Spensley Street Primary School

☕️💛 PCA Stay & Play — This Friday from 9am!

One of the loveliest things about Spensley Street is the friendships and connections that happen beyond the classroom — and for more than 100 years, the SSPS PCA has been helping make those connections happen.

This Friday, after drop-off, all SSPS parents and carers are invited to join us for a relaxed morning tea and catch-up.

Stay for five minutes or an hour. Catch up with old friends, meet some new ones, organise a play date for the holidays or simply enjoy a cuppa and a chat.

Little siblings are very welcome and can enjoy the playground while the grown-ups connect.

No agenda, no volunteering required, just a chance to slow down for a moment and enjoy the company of our wonderful school community.

📅 Friday
⏰ From 9am

We’d love to see you there! 😊

Our last P1 Readaloud for Term 2 is on the very last day of term - Friday the 26th June.
Our special monthly P1 Readalouds are a time for parents, carers, grandparents and family members of students in P-6 can come and read with our Preps and Year 1s, and listen to them read. These moments help build our community and nurture a lifelong love of reading.

🗓️Friday 26th June
🕓9:10-9:40

Open to SSPS families only 💛

🌈 PART 3 — 50 Years of Multi-Age Learning

✨An Idea Ahead of Its Time ✨

When Spensley Street embraced open-plan, multi-age learning in the early 1970s, it was a bold and progressive move. Not everyone was convinced. Some families questioned children learning across year levels, open learning spaces and team teaching. It was a very different vision of education.

But the staff believed in it — and it worked.

Teachers planned together, shared their expertise and built curriculum collaboratively. Students learned alongside older and younger peers, benefiting from role models, leadership opportunities and friendships that extended beyond a single year level. Just as importantly, children could be supported or extended according to their individual needs, rather than by age alone. The school building itself was designed to foster connection and collaboration for the whole community.

As former SSPS teacher Rhonda Baker reflected in 1976:

“I feel like saying … [to colleagues who worked in more conservative areas] … you don’t know what you’re missing — so much satisfaction, so much reward, so much learning about teaching. This school has always had a history of looking at other issues that are related to the child, not just academic but social aspects.”

Fifty years later, those ideas haven’t just endured — they’ve flourished. Generations of SSPS families have experienced the benefits of multi-age learning, and perhaps that’s the real story of Spensley Street. What once felt bold and unconventional has become one of the school’s greatest strengths — a learning philosophy built around curiosity, collaboration and caring for the whole child that continues to shape our community today. 💛

Are you a part of the SSPS story? We would love to hear from you! Please join our SSPS Anniversary Reunion Facebook group via the link in our bio 💙

PART 2 — The Principal Who Shaped Modern SSPS

✨ THE PRINCIPAL WHO HELPED SHAPE THE SSPS WE KNOW TODAY ✨

Meet Jim Hewitt

In 1972, while Spensley Street students were still learning in portable classrooms on the muddy Walker Street site, a new principal arrived.

His name was Jim Hewitt, and his ideas would leave an incredible legacy.

Jim had worked in curriculum development across Victoria and believed schools should be places where children, teachers and parents learned together. When he arrived, he wrote down his vision for the future of Spensley Street — and, reading it today, it’s hard to believe it was written more than 50 years ago.

He imagined a school where:
💛 learning happened in a happy atmosphere
🤝 teachers planned and worked together
🌱 children learned through real experiences
🎨 creativity and culture mattered
🌍 the school belonged to the whole community
✨ every child was recognised as an individual

He trusted teachers as professionals, encouraged them to take risks and try new ideas, and believed students should play an active role in their own learning. He even introduced first names for teachers and replaced the school bell with music! (Although we’re quietly relieved his idea that male teachers should wear long socks with their shorts didn’t stand the test of time. 🧦😂)

Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that his vision still sounds incredibly familiar. Community, collaboration, curiosity, inclusion and joyful learning continue to sit at the heart of SSPS today.

