the month was the CPS Olympics on 9^th August and the superb involvement of each Grade 6 student to plan and coordinate sports games for the remainder of the school. Thanks to Miss Mac for facilitating this wonderful event, including the simply awesome closing ceremony and medals for all.  

So many other highlights 
The other amazing highlights packed into the last four weeks included the: 

• 5A, 6J and 6M class performances at assembly  

• CPS Disco dancing (and BBQing 100s of sausages),  

• BIOEyes STEM Incusion from Monash University (thanks Mrs Clipperton)  

• Kingston Council Youth Services Workshops on Transition for Grade 6 

• Book Week Author Visit – awesome Anna Johnston, and the great parade costumes 

• Many School Production rehearsals and costume preparations 

Important Dates  
The following events are coming up for the Seniors as we progress to our final three weeks of Term 3, before the term break commencing on Friday 20 September at 2:30pm:  

• 6^th September: Final Interschool Sport for Term 3 vs Bonbeach (Home) 
• 10^th September: I sea I care Kingston Coastal Workshop
• 12^th September: CPS School Production @ PRSC – Matinee: 11:30-1pm, Evening: 6:30-8pm)
• 13^th September: District Athletics Competition at Ballam Park, Karingal
• 20^th September: School Footy Day, including Sausage Sizzle (Grade 6 Fundraiser) 

Thank you! 
With some much going on in this term, and still to come, we wish to say a huge thank you for your continued support and involvement in our school community. 

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us with any questions, concerns, or feedback. 

Your Senior School Team: Mrs. Jakon, Mr. Munday, and Miss A. 

We are thrilled to share that our school has once again embraced the opportunity to connect with our partner schools in Daegu, South Korea. In a recent video conference, each of the Grade Four, Five and Six students were paired with a Korean student, with the exciting goal of exchanging letters.

Students dedicated themselves to learning Hangeul, the Korean writing system, and mastered crafting syllable blocks to form words and sentences. In their letters, they proudly introduced themselves, shared their grade, favourite subjects, and hobbies in complete Korean sentences.

These letters will be sent to Korea, and our students eagerly anticipate receiving replies from their new pen pals. This exchange not only fosters international connections but also offers a memorable, authentic cultural experience.

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