Principal  Message

Winston

The biggest news we have at the moment is of course the addition of a new staff member, Winston. Winston has been well received up here at school by both the students and the staff. He initially stuck to my office and the staffroom but is gradually exploring other areas of the school. After school when the students have gone home, he happily explores the classrooms, which is a great way for him to get used to the spaces without being overwhelmed. The children have exercised extremely good self-control when coming upon Winston and they try hard to wait for Winston to approach them rather than rushing up to him, which is their natural instinct. 

After a day of being loved by everyone, he is pretty tired, and he usually just falls asleep where he lies around 7:30 at night.  The 5:30am morning starts are a bit of a shock to my system. 

The purpose of training a therapy dog at Warrandyte Primary is to create a supportive environment for the students and staff. These specially trained dogs serve as wonderful companions, promoting emotional well-being and providing comfort to students who may be experiencing stress, anxiety, or difficulties in their lives. 

Recent research has shed light on the numerous benefits therapy dogs bring to educational settings. A study conducted by the University of British Columbia found that interactions with therapy dogs resulted in reduced stress levels, increased self-confidence, improved social skills, and enhanced academic performance among students. Additionally, therapy dogs have been shown to foster a sense of empathy and compassion, promoting a positive and inclusive school culture. It is for these reasons we have taken Winston on board as at WPS we understand how important a child's wellbeing is to their success not just in school, but in life.

Therapy Animals Australia have been great so far in getting Winston started on a training regime. His training sessions are short and sharp at the moment because he tires out easily, but he is responding very well to the obedience training and has demonstrated that he is the perfect temperament for the role he will play at school. He is always calm and gentle, unless you are feeding him... and then he goes nuts. The Labrador in him comes out at feeding time. 

Before School Care to Reopen

We are really pleased to announce that Before School Care will restart on November 6th Monday - Friday. We have secured a grant that supports small schools to maintain their out of hours care programs. Our Patch have responded quickly and the program in the mornings will be run by Katrina, who will also run the afternoon sessions. This will provide great consistency and Katrina is a very energetic and happy presence in the OHSC program. The booking system will be open soon. This means we will no longer need to run Breakfast Club and this service will finish on Friday 3rd of November.

Curriculum Day

We will be running our last curriculum day for the year on Monday 13th November. This day will be used as part of the report writing process to assist the staff in providing time to analyse students' assessment results and cultivate their comments for reports.

 Assessment is done across 4 weeks so as to not cause too much stress on the students and we use the library as an ICT hub to run online assessments. Of course, there are many other ways we assess student. Online summative results are only 1 component of the students' outcomes. The most important data we collect is observations in class during the lessons and information from one-on-one conferences where the teacher and student work together to talk about their understanding and skills of Reading, Writing and Numeracy and what their next steps are.

I have been asked why we don't do the curriculum day on the Monday before Cup Day, and there is a very simple answer to that questions. More than half our students tend not to come on the Monday before Cup Day and so we are usually able to be very resourceful with that and collapse classes so that teachers can get even more time to analyse student performances and write reports. The teachers share the load that day to optimise their time. 

Bogan Bingo... we need your bookings!

Terri and the FOWPS committee members are working hard behind the scenes preparing for the Bogan Bingo on Saturday 28th October. There are some great prizes being auctioned off including accommodation for 4 nights in mt Hotham (sleeps 12 in June 2024).  Also, part of the silent auction is accommodation in Echuca discovery park 3 2-bedroom cabin, sleeps 8) and a family photography session valued at $350.  There many other items that FOWPS have worked hard to gather from local business' who generously support our school. 

Unfortunately to date ticket  sales have been low. We need more tickets sold in order to run the night. If you were thinking of getting a table together but haven't followed up on it or were planning on booking tickets, we need you to book asap. A Warrandyte Primary night function is always a lot of fun and you would also be supporting raising money to go towards training Winston. Tickets can be booked via Compass.

Have a great weekend.

Nieta