And one of the boldest ideas of all? The open-plan, multi-age learning model that was just beginning to take shape…

Curious to see 50 years of innovative, inclusive and inspiring education in action? Come and experience our multi-age learning spaces for yourself at one of our upcoming Prep Tours — this Friday 12 June or Friday 17 July. We’d love to meet you! Booking link in bio. 🌿✨

✨ PART 1 — Rising From The Ashes ✨

A New School for a New Era

When the original Spensley Street School was destroyed by fire in 1970, our community lost a much-loved building… but they also gained an extraordinary opportunity.

By then, the grand old Victorian school had served generations of local families, but it was showing its age. Enrolments had grown, classrooms were crowded and the school community had spent years advocating for better facilities and more space for students to learn and thrive.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Across Victoria, ideas about education were changing rapidly, and when the new Spensley Street Primary School opened in 1976, it became one of the first schools built around the revolutionary concept of open-plan learning.

Gone were the small, enclosed classrooms. In their place came four large, flexible learning areas, a modern library and purpose-built spaces designed for collaboration, creativity and connection — ideas that felt bold at the time but have shaped generations of SSPS students ever since.

The new building wasn’t simply a replacement for the old one. It reflected a new way of thinking about children and learning: that students thrive when they have opportunities to work together, explore, make choices and connect with others.

Little did the SSPS community know in 1976 that they weren’t just opening a new building — they were beginning a 50-year journey of embracing new ideas and reimagining what learning spaces could be.

And speaking of new beginnings… in our next post we’ll meet the principal whose vision helped shape the SSPS we know and love today. Stay tuned as we continue the story — and reveal the next chapter in the evolution of our learning spaces. 👀💛

Were you a part of the SSPS story? We are celebrating our 135 year anniversary! Please join our SSPS Reunion Facebook group via our link in bio.

Area 2 want to share some messages with our community about racism. After engaging with some videos and texts about the value of diversity, and the impacts of racism, each class discussed their thoughts with one another to come up with a main message (or 3) that they wanted to share with our whole SSPS community.

💚2MG say: At SSPS racism is NOT ok.

🤎2SK say: Be proud of who you are.

💜2ET say: One little thing you say can have a big impact on someone. Racism isn’t just rude to one person, it can be rude to a lot of people in that culture, which is why you shouldn’t even be racist in private. It can make you feel bad when you realise what you’ve done. The only way to talk about racism is against it!

We hope you enjoy reading about our amazing students’ thoughtful and emerging understandings on this important issue.

Happy holidays! ✨

Nothing says end of year at SSPS like our traditional throwing of hats in the air! 🎓👒

Wishing all our Spensley St families and friends a joyful festive season and a beautiful summer break 💫☀️💛

LET’S GO SIXES, LET’S GO 👏👏👏
Well done to our Year 6s who defeated the teachers today with style, joy and good humour in our annual Grade 6s vs Teachers rounders game on the last day of school!

🌱 Big Ideas for Little (and Big!) Changemakers 🌏♻️

This semester, our whole-school inquiry has focused on sustainability, bringing students of all ages together to explore big questions that really matter.

Through our inquiry-based, multi-age learning, students have been wondering, questioning, researching, and learning from one another — authentically building holistic understanding through collaborative real-world connections.

We were lucky to welcome parents from our school community to share how sustainability connects to their work. Recently, Chris and Sian spoke with our Year 4–6 students about the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, helping them explore renewable and non-renewable energy sources and how these choices impact our environment. ⚡🌿

We’ve also loved seeing students from across all year levels share their learning at assemblies. From posters and persuasive writing to creative ways of reusing waste, our students have inspired us all to think more sustainably in everyday life. 🎨📝♻️

Inquiry, community, and multi-age learning in action, it’s the Spensley Street way! We’re so proud of our change makers! 💚

The Friendly Moving Men have been supporting and loads of other government school fetes for over a decade! Thank you so very much for your ongoing support, we couldn’t do it without you. If you are planning a move you won’t find a more reliable or cheerful bunch than them! Join us 25 October for what’s sure to be another fabulous Tempting Fete 🎉😍🤩
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