This year has flown by and we have had an amazing productive year of growing, learning and sharing experiences together. We are very close to the end of the year when we say goodbye to our grade 6 cohort and families that are finishing their time at Wales Street PS. I hope that those who are leaving us this year have many memories to take with them and that we see you all again at the fete in the future.

Some of the highlights include the school concert, swimming and swimming sports, bowling days, grade 5 camp, Our Great Fete, incursions and excursions to the zoo, Go climb, the Art Centre, CERES and many more events that made up term 4. The staff and students have earned a long restful summer break and we hope all families are looking forward to the upcoming holiday season.

Final Assembly

We will hold our traditional last assembly on the oval on Tuesday 19 December at 9.10am with all classes attending, weather permitting. Our grade 6 students will be performing their graduation dance for the school community. We will officially finish the school year at 1PM on Wednesday 20 December.

School resumes in 2024 for grades 1-6 on TUESDAY 30 January.

School Concert

The school concert was a wonderful community event that saw our students shine and celebrate their performing artistic talents. We have many lovely emails from parents expressing their delight and enjoyment of the concerts held last week. Samantha has been so organised and energised to bring this special event together and it was a great success. Thank you to Samantha, the specialist teachers who supported both nights and the teachers who did crowd control each night. It was wonderful to be a part of such a positive experience that was such a celebration of fun and community.

2024 new staff

Our new staff for 2024 are

Michael Tindale - class teacher
Kathryn Answerth - class teacher
Lauren Shepherd - 3 days per week
Margaret Clark- 2 days per week

Two of our teachers are transferring to new schools in 2024 for 12 months. We would like to congratulate Annie Wilson and Molly Dale on their new appointments and thank them for the many years they have been valued members of our teaching team.

The teaching profile for 2024 is:

2024 CLASSES	TEACHERS	BUILDING
Foundation
FA	Maria Mandilas	St David
FB	Toby Marquette (Team Leader)	St David
FC	Abbie Melchoir	St David
FD	Spiro Pantaz	St David
YEAR 1
1A	Renee Patkas ( Team Leader)	St David
1B	Lesley King	St David
1C	Sue Losada ( Learning Specialist) Margaret Clarke (Tuesday)	Wales
1D	Laura Fisher	Wales
YEAR 2
2A	Joanne Ristos (Team Leader)	Wales
2B	Marie Apostolou ( Learning Specialist) Margaret Clark (Thursday)	Wales
2C	Tyler Lunn	Wales
2D	Katelyn Vandenberg	Wales
YEAR 3
3A	Kim Chau ( Team Leader)	Clyde
3B	Shannon Hayes	Clyde
3C	Chris Hingston	Clyde
YEAR 4
4A	Steve McArthur ( Team Leader) Lauren Shepherd (Thursday)	Speight
4B	Kate Bowran Lauren Shepherd (Wednesday)	Speight
4C	Natalie Ramboldi	Speight
4D	Kathryn Answerth	Speight
YEAR 5
5A	Geoff O'Connor ( Team leader)	Clyde
5B	Louise Scally ( Learning Specialist) Lauren Shepherd ( Tuesday)	Clyde
5C	Samim Kashani	Clyde
Year 6
6A	Stahis Moshis	Speight
6B	Michelle Turner ( Team leader)	Speight
6C	Michael Tindale	Speight
SPECIALIST TEAM
Art	Georgina Tragas ( Team Leader)
Performing Arts	Samantha Panettieri
STEAM	Jason Sergi
PhysicaL Education	Anna DeVos
Italian	Dina Divitcos/ Walter Bilic
Disability Inclusion	Sotiroula Kyprianou
Tutor	Georgia Prince
Support	Megan Urban
	Limei Bian

Our step up day was last Tuesday, when the students were given the opportunity to meet the teachers in their future grade level and their 2024 class teachers. The day of rotation activities was well received and it gave everyone a chance to learn new faces, names and spaces as we head towards the new year.

We have continued the role of a third Learning Specialist. Marie Apostolou will be leading the graduates and mentoring teachers with 5 years or less experience. Sotiroula has been appointed as Leading Teacher for Disabilities and Inclusion as this new initiative begins in 2024. Luisa Kalenjuk has been appointed substantively as a second Assistant principal for 2024.

Enrolments will be 595 students for 2024.

Holiday works

We will be having the Speight Street first floor painted throughout over the summer break, refreshing this space for the grade 4's in 2024. It is hoped to complete the refurbishment of this area by adding new carpet by Easter holidays. Once this work is completed, we will have every classroom up to the same standard with modern tables and chairs, clean carpets and freshly painted surfaces.

There will be a new cleaning contractor starting at the end of the year as part of the changes to cleaning contractors across schools. Tradeflex will start operations at the school from the day after school finishes. We will be having the school cleaned extensively by the new cleaning company to start the year afresh.

Semester reports

We conducted parent teacher interviews last week to inform parents about their child’s progress this year. The response from staff and parents has been positive and timely before we send home reports at the end of the week.

Semester Reports will be released on Friday 15 December via the Compass portal.

A reminder to grade 6 families and any other who are leaving us, please download any Semester reports that you wish to keep as your account will become inactive in 2024 and you will lose access to these documents.

School Council

We have been fortunate over the years to have maintained a strong and engaged School Council, working together to develop master plans and improvements for our school community facilities and grounds. We also have Sub Committees of School Council that are open to members of the school community as a support for School Council. Our Sub Committees of School Council include: Finance, Policy and Strategic Planning, Grounds and Facilities, School Aged Care and Wales Street Social.

I would like to thank our parent representatives who worked on school council this year:

Kellie Marks, Tim Sheedy, Rebecca Scott, Jess Davis, Davor Stanic, Suzy Sagar and Ed Rutherford and Vivian Romero

And our staff representatives:

Marie Apostolou, Luisa Kalenjuk, Pina Tarquinio and Robyn Owens

In February next year, we will be calling for new members for school council from the staff and the parent community as half of these positions will become vacant when members complete their two-year term. More details early next year.

I would like to thank our school captains for taking on the leadership roles and for their contribution to making this a memorable school year. You have done a great job!

Our school captains: Erik Nedegard, Noni Dixon, Arul Whiting and Leonie Paquaux

Finally...

On behalf of the staff and the leadership team, I would like to thank all our families for their contribution to our school community and for supporting us throughout the year. I hope you all have a very safe and restful festive and holiday season. See you in 2024.

Swimming sports