Our School

Principal’s Message

At Mount Evelyn Primary School we pride ourselves on our friendly and supportive learning environment. We offer high quality curriculum programs, strong student wellbeing processes and enjoy working with families to ensure the best possible outcomes for all students. The school has exceptional teaching and learning spaces that are large, bright and welcoming.

Our students are immersed in and challenged through engaging and dynamic learning opportunities across all areas of the curriculum. Literacy and Numeracy is our core focus and teaching in these areas includes explicit instruction, group and partner work and independent learning. We have high expectations of all students.

We offer specialist classes in visual arts, performing arts, physical education, science and our students learn Auslan as a language. Extra Curricula opportunities are offered during the school day and after hours. Our strong instrumental music and choir programs are popular and students are invited to participate in State School Spectacular, Tournament of the Minds, Chess competitions and regional and district sporting opportunities. Our whole school production is held biennially and alternates with a visual arts extravaganza. We run our own Out of School Hours program which provides care before and after school hours and during school vacations.

The school values of respect, responsibility, care, safety and integrity are core to our focus on developing the whole child; academically, emotionally and socially. We use the Berry Street Educational Model to foster a sense of community and belonging, to develop a greater understanding of self and encourage our students to become resilient and self-motivated learners.

Our staffing profile reflects the depth and breadth of expertise and experience and this contributes to quality classroom programs. Our teachers are passionate educators who work hard to provide personalised and individualized instruction for all students. Continuous professional learning ensures that they are at the edge of current educational research and are able to effectively use acknowledged ‘best practice’ in learning and teaching methodologies.

We aim to foster strong partnerships between home and school as we recognise that the best educational opportunities arise when a positive relationship exists between home and school. We seek to create a real sense of belonging, involvement and collaboration in order to support children to reach their full potential. We look forward to working with you and encourage you to become actively involved in your child’s education.

Trevor Vass
Principal

History

A Brief History Of Our School

In July 1909, a two acre site in South Wandin Road was purchased from Charles Haworth for 40 pounds and in September the old building that had been SS1801 South Wandin, was moved to this site. The school, No 3642 then named Evelyn School, commenced in January 1910 under Head Teacher – Josephine Searle with an enrolment of 15.

In February 1913, the efforts of the Melbourne Board of Works staff and men, from the nearby contractor’s camp, saved the school from a bushfire. In 1923 the Committee requested a new building because of the deplorable state of the old one, eaten by white ants and unbearable in hot weather. Due mainly to the efforts of the Hon. W. Everard, MLA, a new building was ready by July 1924. New rooms were added in 1927 and 1933, enrolment having grown to 139 pupils by 1932. Further growth after the Second World War meant increased enrolment (320 by 1969) and accommodation.

In August 1959 the school’s name was changed to Mount Evelyn to conform to the general usage of the area. Early head teachers were Josephine Searle (1910), Alice M. Trant (1911 – 13), Allan M. Savige (1913 – 17), Eleanor J. Foster (1918 – 25), Andrew Jamieson (1926 – 29), Isaac Bell (1930 – 35) and Fred Baker (1936 – 39).
The school celebrated its 75th Anniversary during 1985.

A major upgrade commenced late in 1995 and was completed in 1996. A gymnasium, new library, administration block and major classroom refurbishment were important parts of this project. In 2002, two more excellent permanent classrooms were built and the school regained its community built multi-purpose room for PMP, Outside School Hours Care and a range of other school activities.

In 2002, long term Principal Paul Dixon retired after many years of outstanding service (10 as Principal) to the school. This was a period in which the school experienced significant growth in student numbers and as a result became able to offer an even more extensive range of programs.

July 2002 saw the arrival of Principal Phil Comport. Phil’s secondary science and information technology teacher background, as well as ten years in the secondary Principal Class saw him bring many ideas, but also many questions about primary learning.

Significant changes occurred in the ensuing years as the school sought to respond to the need for differentiated teaching to cater for the range of student interests, talents and capabilities. Deep interrogation of the relevant research, particularly for the early years of school, led to participation in consecutive Australian Government Quality Teacher Program action research and a formal DEECD Research Project. This work led to significant changes to learning and teaching approaches and amplified the need for the school’s now almost 100 year old facilities to be addressed.

In October 2006, the Minister for Education announced a $6.3M major upgrade and refurbishment for the school. After a rigorous master planning process and creation of an innovative and practical design, the project to modernisation the school facilities commenced in September 2008. The modernisation project initially provided for 90 % of the existing school buildings to be demolished and replaced, with most retained buildings to be fully refurbished. The advent of the Building the Education Revolution in 2010 resulted in another $2M being spent ensuring that all buildings were fully refurbished and indeed two other buildings being built.

After 15 months of building, the school has moved into new almost $9M facilities. This includes 12 new classrooms and 5 fully refurbished classrooms, including a purpose-built Foundation Centre. The new facilities also include new Art and Music Studios and a ‘Learning Street’ incorporating Library and other learning resources, as well as providing huge shared learning spaces. The Canteen and Outside School Hours Care facility are now also in new facilities and the school’s community-owned Multi-purpose Room has been fully refurbished and significantly enhanced. The new facilities are environmentally and sustainably designed, incorporating climate friendly building orientation, enhanced mechanical ventilation systems, tank water for toilet flushing, a solar grid and much more.

All classrooms, including the new Foundation room, have both indoor and outdoor components. The classrooms also adjoin shared flexible learning spaces including an investigations zone, a seminar space and resource centre/library. State of the art ICT infrastructure has been installed as a key aspect of the project, including data projectors and interactive whiteboards in each classroom. With 56 wireless notebook computers to supplement over 70 desktop computers, students are well served in ICT.

Outside, in addition to an amazing native garden landscape, the school has established vegetable, herb and bush food gardens which in a few short months have already produced a number of crops that have been sold at market days.

Another recent addition to the school grounds has been a 500m3 landscaped Rain Garden, gained through a joint sustainability project with a consortium headed by Melbourne Water, Yarra valley Water, Monash University and University of Melbourne. In addition to providing harvested stormwater for irrigation of the school’s newly refurbished and drought-proofed grass oval, the rain garden ensures that the school’s massive roof and hard paved areas do not cause inundation of the local Little Stringybark Creek, a tributary of the Yarra River.

The school celebrated its Centenary in 2010.

All in all, the school is still visibly driven by its values of integrity, care, respect and responsibility. Excellence, enjoyment, sustainability and a sense of community have driven the school through its proud history and will continue to drive the school into the future.