As we reach the end of another busy and rewarding first term, we would like to take a moment to reflect on the many opportunities, achievements, and experiences that have enriched learning at Mirniyan Primary School. It has been wonderful to see our students actively engaging in their learning, demonstrating our core values of Respect, Care, and Growth, and contributing positively to our school community.

We thank our families for their ongoing support and partnership throughout the term and are pleased to share some highlights and important updates in this issue of the Mirnyan News!

As the term comes to a close, we are incredibly proud of the effort and achievements of all our students. Their enthusiasm for learning and willingness to embrace new experiences continues to make Mirniyan Primary School a vibrant and supportive place to learn.

We wish all families a safe and enjoyable break and look forward to welcoming everyone back for another exciting term ahead in Term 2.

Kind regards,
Nicole Walker

Principal

The Smile Squad will be visiting Mirniyan Primary School in term 2 to provide dental services to our students and families on-site.

The Smile Squad Examination Team will offer the following services (with parent consent):

• Examination
• X-rays
• Cleaning
• Fissure sealants
• Fluoride varnish application

A Treatment Team will also be working from a mobile dental truck at the school to provide follow-up treatments where required, including:

• Fillings
• Stainless steel crowns
• Extractions

The team will return approximately six months after the initial visit to apply protective fluoride varnish for consenting students.

Families interested in accessing this service can access a QR code on COMPASS to complete the consent process.

We are proud to announce our 2026 Student Leaders. These students demonstrated initiative and commitment by applying for our 2026 leadership roles in 2025, presenting their ideas to peers, teachers, and school leadership.

Leadership roles include:

• School Captains -Naksh and Yelini
• Vice Captains- Manraj and Cloie
• SRC Chairs- Aseel and Aiden
• Diversity Captains- Aladdin and Teshan
• House Captains -Sienna and Kiaan (Biik), Aysha and Waled (Baanh), Elisha and Ranveer (Laak) and Leanne and Leomar (Kuunh)
• LOTE Captains- Vahasni and Shanaya
• Science/Sustainability Captains-Mehrin and Bridie
• PE Captains- Phoenix and Leighton
• Arts Captains-Vasen and Dhanvin
• Play Captains- Hazel and Noah
• ICT Captains- Ahmad and Aaditya

As part of the selection process, students delivered speeches demonstrating:

• Their ability to be positive role models
• How they embody our values of Respect, Care, and Growth
• Their capacity to represent the school within the wider community
• Their enthusiasm to lead and contribute to school improvement

Our leaders have been formally acknowledged and presented with their leadership badges at a recent school assembly. Congratulations to all students who applied and to those who were selected.

We congratulate our 2025 SRC for their outstanding initiative in designing and implementing a Buddy Bench. Students worked together to raise funds, purchase, and decorate the bench, which is now proudly located near the junior playground by the gym.

All classes have viewed a student-created video explaining how the Buddy Bench can be used to promote inclusion and friendship across the school.

Thank you to all families who attended our recent Meet and Greet. It was a wonderful opportunity for students to showcase their learning and share their classroom environments with their families. The ice cream truck was certainly a highlight for many!

As a reminder, The Drop Off and Pick Up Zone on Welsummer Drive is a NO PARKING ZONE.

You should not be getting out of your car and leaving it there at pick up and drop off times as indicated by the Casey Council signs.

 Please ensure when using the Drop Off and Pick Up Zone that you enter at the front of the zone closet to the office gate and drop your child off within the allowed 2 minute timeframe. This allows the traffic to move smoothly and quickly and stops traffic being held up on Welsummer and around to Appenzeller Drive.

Please also refrain from doing U-turns on Welsummer when leaving the zone to help with keeping our students safe.

Your cooperation helps us maintain safe and efficient arrivals and departures for our students each day. Thank you for your understanding and working together to keep our students safe.

Reminder that our students riding bikes or scooters to school are required to wear a bike helmet.  Under Victorian road laws, all bike riders-regardless of age-are legally required to wear a securely fitted and fastened helmet that meets Australian safety standards.

