Each year, the Attitudes to School Survey (AtoSS) gives our students an important opportunity to tell us about their experiences at GIPS in grades 4-6. We are proud of our 2026 results, which show improvement across many measures of teaching, learning, wellbeing, inclusion and student voice.

Improved Teaching and Learning

Some of our growth is in the way students experience teaching in their classrooms. Effective teaching time increased from 90% to 96%, reflecting our continued whole-school focus on calm, purposeful classrooms where every minute of learning matters.

Our students also reported exceptionally strong results across key elements of high-quality teaching:

• “My teacher tells us what we are learning and why” increased from 88% to 97%.
• “My teacher asks questions to check we understand” increased from 95% to 96%.
• “My teacher asks me questions to challenge my thinking” increased from 89% to 95%.
• “My teacher explains difficult things clearly” increased from 90% to 96%.
• Support for reading and writing increased from 93% to 96%.

These results are pleasing because they closely reflect our 2026 professional learning and improvement priorities. Our teachers have worked consistently on clear learning objectives, retrieval strategies, explicit teaching, checking for understanding and ensuring students are actively thinking and participating throughout lessons.

Challenging and Supporting Every Learner

Students are also telling us that learning at GIPS is increasingly responsive to their individual needs. Differentiated learning challenge increased from 93% to 97%, while the proportion of students reporting that “My teacher understands how I learn” increased from 86% to 93%.

98% of students said their teacher helps them to do their best up from 97%, while 95% said their teacher gives them work that stretches their learning, up from 92%.

Belonging, Voice and Inclusion

Our vision at GIPS is Growth through belonging, a community where every child thrives.

Teacher concern increased from 80% to 86%, indicating that more students feel their teachers know them, care about them and are interested in their wellbeing.

Student voice and agency increased from 92% to 95%, demonstrating that our students increasingly feel heard and able to contribute to their learning and school experience.

Our sense of inclusion increased from 95% to 97%, while the proportion of students reporting that they had experienced racism decreased from 4% to 2%.

What Happens Next?

While these results give us much to celebrate, AtoSS is also an important tool for identifying where we can continue to improve.

The results have already been shared with our School Improvement Team and School Council, where we have begun considering both our strengths and opportunities for further growth.

Importantly, the next stage is to bring the data back to our students. Our Leading Teacher will work with students and facilitate student focus groups to explore the results in greater depth. We want to understand not just what the data tells us, but why students responded as they did and what they believe would make their experience at GIPS even stronger.

The feedback from these student focus groups, alongside our AtoSS data, will help us identify the areas we need to prioritise for the remainder of 2026 and into 2027.

We are proud of the progress reflected in these results, while remaining committed to listening, learning and improving. Most importantly, we will continue to ensure that student voice is central to the decisions we make about teaching, learning and wellbeing at GIPS.

In our classrooms

In Prep: Prep Excursion to Chesterfield Farm

The Preps had a wonderful day at Chesterfield Farm – their very first school excursion! They listened beautifully, followed instructions, showed care towards the animals and each other, and asked lots of great questions.

During the day, students enjoyed a tractor ride around the farm, watched a sheep dog show to see the sheep dog in action and had the opportunity to milk a cow. They walked around the paddocks, fed farm animals and visited the baby animal nursery.

The excursion provided many wonderful opportunities for students to build on their classroom learning about farm animals. They learnt about different animal features, what animals need to survive, how farmers care for them and the different roles animals have on a farm. It was fantastic to see students making connections between what they have been learning in the classroom and what they experienced firsthand at the farm.

A very big thank you to our wonderful parent volunteers who joined us on such a damp and chilly day.

What You Can Do to Support Learning at Home

Next week, our Preps will be taking part in a special Show and Tell. They will share their “What Am I?” clues, where students will give clues about a farm animal for their classmates to guess.

You can help your child prepare by encouraging them to think about the animals they saw and learnt about at Chesterfield Farm. They might share clues about an animal's features, where it lives, what it eats, how it moves or how farmers care for it.

Encourage your child to practise their “What Am I?” presentation at home in front of an audience. This could be family members, or even their favourite teddies and toys! Practising will help them feel confident and ready to share their ideas in front of the class.

We can't wait to hear all of their wonderful animal clues next week!

