Chelsea Primary School Community,

As we move through the term, I would like to take a moment to celebrate our students, reinforce our shared values, and share some important updates with you.

Respect in Action

One of our core values at Chelsea Primary School is Respect, it Is inspiring to see our students actively demonstrating this value every day. Whether that's through active listening in class, caring for our school environment, or supporting their peers, our students are embracing what it means to be respectful learners and community members. We encourage families to continue these conversations at home and to model respectful interactions in all aspects of life.

Strengthening Positive Behaviour Strategies

Our commitment to a positive and safe learning environment is supported by the Department of Education behaviour strategies alongside our School-Wide Positive Behaviour (SWAPS) model. These frameworks help ensure a consistent approach to behaviour management, with proactive strategies, clear expectations, and positive reinforcement. Our dedicated staff are continually enhancing these practices through professional learning, ensuring that every student feels safe, valued, and supported.

Partnership with Parents and Families

We deeply value the partnership we share with parents and families. Your respect for our school policies and decisions is crucial in maintaining a supportive and harmonious environment for all. We kindly remind you that if you have questions or concerns, or wish to discuss your child’s progress, please book a time to meet with a teacher or leader.

Please note that while our leadership team strives to respond to every inquiry in a timely manner, they are also actively engaged in essential responsibilities. Our leaders are involved in coaching teachers, learning walks to improve practice, meeting with the department, and attending various meetings. Although we may not always be immediately available, rest assured that your concerns are important and we will get back to you as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your ongoing support in making Chelsea Primary School a fantastic place for learning.

Warm regards,

Taylor Irish

Principal

OPEN STREETS PROGRAM

A big thank you to everyone who supported and participated in our Open Streets program over the past three Fridays. It has been wonderful to see our community come together, creating a safer, healthier, and connected school environment.

Our initiative showed how streets can be shared spaces, not just for cars. By reducing traffic, we encouraged more cycling, skating, scooting, and walking and made the school less traffic-congested around our gates. Small changes like this can have a big impact on safety, health, and community spirit.

Thank you to Tara and Michelle at Kingston Council for all your planning, coordination, enthusiasm and support and to our dynamic catering team of Francesca, Donna, Sarah, Scott and Janosh for providing such a welcomed afternoon tea on the final afternoon. Also, James for all your help behind the scenes to make it all happen! Love our CPS community!

PEER MEDIATORS-TRAINING COMPLETED!  

Congratulations to our Year 5 students who have just completed their Peer Mediation training. What an amazing group of young leaders they are! A record number of volunteers this year!

This program teaches Year 5 students to help resolve minor conflict. Mediation opens communication channels enabling students who are having a disagreement to discuss their problems and come to a resolution with the guidance of a trained mediators.

Mediators learn inter-personal skills and negotiation strategies, about body language, active listening and clarifying, respecting points of view, empathy, asking open ended questions and brainstorming ideas. They also learn how to assist in finding solutions to low level conflict like name calling, misunderstandings around rules of a game, arguments and friendship issues.

 Students who choose to participate in this program, do so on a voluntary basis, thus putting their ‘student voice and agency’ into practise.

Keep your eyes out in the playground for this wonderful group of leaders in their fluro vests.

PHOTO DAY-TUESDAY 18^th MARCH  

Photo day information will be sent home to individual families.

Our whole school photo will also be taken at 9am.

TIPS:

Dress: Clean and tidy with full school uniform.

Hair: Neat and swept off face-no bright bows or ribbons

School Safety Message Road Crossings, Bikes & Scooters

Safety is our top priority, and we ask for your support in ensuring all students follow these important guidelines, especially our new prep students who are learning these safety rules.

Parents and guardians, please remind children to be extra cautious when near roads.

• Always use the designated school crossing and wait for the signal from the crossing supervisor.
• Look both ways before stepping onto the road.
• Never run when crossing the road.

Scooter & Bike Safety in the School Yard

To prevent accidents, scooters and bikes must not be ridden inside the school grounds. Students should dismount and walk their scooters and bikes once they reach the school gates. Please store scooters and bikes safely in the designated area during school hours. The new bike shed will be open hopefully within the next few weeks.

By following these simple rules, we can keep everyone safe. Thank you for your cooperation and for helping us create a safe environment for all students.

