A warm welcome to Hughes Primary School. Hughes Primary School is nestled in leafy grounds and provides an exemplary education to over four hundred and sixty students. Recent transformations have resulted in a dynamic, contemporary, colourful technology rich learning environment.

At Hughes, our mission is to create life-long learners who are committed to achievement, inclusion, resilience and respect.

Our Vision for Hughes Primary:

Hughes Primary School has mainstream classes from Preschool to Year 6. We host the Southside Primary Introductory English Centre (SPIEC), and a Learning Support Unit.

Our motto ‘Learning for Life’ captures our commitment to ensuring students have the knowledge, skills and experiences needed to be active and informed citizens.

The teaching teams at Hughes have very high levels of pedagogical knowledge and skill, including expert knowledge of teaching strategies, to improve student learning and wellbeing. The curriculum is rigorous and there are high expectations regarding meeting the needs of individual learners. Ongoing professional learning of all Hughes staff is an important priority as is the development of a whole school reflective culture focused on improving classroom teaching.

A celebrated feature of our school community is the dedicated and enthusiastic support of our parent community. Families are welcomed to be involved in our school at whatever level they can to ensure all children have a rich school curriculum. In 2016 we were awarded the ACT Public Education Awards Outstanding Partnership of the Year for our partnership with Woden Community Services. This partnership has seen the successful model of English Conversation classes for our international parents. We will continue to build upon opportunities for partnerships in 2017.

In 2020, we were finalists in the ACT Public Education Awards for our partnership with St. Andrews’ Retirement Village. The intergenerational connections that Hughes Primary School staff have fostered between our students and St. Andrews’ residents deserves to be celebrated! The benefits of engaging young people with older people are well researched. Our commitment is informed by extensive studies that demonstrate the importance of social connection and community participation on health and personal wellbeing - for older adults and children. We know that intergenerational programs improve psychological wellbeing and attitudes towards different generations. They also increase resilience. Our children benefit so much from the wisdom and perspective our older friends share.

Our school has two main values that underpin our work, our thinking and actions. We embrace the opportunity to actively promote our key values and beliefs. Our values are:

We invite current and prospective families to contact us if you would like to learn more about our programs or enrolment process.

Nina McCabe
Principal