Principal’s Message

Principal's Message

On behalf of our students, staff and families, welcome to Deepdene Primary School.

We pride ourselves on being a community that is open and friendly, and with a sincere desire for parents to take an active part in their children’s schooling. Please browse through this website as a starting point in the journey for the selection of a primary school that will best meet your child’s needs.

Our school provides a safe, harmonious, and stimulating learning environment, where academic achievement and student wellbeing is prioritised and nurtured by our enthusiastic and experienced team of teachers. We care for, and appreciate, each of our students as unique individuals, each with distinct talents, interests and needs.

At Deepdene Primary School, we offer Visual Arts, Performing Arts, STEM, Physical Education and French. There is also an outstanding Instrumental Music program available. Students are able to join a variety of performing bands such as the Symphonic band, a Jazz band or Chamber strings.

Our values of Respect, Responsibility, Honesty, Inclusion, Compassion and Integrity are at the heart of what we do and are very much lived values within our school community. These values underpin the basis of how we interact with each other and our environment. Our values support the development of positive social and relationship skills for our students, and a strong sense of themselves as individuals.

We love having our parents participating actively within our school community and encourage this connection through school events and activities. Helping in the classroom, volunteering for excursions or camps, parent/teacher interviews or involvement in school council are ways to participate in our community and play a part in your child’s schooling experience.

The school has a dedicated Parent’s Association who run a rigorous fundraising agenda and the coordination of social events to connect our wonderful community. I hope that through your participation and interest you will come to feel very much a part of our school and its community.

We look forward to meeting you soon.

Tim Green
Principal

School Vision & Values

Deepdene Primary School | CompassionHonestyIntegrityRespectResponsibilityInclusion

Deepdene Primary School’s vision is to provide a high functioning learning community that engages, inspires and supports students to achieve their best and become caring lifelong learners and to continue to foster strong relationships based upon mutual respect with an appreciation of our cultural diversity. We value quality teaching and providing learning opportunities for all students.
Deepdene Primary School’s objective is to provide our students with a wide variety of educational opportunities that will enable them to reach their full potential and achieve success academically, socially and personally. We aim to provide a differentiated curriculum program that is inclusive and developmental and caters for a wide range of abilities in a caring and supportive environment. It is most important that children are happy and engaged during their seven years at Deepdene Primary School.

Deepdene Primary School’s values are compassion, honesty, integrity, respect, responsibility and inclusion.

The whole school approach to student welfare focuses on the values of:

Care and Compassion – care for self and others
Doing Your Best – try hard and pursue excellence
Honesty – be honest, sincere, truthful and trustworthy
Integrity – ensure consistency between words and deeds
Respect – treat others with consideration and respect another person’s point of view
Responsibility – contribute to the school community and take care of the environment
Understanding, Tolerance and Inclusion – show understanding of others and their cultures,
treating all people fairly

Student Voice & Leadership

The key aspects of our Student Voice and Leadership program are the implementation and utilisation of student voice, agency and leadership. These aspects of our programs improve our students’ outcomes in relation to their sense of school pride, sense of belonging and their levels of engagement.

At Deepdene Primary School these aspects of developing our students into independent, forward thinking ‘world ready’ young people are central to our practice.

Student agency refers to the level of autonomy and power that a student experiences in the learning environment. Student voice and agency are intrinsically linked. Agency gives students the power to direct and take responsibility for their learning, creating independent and self-regulating learners.

Student leadership is not confined to a small group of individuals, as leadership potential is inherent within all learners. Student leaders have an increased sense of responsibility to help others and to model leadership principles and values. Trust, autonomy and relationships are enhanced through the development of leadership qualities.

Student leadership at Deepdene Primary School provides all of our students the opportunity to lead.

This may be through representing their class (Foundation to Level Six) as part of our School Representative Council, or in a learning environment where the guided inquiry delivery of Integrated studies allows them to lead the direction of their learning and to collaborate effectively in teams.