In grade one

Grade 1 students have been learning about Australian animals and their habitats.

1GL have been investigating the habitat of the Bilby. Students learnt how a habitat supports the needs and survival of animals. For example, a bilby’s habitat is the desert, so it is nocturnal and rests or sleeps during the day when it is hot.

We drew bilbies and created their desert habitat backgrounds using different art materials. We also wrote about the Bilby’s habitat, and learnt about how its features and adaptations help it to survive in its habitat.

At home you could:
Talk with your child about an Australian animal and investigate where it lives, what it eats, and how its features and adaptations help it survive in its habitat.

In grade two

This week, our Grade 2 students explored the idea of "Under My Love Umbrella" in their Writers Notebooks. They thought about the people who make them feel loved, safe and supported. It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to reflect on the important relationships in their lives and use their creativity to decorate their own umbrellas!

What you can do at home : Encourage children to share their ideas through drawing, writing or simply talking, helping them build vocabulary and confidence in expressing their thoughts and feelings.

In grade three

Our Grade 3 students have been busy learning how to create and represent different amounts of money using hands-on manipulatives. By working with coins, students are developing their understanding of the value of each denomination and exploring different ways to make the same amount. Using concrete materials has helped students connect mathematical ideas to real-life situations while practising counting, adding, and beginning to make change. It has been wonderful to see students explain their thinking and challenge themselves to find multiple ways to represent an amount.

You can support this learning at home by:

• Asking your child to help make money amounts if paying with cash,
• Discussing the ways we can pay for this in 2026 and how it has changed over time and,
• Practicing mental addition and subtraction equations which relate to making 100.

In grade four

We have been busy putting practical skills to the test during financial maths. We have looked at Australian currency, how dollars and cents represent wholes and parts (decimals), and how to round up to the nearest cent and dollar. We have used a classroom bank to look at savings and how we can add our savings towards a goal. Some of our addition and subtraction methods have included rounding and compensating, vertical and number lines. We have used these methods when adding grocery products and to estimate and calculate change received.

How you can help at home:

• The best way to support your child is to continue practical tasks such as adding grocery items, rounding to the nearest dollar and estimating change for different bank notes.

Welcome back campers!

Our 5/6 students went to Anglesea last week. It was a tremendous camp! Students built their resilience, competed in team challenges, laughed at trivia and enjoyed Mr Collopy-White's favourite movie. The weather was kind to us as we paddled our canoes and dug for treasure. We want to send a special thank you to our parent volunteers who helped us over the three days.

Grade 5 and 6 have been reflecting on their camp experience, what they enjoyed and how they showed resilience!

Grade 5 has begun planning their narrative stop and pause writing this week. We are focussing on executing a solid interesting and transformative ending for the characters in our narratives. Please discuss how characters transform throughout their lit circle novels at home. You may also discuss how authors of their favourite books have ended their own writing and how they may use similar strategies within their own writing.

In art class

Year 3 students have studied the traditional artwork of Indigenous Australians and the concept of mapping country. The students created a ‘birds eye view’ of their community, their home and the places they visit. Students sketched and painted their artwork exploring tonal colour themes. To finish students investigated the use of patterns and symbols in Indigenous artwork and created symbols and patterns of their own. The beautiful artworks created are now on display in the library.

En clase de español

Year 3 students continue to develop their Spanish vocabulary and understanding of sentence structures through our short book, Las Aventuras de Coco. Each new chapter follows Coco on a different adventure, giving students opportunities to recognise familiar words, discover new vocabulary and build their confidence in reading and understanding Spanish.

Our Gardening Club

Our Gardening Club meets every Friday at lunchtime, supported by Lindal, Christie and Karen and continues to be very popular with students. It is wonderful to see so many enthusiastic gardeners working together to care for and improve our school grounds. Students enjoy planting, watering, weeding and learning about how plants grow. The club provides a lovely opportunity for students to connect with nature, develop new skills and take pride in their school environment. We look forward to watching our garden continue to grow and flourish!

In our staff room

Our literacy leader Miss Cofield supports teams throughout the term. Read below for her advice on ways parents can help improve reading fluency at home.

Reading Fluency: What Does it Sound Like?

Reading fluency is the ability to read accurately, smoothly and with expression. As children become more fluent readers, they can spend less effort working out words and more time understanding and enjoying what they read.