Wearing a helmet significantly reduces the risk of head injuries in the event of a fall or collision. Additionally, students should always:

• Ride on the left side of the road or shared paths.
• Use bike lanes where available.
• Follow traffic signals and give way to pedestrians.
• Ensure their bike is in good condition, with working brakes and lights if riding in low light.

To reinforce these important safety measures, we do monitor bike riders and contact parents if a student is seen riding without a helmet. We urge all families to support their child in following these laws and staying safe on their journey to and from school.

Thank you for helping us keep our students safe!

Please note that e-scooter rules are now in effect in Victoria:

• Children under 16 are not permitted to ride e-scooters.
• E-scooters are not permitted on footpaths.
• Students will not be allowed to ride e-scooters or be on a scooter with a parent/carer to or from school, or on school grounds.

For more details, visit the VicRoads website.

Our NAPLAN assessments have now concluded, and we are incredibly proud of our Grade 3 and Grade 5 students for their confidence, resilience, and perseverance throughout the process.

In preparation for NAPLAN, teachers provided students with practice sessions to help them become familiar with the test format, develop effective strategies, and build confidence in their abilities. We encouraged all students to simply do their best, reassuring them that NAPLAN is just one of the ways to demonstrate their learning.

It’s important to remember that while NAPLAN provides a snapshot of student progress in literacy and numeracy, it does not capture the full picture of a child’s learning journey, strengths, or personal growth. At Mirniyan Primary School, we value ongoing assessments that consider not only academic development but also social, emotional, and individual learning needs.

A huge congratulations to our students for their hard work and positive attitudes during NAPLAN, we are so proud of you!

Students and staff marked International Women’s Day through classroom activities and discussions. Posters celebrating influential women were displayed throughout the school, encouraging meaningful conversations and reflection.

We came together on Friday 20th March to celebrate Harmony Week, one of my favourite days of the school year!  It is a special time in our school calendar when we recognise and celebrate the rich diversity that makes our community so strong, vibrant, and unique.

We celebrated Harmony Week and the 2026 theme, “Culture connects us all!”, highlighting the importance of inclusiveness, respect, and belonging.

Harmony Week we celebrate acceptance of everyone in our school community by wearing cultural dress or orange and sharing about our different cultures. It is also about understanding, respect, and belonging. It reminds us that no matter where we come from, what language we speak, or what traditions we follow, we are all part of one community-our school. Everyone belongs at Mirniyan Primary School.

At Mirniyan Primary School, we are proud of the many cultures, backgrounds, and stories that make up our students, families, and staff. Each one of you brings something valuable. Your ideas, your experiences, and your perspectives help make our school a better place for everyone.

This week and every day is an opportunity to reflect on the important message: Everyone belongs.

Belonging means feeling safe, valued, and respected for who you are. It means including others, showing kindness, and standing up when something isn’t right. We talk with our students about it being in the small actions- like inviting someone to play, listening to a different point of view, or learning how to say “hello” in another language.

Harmony doesn’t mean we are all the same. In fact, it’s our differences that make us stronger. When we learn from each other, we grow. When we respect each other, we build trust. And when we celebrate each other, we create a community where everyone can thrive.

We encourage our students in Harmony week-and every week-to think about how they can contribute to harmony in our school. We encourage them to ask themselves:

• Am I being kind?
• Am I including others?
• Am I showing respect?

And to know that each of them has the power to make a difference.

We will continue to work together as a school community to make Mirniyan Primary School a place where everyone feels they belong and has strong connections with others.

Congratulations to our student leaders who did an amazing job running our special assembly and to all of our students who proudly shared and spoke to us about their country of origin and taught us about their culture. I was extremely proud of how confident and eager our students were to stand at assembly and we all loved learning about their country of origin and different cultures.

Also, a big thank you to Mrs Formby and Miss Ziino for organising the day and assisting our student leaders to plan. Prepare and run a fully student-led assembly.

