Principal's Report

In this week’s newsletter:

Appreciations and News

• Art news
• Organisation for 2026
• Melbourne Museum Excursion

Coming Up - Tomorrow

• Interschool Sport
• Assembly

Coming Up - Next Week

Coming Up - Later

Appreciations and News

Art News

Pictured is Anasemos from 2CW with an art work that stunned Susie.  Anasemos created this striking picture from memory.  Wow!

Organisation for 2026

Prep Transition

The process is well advanced with our next classroom visit scheduled for next Wednesday. For this next visit, the grade 6 captains who have done wonderful work in meeting parents and carers and mingling with the children, will pass on the baton to volunteer grade 5 students who will now take on this role. This is a great opportunity for leadership for next year’s grade 6 students and will also mean the prep children will have some familiar senior students on hand from the start of their prep experience. The final prep transition visit will be on Tuesday, 25th November. Again it is through the amazing work of K-P Transition Co-ordinator, Karri Barker, supported by the Prep team that we have such a comprehensive and effective transition program in place.

Grade Lists 

The wellbeing, leadership and teaching teams are continuing to work on grade lists for next year. There are many parameters for the teams to consider, with list recommendations going to the leadership team prior to completion. This work will continue for the next few weeks and will likely only be finalised shortly prior to our Through School Transition Day held on Tuesday, 9th December, during the second last week of the school year.

Grades for Next Year 

Grade numbers in the middle and senior grades will continue to be relatively large. This is our reality as we need to be able to work within the resource allocations in our currently underfunded system.

As a result, we expect to provide the following structure consisting of 27 classes in 2026:

Staffing for 2026 

We have worked diligently to have our teaching teams in place next year and we are finalising the make up of our grade and specialist teams at the moment. Please note that final staffing arrangements are subject to change due to circumstances beyond our control.

We are fortunate to have such quality teachers with Charlotte, Ella, Annie, Hayley and Drew all being successful in our latest recruitment process, having been selected over a field of external applicants. Holly Heitmann, will join us as a new member to our teaching complement. We were impressed by Holly’s work while on teaching placement in Tim Cannan’s grade earlier this year and she has been back with us as a CRT during the last few months. We also look forward to Alex Clarey joining us as another successful candidate. Alex has been teaching for the past few years in Queensland and securing a teaching role was a key aspect of his plan to move to Victoria. We congratulate them all.

We are pleased to announce two of our teachers, Charlotte Lake and Ella Pepper were recently successful in comprehensively completing all aspects of their Victorian Institute of Teaching registration. They were wonderfully supported by their mentors, marvellous teachers in their own right, (respectively) Linda Edwards and Dan Whiting.

For 2026 we are excited to announce that we will introduce a STEM specialist program (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) in our Food Technology classroom in the new Eagle Building. This program will be taught by former class teacher and current Library teacher, Shannon Mason. Shannon has made a wonderful impact with our library program this year and is also showing the same enthusiasm and capacity in preparing for the inaugural program in a dazzling new space.  

Melbourne Museum Excursion 

Thanks to team leader, Joanna Innes and the grade 1 team for taking the time to prepare a video montage of this wonderful recent excursion. You can view it here: 

Coming Up - Tomorrow

Interschool Sport

After the bye last week, our third game will be at Home vs St John’s. Summer sports are played at the beginning of the day due to Sunsmart rules. We will use the school facilities for all our home games.

Assembly 

In a rainy week the weather again may affect our plans and require assembly to be presented indoors. As always that decision will be made during the day. Along with our weekly presentation of the Pupil of the Week awards and a return of our sports reports, our assembly item will feature grade 5 student volunteers across all three grades sharing some recollections of their wonderful recent Kangaroobie Camp experience.

Coming Up - Next Week

Grade 5/6 Maths Virtual Games Day

A group of 8 Grade 5 and 6 students have been selected to represent our school in two teams at the Maths Virtual Games Day next Monday supported by Assistant Principal, Carolyn.  We wish them all the best!

Remembrance Day 

Respecting our traditions we make an acknowledgement of Remembrance Day each year. There will be a brief PA presentation by our captains on Tuesday, at 11:00am on the 11th day of the 11th month.

Grade 4 Ultimate Frisbee Clinic

Thanks to Marco for organising this program for the middle school through the federal government resourced Sporting Schools Program, which effectively makes this a cost free program for families.

Prep Transition

Prep Transition Day #2 will be on Wednesday morning in the prep classrooms and Bilby gallery space.

World Kindness Day 

World Kindness Day will be promoted and modelled by our Junior School Council on Thursday. Let’s all take up the opportunity to do so as well!

Coming Up - Later

Kaboom Kids - Diversity will Day 

The new date will be on Monday week, 17th November.  

Thank You Morning Tea for 2025 Volunteers 

We would like to invite all our volunteers to a special morning tea as a small but tangible appreciation for the dedication and support you have provided this year. Whether you are a classroom helper, attended camps or excursions, been a School Council or Parents’ Association representative or volunteer, assisted with special events, such as our special persons’ stalls and bake sales and much more. If you have assisted, we would love to host you at our International Volunteer Day on Friday, 5th December between 11:30am to 12:10pm in the Dingo gallery space.

Cheers,

Brendan

Repeated from Last Term

Leaving FWPS for 2026? 

If your family is planning to leave for another school next year, we would really appreciate you emailing us at: footscray.west.ps@education.vic.gov.au using the subject line (above).

Reminders and Repeated Messages