We are so amazed with how well our Foundation students have settled into school life. They have truly embraced the experience, enjoying their time at school, adjusting to the daily routine, making new friends, and loving learning new things!  It’s been a busy start to the term, with the wonderful Prep BBQ where we loved seeing so many families come together after school. Our Foundation students have adored getting to know their grade 5/6 buddies and loved experiencing the teddy bear picnic with them.

In the classroom, the students have been busy learning and are already showing great enthusiasm.

In Phonics, students have been working on identifying rhyming words and learning the first sounds in our sequence: 'satpin.' We’ve been practicing the card deck every day in class, and we’ve been so impressed with the students' enthusiasm! Every Foundation student has now received their sound deck and decodable readers to take home, and we’re excited to hear how they progress with them.

In Math, we’ve been building number sense through activities with tens frames, Numicon, and number bonds.

In Integrated Studies, we’re exploring the world of Nursery Rhymes and Fables. The students have been learning and reciting classics like 'Little Boy Blue' and 'Hickory Dickory Dock.'

This term, our Foundation students have also had their first specialist classes in Sport, Art, STEAM, and Performing Arts. They’ve been excited to try new activities and explore their creativity!

Please note, our Foundation students have one more Wednesday off, and their first Wednesday at school will be on the 12th of March. Additionally, our intensive swimming program will begin on Tuesday, the 11th of March. We’re looking forward to all the fun and learning ahead!

The Junior Years are off to a wonderful start to the year!

The first five weeks have been dedicated to settling the students in to their new classroom environments. We have had a huge focus on student wellbeing through our Friendology program, we’ve unpacked Good Learning Behaviours, Zones of Regulation and our Schoolwide Positive Behaviours. It has been awesome to witness the student`s discussions and understandings in these areas. We`ve enjoyed watching them practise and role model these behaviours in our school community.

Students have enjoyed getting back into their classroom routines. Year 1 have started with Explicit Phonics lessons and Year 2 have moved straight into Spelling Mastery. We have been reading rich texts in English, reviewing sentence structure and grammar concepts, as well as experimenting with narrative writing. In Maths, we have had a focus on number and will be moving into addition strategies.

In the short time we have been at school we have been spoilt with activities. We have participated in a Hockey Clinic, attended the Ned`s Resilience Ride assembly and enjoyed getting to know our buddies during buddy classes.

We have much to look forward to as the term progresses. In weeks 7 and 8 we have the 8-day intensive swimming program and we can`t forgot the Easter Bonnet Parade at the end of term. Students will enjoy getting together with their buddy classes to create their own Easter bonnet.

We look forward to all the things Term 1 still has in store for us!

The Year 3 and 4 students have had an incredible start to the year, diving straight into learning and activities with enthusiasm! We kicked things off with our first 3/4 Sport session, where students showcased fantastic teamwork, sportsmanship, and energy. It has also been wonderful connecting with families during our "Getting to Know You" meetings and engaging in fun getting-to-know-you games, helping to build friendships and a strong classroom community.

In Wellbeing, students have started Friendology, learning valuable skills in friendship, communication, and kindness. Our Year 4s have been captivated by the Mentor Text Kensuke’s Kingdom, while our Year 3s have been enjoying the classic Matilda, sparking rich discussions and deepening their love for reading.

Meanwhile, students have been developing their persuasive writing skills, learning how to form strong arguments and express their opinions effectively. In Maths, they have been exploring place value and data collection, building a strong foundation for problem-solving and real-world applications.

With so many exciting learning experiences still to come, we know this term will be a busy and rewarding one. We can’t wait to see what the rest of this jam-packed term brings—2025 is already shaping up to be an amazing year!

What a beautiful start to 2025 the wonderful Grade 5s and 6s have made. It has been lovely getting to know the children and understanding how they learn best. They are already setting high standards for the younger years (and their beautiful Prep buddy classes) to follow - displaying our school values, bucket filling and green thinking!  

