Welcome back to school! I hope you all had a happy and safe break over the past few weeks. There was a fabulous buzz in the school grounds this morning as students and their families arrived for our first day of 2024 at WEPS.

Thank you Jimmy Boxer, who has been working hard to keep our grounds looking immaculate over the break. And thanks to all our teachers and support staff for making sure today was a wonderful day for all students.

I’d like to warmly welcome our foundation students and their families to our school community. And, we also welcome all our new families across various year levels in the school.

Congratulations to all students on a positive start to the year. I have visited each classroom today and feel so proud of the calm and supportive learning spaces each teacher creates in their learning communities. Over the next few weeks we will introduce each teaching and support team in the school. I was particularly impressed to see how excited our little people in Foundation were to be at school. They had a lovely time with kinder friends, new friends and their teachers.

The staff were all back at school on Monday this week and had time allocated for professional learning and setting up for a successful term and year ahead. We prioritise time for building connections and teams amongst our staff, so our teachers are in the best position to work together and provide a high quality education, in learning and wellbeing, for your children. Over the past couple of days, they have enjoyed getting to know and build relationships with small groups of students in their classes during the beginning of year literacy assessments. We really appreciate parents supporting these 2 days, as we strongly believe they play an integral role in a positive start to the school year. The purpose of the beginning and end of year assessments are to gain deeper understanding of what students already know, and need to be taught.

To celebrate the start of the school year we are excited to have the STOMP dance group come to Warrnambool East PS next week to teach each learning community a dance routine. The students will practice each day, then perform the dance on Friday. All parents/carers and extended family are invited to come to school on Friday next week (9th February) for a celebration show case in the school stadium.

F-2 students will perform at 12-12.20pm
3-6 students will perform at 12.30-12.50pm

We also invite all parents and carers to save the day for a whole school Parent Information Session on Monday 26th February from 5pm. From 5-5.30 – all parents and carers will be in the stadium for a whole school overview, then from 5.30 until 7pm teachers will be providing half hour ‘back to the classroom’ sessions to give parents a deeper understanding of how the year works for your child’s class. These sessions will be held in your child’s classroom and if you have more than one child at the school, you will have the opportunity to move to each class once the half hour session has finished. Back to the classroom sessions will be repeated over 3 time slots;

5.30-6pm
6-6.30pm and
6.30-7pm

This is also a great opportunity to meet other parents in your child’s class and have some time to get to know your teachers. We will provide care for children. Please keep an eye out for RSVP and care options in the next edition of the LINK.

We appreciate many parents who have already paid their school contributions. Just a reminder, you are welcome to set up a payment plan by making contact with our admin team.

Thank you to all parents for trusting us with your very important little and young people. We know we are in privileged positions to be educating, nurturing and supporting your children each day. As I said at the end of last year, let’s keep working together to make your child’s primary school years the best they can be.

STOMP Dance Sessions