The Windang Wave

From the Principal's Desk

Dear Parents & Families,

 

As we begin the spring school holiday break, I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the great learning, teaching and extra curricular opportunities provided for our students due to the incredible commitment from staff and families. 

 

Mr Murat Dizdar, Secretary of the NSW Department of Education visits Windang PS

Firstly, I’d like to extend my gratitude on behalf of our school and community to Mr Murat Dizdar, Secretary of the NSW Department of Education for prioritising a visit to our school. During his visit, we had the opportunity to showcase the exceptional teaching and learning that takes place everyday, as well as the refurbishments and builds that have been completed over the past three years. 

It was a wonderful opportunity for us to highlight the progress and achievements we have made as a school community, and, I am thrilled to share that Mr Dizdar was highly impressed with what he saw. In fact, he even took to Twitter to express his appreciation. He tweeted, "Today I saw great work on data & tracking student progress, as well as fantastic 'Talk to Writing' explicit instruction implemented across all classes. Thanks Loreta & team for all you're doing for the school community."

 

Later in an email Mr Dizdar commented: 

"It was fantastic to see the ‘Talk for Writing’ demonstration lesson to see how explicit instruction is helping students to produce more sophisticated and complex sentence structures in their writing. Miss Kemp had the full attention of her class in the lesson and the students enthusiastically recited their jointly constructed story with hand actions and all – well done!

 

Thank you for showing me the data wall you and your staff have created. Monitoring learning progress by collecting decodable reading and numeracy data on a regular basis will enable your teachers to analyse a student's current performance level, as well as evaluate growth. I know the data wall would provide rich examples of student achievement for professional conversations on teaching practice, lesson planning, and consistent judgement of assessments – all playing an important role in improving student academic outcomes.

 

Seeing the extensive refurbishment of your school that has been achieved in only 3 years was very impressive. This refurbishment was possible through your careful budgeting, seeking donations, and harnessing your creative problem-solving skills – you’ve demonstrated your astute entrepreneurship skills! 

 

Thank you again for welcoming me to your school. I came away from my visit to Windang Public School feeling inspired by all you have achieved in the last four years. Thank you for the important work you are doing to support your school community so well. Have a great end of term 3!"

 

Temporary to Permanent Appointment 

More exciting news continued, this time it was all about our long-term temporary staff. As part of the NSW Government’s Temporary to Permanent initiative, Mrs Gardiner, Mrs Ugrinovski and Miss Khaika have accepted permanent teacher positions, while Mr Panteli has accepted the General Assistant position. Together, they have contributed an impressive 27 years of dedication and contribution to our Windang family. We are incredibly fortunate to have such talented and committed individuals as part of our team. Their wealth of knowledge, skills, and experiences make our school better every day. 

 

Windang PS - BREAKS SOCIAL MEDIA RECORDS

On the final night of the competition in the race to become Wave FM's 2023 School of Year, Windang PS broke local social media records in the run to the finish line.

Wave FM's logo replaced countless local business and community profile pictures, supporting Windang PS's endeavour to take the crown of 2023 School of the Year! 

Mammoth effort by several P&C members, particularly Lisa Bassingthwaighte-Fogarty P&C President and Secretary Laura Aboozid. 

Some other highlights from Term 3

The term commenced with our school turning green and gold in support of the Matildas as they made history reaching the finals in the 2023 Women’s World cup along with bringing the entire nation together.

 

In week 6, our Southern Stars dancers joined 3000 students from 120 schools with the theme EMBRACE. This year we had double the number of students from previous years, a total of 35 students performed over the three days along with 40 students attending the matinee show. I’m extremely proud that our small school was able to strongly support this initiative which is a powerhouse for extraordinary opportunities and creating lifelong memories. 

 

The events continued from the heartwarming celebration of 100 days of Kindergarten, to the excitement of Education Week to the creativity and imagination showcased during the Book Week Parade. We also enjoyed the lively P&C School Disco, cheered on our students at various sporting events and witnessed the joy and learning that come from grade excursions.

 

This year we had the pleasure of hosting the Lake Learning Community Public Speaking Grand Final that included finalist from Windang PS, Primbee PS, Lake South PS, Warilla North PS, Mount Warrigal PS with the judges from Lake Illawarra HS. There is extraordinary talent in all our schools.

 

We celebrated the news that Ayland from Kindy and Annelise from Year 6, that their artworks were selected to represent NSW public schools as part of the Nagoya Sister City Art Exchange 2023. Ayland’s artwork will be displayed at the Nagoya Exhibition in Sydney with Annelise’s artwork displayed in Nagoya, Japan. 

 

Celebrations continued with;

  • Fluer achieving 10th place and Beckham placing 19th at the South Coast Regional Cross Country
  • Koa, our gifted and talented School Captain accepting a place in The Australian Ballet workshop with The Arts Unit
  • Acknowledgeing the dedicated school administrative and support staff (SASS) and ancillary staff with special student messages and a Principal's lunch as they are the backbone of our school operations
  • Presenting students with their merit, bronze and silver certificates and importantly celebrating student birthdays at our weekly SURF assemblies
  • Sharing the joy with Romeo, Hunter, Lexin, Jacob & Angus for reaching the U/12 football grand final with their teammates from the Warilla Wanderers 
  • Owen & Lachie winning their Tennis grand final 
  • staff members reaching milestone birthdays and
  • Mrs Dimovski & Mrs Curties welcoming their beautiful baby girls. 

NAPLAN 2023

From 2023, students’ results will be reported against 4 proficiency standards - replacing the previous 10-bands and national minimum standard. There are 4 proficiency levels for each assessment area at each year level:

  • Exceeding: the student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing.
  • Strong: the student’s result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing.
  • Developing: the student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing.
  • Needs additional support: the student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.

I am pleased to advise the school's internal assessment data aligns to each student's NAPLAN result along with the majority of Windang PS students achieving "Exceeding" or "Strong".  Further NAPLAN information is located on the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) website. There is information to help with reading student NAPLAN reports including a short video and brochure for parents and carers.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the staff, students and families for working together to make Windang PS a thriving and successful learning community. 

 

I look forward to seeing everyone back on Monday 9 October 2023 rested, recharged and ready for a mammoth term of teaching, learning, fun and our traditional end-of-year events. 

 

Warm regards, 

Mrs Loreta Kocovska

Principal

Windang Public School