Start-Up Program & Wellbeing 

Our focus in the first month of the year has been on establishing routines, developing good habits and building positive and respectful relationships in our classrooms and the yard. We are about to complete the brilliant 4-week start-up program for the year. This has really promoted the students to share how they will use the school values (Respect, Responsibility, Resilience and Relationships) to support each other and be school leaders. We have reviewed our Zones of Regulation (Green, Yellow, Blue and Red) to remind the kids that it’s okay to feel different emotions at different times. There are positive and supportive ways to feel these emotions and accept help.  

Children’s relationships are very dynamic during these ‘tween’ years (yep, they are there now) and we have been talking through how to manage those in a positive manner. We know this often requires a strong child-teacher-parent relationship, and we truly appreciate working with families to best support your child.  

Next week we start our Humanities units for term 1, with Year 5s building their Digital Technologies knowledge and the Year 6s learning all about Economics and Business. Very important life skills! 

English 

This term, both the Grade 5s and Grade 6s have been completing their reading, writing and speaking via the interesting topics of the Renaiisance for the 5s, and the Industrial Revolution for the 6s. So much happened during these critical periods for the students to understand and apply, both from an appreciation of our modern world and a sense of empathy for those times. The Grade 5s have also incorporated their NAPLAN preparations into this. Behind the News (BTN) remains a student favourite each week, enabling our students to remain a globally connected citizen and explore events and circumstances outside our beautiful bayside area. And we submitted our ‘Shout Out’ video which we hope gets on BTN sometime this year! In the coming month, while the 5s complete their preparations for NAPLAN, the Grade 6s will cement their Industrial Revolution knowledge with an excursion and complete some persuasive writing.  

Mathematics  

We continue to place a high priority on our Maths content and lesson structure, with the students reconnecting with the highly regarded 90-minute instruction setup from 2024 (with brain breaks!).  

Our lesson content so far has been based on number and algebra and some measurement.  The green-thinking and support for each other amongst the students has been awesome! 

Sport 

It was awesome to see the Year 5s commence their Interschool Sport (ISS) experience alongside their Year 6 teammates. With the approach of ‘having fun with your friends while being active’, the students have instantly shown wonderful teamwork and support for each other and their rival schools.  We can’t wait for the Lightning Premiership on the 21^st March. A whole day of sport! Details on the day will be confirmed closer to, but family and friends are welcome to come and spectate.  

Well done to the students who were selected to Swim for Chelsea at the District Swimming on 28^th February March. Go Chelsea!

Our school Cross Country will be occurring on the last day of term (4^th April) at Bicentennial Park nearby the dog park end. Time to get some running going! ?? 

Coming up ahead 

There is plenty going on in the month of March, including: 

• Rugby clinics for H&PE (4^th, 11^th, 25^th) 

• Patterson River Secondary College visit & talk to Senior School (6^th) 

• Year 6 ‘Talking About Money’ incursions (6^th & 13^th)  

• NAPLAN beginning (12^th-19^th) 

• Year 6 Industrial Revolution excursion (12^th) 

• School photo day (18^th) 

• ISS Lightning Premiership (21^st)  

• Mordialloc College visit & talk to Senior School (25^th)   

• Miss A’s Birthday! (27^th)  

Thank you!

The first month of school after a summer break is always a time of change and mixed emotions for the students in the Senior School. We wish to thank you as the fabulous families of our Senior School kids for your support to the kids, to us as staff and for being a wonderful local primary school community. It takes a village.  

Please stay in touch with us with any questions, queries or doubtful points,  

Your Senior School Team: Miss Ebbott, Miss A, Mr Munday 

Grade 5 & 6 City Excursion – Shadows in Twin Cities Workshop

A group of our Grade 5 and 6 students recently ventured into the city to participate in the Shadows in Twin Cities workshop at the ASIA TOPA Festival. This unique intercultural experience connected our students with new friends in Jeonju, South Korea, through a life-size video screen.

Guided by artists Jessica Wilson in Melbourne and Gijong Yoo in Jeonju, students explored creative ways to communicate using hand gestures, translated conversation, movement and play. They worked with translucent, hand-crafted Hanji paper to create life-sized drawings of each other, which they then sent soaring into the Melbourne air—symbolically “travelling” as artistic shadows to the other city.

It was a fantastic day filled with authentic cultural exchange, creativity and collaboration. To top it off, our students even had a small feature on Seven News! An unforgettable experience for all involved.