For Prep and many students in Year 1, regular reading of decodable texts is an important part of developing fluency. Encourage your child to read their take-home decodable book more than once. The first read may involve sounding out unfamiliar words, but rereading helps children become more accurate, smooth and confident. If the same book comes home again, read it again!

Across all year levels, take-home reading is a great way to build fluency. Whether the book comes from school, the library or home, encourage your child to read aloud regularly. A variety of books gives children opportunities to enjoy different types of stories and texts, while building confidence and a love of reading.

You can support fluency at home by:

• Model fluent reading: Read aloud and show your child what smooth, expressive reading sounds like.
• Reread: Encourage your child to reread familiar books and passages.
• Read together: Take turns reading, or read a passage together.
• Give thinking time: If your child makes a mistake, give them time to work out the word.

Most importantly, good reading isn’t about racing through a book. It is about reading accurately, smoothly and with expression, while making sense of and enjoying the book.

A few minutes of reading aloud and rereading each day can make a real difference.

Happy reading!

In our community

Go Fund Me for Brooke

Recently our class reps shared the news of the passing of a member of our community, Brooke. Aiden (c/o 2024) and Edie's (c/o 2025) family have set up a Go Fund Me to help support the children.

https://gofund.me/af317ad38

Funeral details can be found below.

Friday 21 August at 1.00pm
Heritage Funerals
733 Boronia Road, Wantirna

Parent Evening - AUG 29 - Tickets Are Selling!

Join us for a night designed just for parents - make the most of time with GIPS and enjoy a relaxed mid‑year breather. Your participation directly supports the Student Furniture Upgrade Project, helping us create a better environment for our kids.

What’s coming up?

• 🏫 School pride - support GIPS and contribute to the school environment
• 🎉 Connection - meet other GIPS parents and enjoy friendly conversations
• 🎭 Entertainment - light, easy fun and a relaxed atmosphere
• 😊 Low‑effort socialising - no hosting, no planning, no logistics - just show up and enjoy

Tickets are $65 per person. If you haven’t booked yet, this is the perfect moment to secure your seat. Book Parent Evening Tickets. Thank you all for your continued support! Tickets will close Sunday at midnight.

Congratulations Alice!

Alice H in 6SB competed in the Australian Pool Rescue championship last week, in Adelaide. She competed against 12/13 year olds from all over Australia testing their life saving skills, athletic speed and underwater manoeuvres. Alice won a treasure trove of medals and we are super proud of her efforts!

Crafternoon

Thank you to all of our parents, grandparents and siblings who came to our crafternoon to sew costumes for our upcoming school production! Check out intergenerational sewing at work below!

Ben Wood books

Ben Wood, illustrator of the Real Pigeons, is joining GIPS on 24 August for all grades. Ben has partnered with The Little Bookroom to make the author visit extra special. Families have the opportunity to purchased signed books which will be delivered for free to the school before the end of the term. All you need to do is order the books you would like signed at their online shop: https://shop.littlebookroom.com.au/

You must provide the following details in the notes section of the checkout:

• Your school
• Your child’s name and class
• Ben Wood’s name
• The date of the visit (24 August)

Order cut off is 25 August. Don’t forget, RA Spratt is also coming to GIPS on the same day in grades 2-6. Directions for how to order her books were sent in a separate newsfeed last week.

Happy reading!

GIPS

Book week is almost here!

Book Week is less than a month away, and excitement is already building here at GIPS! This year is extra special as the Children's Book Council of Australia celebrates the 80th anniversary of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards. The 2026 theme, Symphony of Stories, celebrates the wonderful mix of stories, characters and imaginations that books bring together.

In the lead-up to Book Week, every class will be reading and enjoying this year's CBCA shortlisted books, discovering new favourites and celebrating the joy of reading together.

At GIPS, Book Week is always a highlight of the school calendar. Along with exciting author visits, we'll once again celebrate with our annual Book Week Parade on Tuesday 25 August. So it's time to start re-reading your favourite books, dream up a costume and perhaps even dust off the hot glue gun!

Further details about our Book Week celebrations and parade will be shared with families in the coming weeks. We can't wait to see the creative ways GIPS students bring their favourite book characters to life once again!