It was lovely to have so many families attend our special assembly on Friday. For the rest of the day, our students participated in activities that recognised and celebrated the rich cultural diversity within our school and the wider Australian community.

This term, our students thoroughly enjoyed participating in the STOMP dance incursion, where they explored movement and rhythm, as well as the Hoops basketball sessions, developing their skills with the support of experienced coaches.

Free resources for families of adolescents aged 10 to 14 years.

The Department of Education has launched an Easing into adolescence webpage for families of students aged 10 to 14 (Grade 5 to Year 8).

The webpage has information and strategies you can use to help ease your child into adolescence and secondary school. These include:

• a guide to emotion coaching. Staff from The University of Melbourne’s Tuning in to Teens Kids program developed the guidance.

• how to support your adolescent with their studies and more generally. Parenting expert and clinical psychologist Andrew Fuller helped develop this resource.

Subtitles for videos by The University of Melbourne on the webpage are available in 10 languages. You can select your preferred language on the translations page.

For questions about these resources, contact the Strategic Partnerships, Transitions and Student Voice team. You can email them at Secondary.School.Transition@education.vic.gov.au.

As parents and carers may be aware, staff at our school who are Australian Education Union (AEU) members have been negotiating, alongside teachers, education support staff, assistant principals, and principals from public schools around Victoria, with the state government and Department of Education for improvements to pay and employment conditions. Negotiations have been occurring over the last seven to eight months, and the state government has not made any offer at all to this point in time.

Currently, Victorian public schools are the lowest funded in Australia and there are significant staffing shortages across Victoria. Victorian public school teachers are also the lowest paid teachers in Australia, with many education support employees and school leaders paid less than their colleagues in other state and territories who do the same role.

AEU members are seeking pay increases and reductions to excessive workloads, with the aim of ensuring the retention of existing employees and the attraction of the next generation to enable the ongoing provision of a high-quality education to students. Because there had not been any offer, AEU members voted to endorse industrial action, with the union calling a statewide 24-hour stopwork on Tuesday 24 March, as the government did not respond properly to key claims.

The AEU has written to our school council outlining some of the issues that school staff need resolved, including school funding and staffing shortages, as well as pay and conditions. The union acknowledges that a decision to stop work is not one to be taken lightly and regrets the impact it has on students and their families, with the state government able to avoid such action if a fair and decent offer is made to employees.

It goes without saying that as a school community we support all of the staff in our school and expect them to be paid reasonably and have fair conditions of work. You can read the AEU’s letter here.

I would like to thank our school community for supporting our staff and school during the latest industrial action.

A reminder that the Department of Education has in place a mobile phone ban that requires students who bring mobiles phones to school to have them switched off and securely put away during school hours. The department is required all schools to ensure this ban is in place and enforced from the start of the 2026 school year. The ban applies equally to all government schools right across the state. This helps ensure that school is a learning environment free from unnecessary distractions and disruptions. By ensuring mobile phones are kept away at recess and lunch times, students can interact with each other face to-face, without the distractions and social pressures that mobile phones can cause.

I ask for the support of all our families, staff and students in continuing to support the implementation of this policy in our school. In the event of an emergency or if you need to immediately contact your child, I ask that families contact the school office who will pass on a message as required. A copy of our school’s local mobile phone policy, which implements the government’s mobile policy in line with our local context, is available on our website.  The Department’s Mobile Phone Use policy (link below) provides links to resources for families to help them balance their children’s time using mobile phones.

https://www.vic.gov.au/mobile-phones-schools

If you have further questions, please contact the school office.

I urge all parents to support our school by ensuring that their children have a sunhat with them at school. It is strongly encouraged for all children to develop this important life skill of sun protection. Sunhats are required for all students when they are outside at recess, lunch and during outdoor learning activities from August to the end of April and can also be worn outside this time period.

Students are also encouraged to apply sunscreen before school and bring it to school to apply before going outside. Thank you for your assistance with this very important matter.