Across Oliver's Desk 

Dear Parents & Carers,

After the wonderful start to the year when Carlton finally defeated Richmond, I was far too confident we would do it again. Great thing about footy is there is almost always next week. This week I’m again confident that Carlton will win against Fremantle!

CHANGE TO OUR BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL CARE PROVIDER

A number of weeks ago our School Council decided to put our before and after school care out to tender. After careful consideration School Council has decided to change from our current provider CIRE services, to Mt Evelyn P.S. This change will mean some extra paper work for parents as all children will have to be enrolled with the new provider. We are hoping for a smooth transition to our new provider. CIRE will continue to be our provider until July the 22nd. We will provide more information to parents soon. If you have any questions about this please come and talk to Nat in the office, Flick or myself. 

REPORTS

Flick and I have been reading student reports over the past week and there are a few things that I thought about as I was reading. Firstly, teachers spend lots of time assessing student learning using a variety of strategies and this approach really does provide an accurate and holistic over-view of where students are placed on the continuum of learning. 

Secondly, teachers then use the information collected, as well as their thorough knowledge of every student, to write reports that are truly individualised and aimed at providing a clear picture of how every student has progressed in their education journey. 

It should be acknowledged that teachers spend many hours going over assessment data and writing student reports in their own time, often at home and usually on weekends. We are so very fortunate at WYPS to have dedicated and ‘student centred’ teachers who work very hard each and every day to provide our students with such great learning opportunities. 

This year we have blended ongoing work samples with the normal reports. We are hoping that what we have done is given parents a more complete picture of student achievement and next steps for improvement. 

We will put out a survey next term to ask how you are feeling about our school’s reports. As always our school is striving to improve. 

I must admit that I have loved reading the half year reports because they are so positive and show how much students are improving and how much they love their teachers and their school. 

Reports go out on compass this Friday.

NEW COVID RULES

Last week the government changed the rules for mandated vaccinations in government school settings. That really does not affect our school as everyone on our staff is already fully vaccinated. 

A further change to the pandemic orders is that from 11.59pm on Friday 24 June 2022, parents/carers who are COVID-19 positive can leave self-isolation to transport children to or from school via a private vehicle.

The parent/carer must travel directly to and from the school only. They must remain in the vehicle at all times, unless it is reasonably necessary to leave the vehicle to walk the child to and from the entrance of the school safely. Parents in this situation must wear a face mask at all times.

SPEECH COMPETITION 

At WYPS we value the teaching of public speaking. As we are with most things, we teach public speaking in a sequential, practical way. Last week on the radio I heard that the number one fear in Melbourne is public speaking! Even bigger than the fear of spiders. It made me think that we are definitely on the right track with the way our school is trying to stop this issue. 

Our speech competition highlights the progression and the complexity of expectations at every level. Bella McCamley highlighted this as one of our grade 3 speakers. Her speech went for around 2 minutes, she memorized her speech and used good strong content to persuade the audience (the speech was about, drink driving being dangerous). Every year level was impressive and I could see how much work had gone into the speeches. Our junior school will have their own school competition in fourth term. 

Every year I go to the Yarra Valley Inter-School competition and I can see the difference in preparation between our students and others. I believe our students do well because they are taught, voice projection, content, timing and the structure of a good speech. Most importantly the way we structure the class competition and then the final, gives our students many examples of good speakers. 

The grade five and six finals this year were exceptional and I was very uncomfortable being a judge because it is so hard to pick one winner. I would have been happy to send any of them through to compete at the next level at the inter-school championships. We have won the competition eight years in a row and I have to say after watching our grade five and six students on Tuesday, the other schools will have to be incredible to beat them.

I hope to have some of the speeches uploaded to our website sometime soon so that you can all see just how amazing these speeches are. 

I would like to thank our teachers and parents for how well taught and prepared all the students were.

Congratulations to all the finalists that competed on Tuesday. You are all winners.

DOGS ON SCHOOL GROUNDS

I’m sure you are all aware that we are a very dog friendly school. However, the dogs that we do allow on school grounds have had dog training. Yes, even though he might not look like it, my dog ‘Donny’ has had training to be around children. 

We do have a policy that states that dogs can only be on school grounds if they are approved. Therefore as much as we love dogs, can you please leave them at home unless you are bringing them in for a special show and tell.  Big dogs at the gates that children don’t know can be scary for them. 

I ask for your understanding on this matter.

STEPS WINNERS

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do a steps winner’s morning tea this week but we will do one in the first week back from the break. The following students are our winners. Congratulations to them for being so wonderful in class.

EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS

The excellence award goes to the student the teacher has judged as the best student for the term. Taking into account, the school’s values, academic growth, persistence and manners. 

The following are this term’s winners. Which will be presented with their awards at Friday’s assembly at 2:10pm. 

Badge Code:

1. White =            1st time winner             
2. Green =           2nd time    “
3. Pink =              3rd time    “
4. Yellow =          4th time     “
5. Orange =      5th time    “   (We have not as yet had a student win the excellence award five times)

Jelly Bean Winner

Congratulations to Occy Maloney,  1/2D who correctly guessed that there were 2,578 yummy Jelly Beans in the jar.   Well Done Occy !

Please remember Friday is an early finish. Students will be dismissed at 2:30pm. 

I hope all our families have a wonderful winter break. Thank you as always for your wonderful support of great school!