For students in our senior school there is an expectation that all of our students will lead.

In Level Five, all of our students are part of the ‘Buddy Program’ where they demonstrate responsibility and caring in a supportive environment. Each year every student is allocated a Foundation ‘Buddy’ who they develop a caring relationship with over the year. Students meet regularly and the Buddy Program allows for collaborative activities that are led by the Level Five students. They assist the younger students in reading, numeracy and other activities. These highly valued relationships continue into the Level Six year.

Every student in Level 6 is a student leader. This model maximises student engagement at this transitional stage in both education and life. Our students are guided through a variety of leadership opportunities during the year including running school tours for prospective parents, to the large variety of leadership roles available.

At Deepdene Primary School we have student leaders in the following areas:

School Captains, House captains (for Cottee, Landy, Fraser and Bradman), Library Captains, Festival Singers, Music Captains, Chess Captains, SRC Captains, French Captains, Art Captain, STEM Captains, Digital Technicians

Each of the roles carries a variety of responsibilities designed to promote the school values of responsibility, integrity, caring for others, respect and honesty.

Staffing 2024

Leadership

Tim Green

Principal

Christine Vlahos

Assistant Principal

Foundation

Rachel Abraham

Foundation, Area Leader

Frank Vlahos

Foundation

Year 1

Marion Goutos

Level 1

Louise Barnes

Level 1

Stephanie Rose

Level 1

Year 2

Kath Maher

Level 2, Learning Specialist

Clare Deane-Johns

Level 2

Andrew Robinson

Level 2, Area Leader

Year 3

Sammy Saxton

Level 3, Area Leader

Danielle Hanna

Level 3

Year 3/4

Annabel Cameron

Level 3/4

Year 4

Sue Evangelakos

Level 4, Learning Specialist

Caroline Nitsos

Level 4

Year 5

Chloe Beale

Level 5

Tristan Schwaiger

Level 5

Year 6

Katherine Demiris

Level 6

Manny Giannopoulos

Level 6, Area Leader

Specialists

Simon Upchurch

STEM, Area Leader

Alex Kapetanakis

Visual Arts

Thomai Noonan

French / EAL

Russell Johnstone

PE

Jillian Reid

Performing Arts

Stefanie Hawking

Learning Tutor

Education Support

Kim Hastings

Business Manager

Emma Pringle

Office Staff

Fiona Zhang

Education Support

Jackson Ramunni

Education Support

Sujeewa Costa

ICT Technician

Peng Chu

ICT Technician

School Council

School Councils are legally formed bodies that set the directions of a school within centrally provided guidelines. In doing this, a School Council is able to directly influence the quality of education that the school provides for its students.

The broad role of School Council is to oversee the:

Establishment the broad direction and vision of the school within the school’s community
Development and monitoring the school Strategic Plan
Development, review and update of school policies
Development, review and monitoring the Student Code of Conduct and the School Dress Code
Fundraising for school related purposes
Approval of the annual budget and monitoring of expenditure
Maintenance the school’s grounds and facilities
Entering into contracts (e.g. cleaning, construction work)
Annual Report to the school community and to DET

and to stimulate interest in the school generally.

The School Council does not manage the day to day running of the school. For example, it does not employ teaching staff, decide which classes students will be assigned to, or sort out issues relating to individual teachers and students and/or parents. Nor does it discuss individual issues relating to teachers or staff, parents or students – these are very clearly management roles, and therefore the Principal’s job.

Membership of School Council:
Within the School Council, there are three categories of members:

A mandated elected parent category
A mandated elected DET employee category
An optional co-opted community member category

The Principal is an ongoing member and Executive Officer of the School Council.

The term of office for all elected members is two years. Half the members withdraw each year and may stand for re-election, creating vacancies for the annual school council nominations.

Meetings are held in the staff room at 6pm, on two Wednesdays each term.