A Word from the Principal 

A warm welcome to our community

Welcome back to term three!  That break certainly went too quickly so I hope you have all enjoyed having your children home for the holidays.  This is our first newsletter for the term. 

End of an Era and a Farewell

As you are all aware, our business manager, Kerryn Cheetham has been on long service leave and after many years of deliberating, she has decided to hand in her resignation and head on into retirement.  Congratulations Kerryn! 

Kerryn has worked at Weeden Heights PS for a significant amount of time….25 years!  She began as a parent in 2000 when her eldest daughter started school and in that very same year, she was employed as an integration aide. This progressed into working in the office and eventually working her way up to the business manager role in my time.

She fondly recalls the changes that have taken place over this time and sadly, we lose a big part of our history as Kerryn moves onto her next exciting chapter in life.  She has cherished her time at our school and has made significant contributions that go well and above her job description, serving on school council, PFA, sub committees, leading school fetes, family fun nights and any school event really.  To be honest, she generally has her ‘hand’ in everything!  She has seen our school go through massive changes which include two capital works projects, survived all of our flooding and endured running the office during remote learning.  She has bought her energy and ideas to fundraising, initially as a parent on PFA and later as the school’s business manager.  We have benefited significantly from her creativity and fabulous ideas that support leadership and the school.  Kerryn cherishes all her connections with family and our staff over the past 25 years. 

Words cannot express the thanks that Kerryn deserves for her dedication to Weeden Heights PS.  She has been a part of every aspect of the school and we will find her work everywhere.  On behalf of our Weeden Heights PS community, I would like to sincerely thank Kerryn and congratulate her on her 25 years of dedicated and outstanding service to Weeden Heights PS.  We wish you all the best as you head off on caravan holidays and enjoy your new found hobby….gold detecting!  Good luck!

PS, you will still see Kerryn around the school at times as I will employ her to take on small projects and provide support for the school and staff.

Welcome to Sarah Mcdonell

I would now officially like to welcome our new business manager, Sarah Mcdonell.  Sarah is an experienced business manager who previously worked at Solway Primary School.  At the start of the year, she had the opportunity for a great handover with Kerryn to ensure that our school continues to operate consistently and she has been employed as our business manager since mid-way through term one.  She has done a terrific job and has been extremely motivated moving to our school. Sarah works Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday each week so please make sure you come in and say hello to her. 

Gaga Pit

I’m sure that you’ve all heard about our new Gaga Pit that was built on the oval on the school holidays.  The students have asked for one for many years  for one and fundraising events have never been able to achieve the financial goal.  Student Voice is very important at school  so we have listened.  The Gaga Pit has been a hype of activity since returning to school this term and it is incredible to watch the school play the game together.  It is really impressive!

NAPLAN results

Parents of students in years 3 and 5  have now received their child’s NAPLAN results.  These were sent home earlier this week and Weeden Heights once again, has done incredibly well.  We really are an extremely high performing school with incredible results that see us outperform network schools and schools that have a similar profile to us. 

Please remember that:

NAPLAN measures student achievement in numeracy, reading, writing, spelling, and grammar and punctuation but the results will now be presented in four proficiency levels. These are: exceeding, strong, developing and needs additional support. 

Students’ NAPLAN reports show how they are tracking against their peers and provide an indication of their skill levels against national averages and where we would expect them to be in order to get the most out of schooling. 

Please speak to your child’s classroom teacher if you have any questions about the results. 

Student Led Conferences

Student Led conferences also occurred this term week. The conferences are an excellent opportunity for your child to take responsibility for their learning and discuss the evidence that they have produced to support the teacher’s judgements in the school reports. 

You will have the opportunity to have the conference either in person or online in the Google Classroom.  Students will share their online portfolios through the Google Classroom and will be supported to highlight their learning through their exemplars.  

The main focus of the conference is for students to share work samples that they feel proud of and they will discuss with you, the learning that takes place in relation to their individual learning goals. Please ensure that you book in for a meeting via COMPASS as students will be extremely disappointed if they do not have opportunity to talk through their portfolio with their parents and help develop future learning goals.  The students have put in a lot of work into their portfolios! 

Whole School Camp

Next week is our whole school camp to Lake Dewar Discovery Camp.  It is going to be amazing and I am looking forward to watching my school on Thursday when they are all together.  Please make sure all payments are finalised at the office and you take the weekend to discuss camp with your children.  It might be great to start packing a bag as well. 

Unfortunately there are a few students who are unable to attend camp and they will be required to be at school each day.  As a result, we are leaving a teacher back at school and they will work on a school-based camping program with Ms Pile in room 7. 

It is really important for our Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 to be at school on time on Thursday as the bus can not wait.  All students need to be at their classroom by 7.15am.  I will be there as well to ensure that the junior school is ready for their big day ahead.

It’s going to be exciting.  A huge thanks to my staff in advance and the wonderful parent helpers who are giving up their time to support this amazing program. 

Curriculum Day

Just a reminder that there is a curriculum day on Monday 11 August (the week after camp.  Students are not required at school that day.  Staff will be involved in professional learning at school with a focus on our writing program.  With our amazing NAPLAN results (100% of year 3 students were marked as exceeding or strong and in Year 5, 92% of students were exceeding or strong), we still have lots to learn to implement VOICES and the writing traits.    It will be a beneficial day.

Until next time……

Kylie Campbell

Principal