Enrolment & Transition

School Tours & Enrolment

Highvale Primary is a welcoming, caring, high achieving school with a clear focus on student wellbeing and learning.

We invite interested families to join a Wednesday morning School Tour at 9.30am with the principal. Tours provide a valuable opportunity to see our learning programs in action, meet the principal and other staff and experience the unique characteristics of Highvale Primary School.

Bookings are essential – Please call Andrea and Bec in the office:

For information on how to enrol your child for Prep 2025, go to the Starting School page on the Victorian Government website.

You may like to use FindMySchool to locate our school in reference to your residential address. Further information regarding the Department of Education Placement Policy can be found at Placement Policy.

We look forward to meeting you.

Further information is provided below.

Preschool to Prep Transition Program

We believe a smooth transition from Preschool to Prep (Foundation) is vital to provide a positive start to school life for each child and their parents.

Through participation in this program, children are provided with the opportunity to meet and become familiar with staff, our school environment and importantly, the children they will enter school with the following year.  This creates a wonderful opportunity for each  child to develop a sense of belonging, trust and familiarity which builds a positive mind set in preparation for commencing Prep.  As well, our teachers are able to interact with, build relationships and familiarise themselves with each child as an individual.  Participation in this program also enables teachers to know and understand each child’s abilities, strengths, talents and areas where support may be required.  Knowing this information prior to the commencement of the school year enhances planning and preparation for the school year and maximises the effectiveness of a strong home and school partnership.

Prep

Once your child commences Prep at Highvale, our focus is on developing the foundation knowledge, skills and understandings required to ensure your child has a great start to their primary school years.  The learning that each child experienced prior to starting school is assessed through formal and informal tasks which assist teachers to understand the diverse learning needs of each child. This is ongoing.

This information is used together with the continuum of learning from the Victorian Curriculum to plan differentiated learning tasks.  Our aim is to ensure that all students are engaged in learning which embeds and builds upon what is currently known.  This takes a great deal of expertise and time which is why our teachers work in Professional Learning Teams to actively support each other’s work and ensure each student experiences success in their learning.

Throughout Prep there is a deep focus on the five curriculum areas of English, Mathematics, The Arts, Health and Physical Education, and Personal and Social capabilities.  This includes explicit teaching of synthetic phonics as an essential building block for reading, writing and spelling.  Students are also introduced to foundation Science and Humanities concepts.  Through this learning the foundations of positive attitude, self-esteem, sense of achievement and a love of learning are also established. You can find out more about the areas of the curriculum here.

Our curriculum framework and evidence based teaching practices are designed to cater for the needs of all children so that their learning is relevant, meaningful and paced appropriately.  The Prep program features:

• A deep understanding and provision for the diverse range of maturity, experiences, values and abilities with which children start school.
• A focus on individual needs and learning goals, both social and academic so that each child’s learning growth is explicitly evident and monitored.
• Explicit teaching of Cooperative Learning skills.
• Additional support for students at Level 2 or 3 of our Response To Individual Needs (RTI) Model.  This may be corrective or extension within or external of the classroom.
• A strong emphasis on English and Mathematics to build the required foundation knowledge, skills and understanding.
• Intervention support for EAL (English as an Additional Language) speakers.
• Authentic opportunities for the provision of parent engagement in student learning.
• Specialist STEAM (Science, Technology & Engineering, Arts, Mathematics including foundation robotics and coding), Performing Arts, Physical Education (including swimming) and Languages (Mandarin & German) programs.
• Contemporary learning tools including desktop computers, iPads in every room, laptops, interactive whiteboards and screens.

Before/After School and Vacation Care program is available to all students.