Footscray West PS Newsletter

Principal's Report

Principal: Brendan Millar

In this week’s newsletter:

 

Congratulations and Appreciations

  • Congratulations to our JSC members who were presented with their badges at assembly last week

News

  • Prep Parent / Carer and Teacher Information sharing forums were held yesterday
  • Grade 3DM, 3CG and 3TM attended the Zoo Snooze camp this week
  • Inform and Empower program / Raising Kids in a Digital World parent / carer information forum will be held next Thursday evening

Coming Up 

  • Schools’ Clean Up Day
  • Friday Assembly
  • Emergency management drill on Monday 
  • Prep Picnic on Tuesday after school

Reminders

  • Curriculum contributions
  • Photograph and video permission requirements

Congratulations and Appreciations

Congratulations to our new Junior School Council Members 

Last week our JSC reps from grades 1-6 were presented with their badges.  

Junior School Council Members: Ivy, Everest, Quinn, Tiger, Zoe, Marty, Lenny, Tu, Abigail, Mihail, Remy, Lucy, Isaac, Zed, Jude, Ivy, Angus, Petar, Louie, Aycan, Penelope, Jesse, Kyani, Luigi, Evie, Parker, Sofia, Louis, Alec, Rory, Solomon

 

Students without photo permissions have their faces obscured.

News

Prep Parent / Carer Teacher Information Sharing Forums were held across our 5 prep classes yesterday.  This was the final Wednesday set aside for prep assessment and was an ideal opportunity for our prep teachers to catch up with parents to share information about the first weeks of school.  From next week our preps will be attending school full time.

 

Remaining Grade 3s attended the Zoo Snooze Camp this week

It takes a lot of preparation and effort to ensure that an overnight camping experience is a successful one. The unique Zoo Snooze experience concluded today with the final grade (3TM) returning to school in the afternoon. The program, spread over 4 nights and 4 days over 2 weeks is a challenging one to prepare for. A big appreciation to all who participated. The students were enthralled by the opportunity to attend but that was only possible with the commitment of the teaching team (Tess, Caity, Drew and Marco) members of leadership (Liz, Carolyn, Libby and Towela) and the parent helpers who attended overnight. The overall planning and organisation was due to Liz and Marco. Our next camping experience will be the grade 4 camp to Campaspe Downs. That will be held in a fortnight from Thursday 13th to Friday 14th March.

 

Inform and Empower program/ Raising Kids in a Digital World information forum is on this evening

 

Raising Kids in a Digital World online information 

session for parents is TONIGHT 

 

It is pleasing to see that over 80 parents and carers have booked (or rebooked) on the new booking link for the parent information session to be presented tonight - Thursday, 27th February running from 7:30 to 9:00pm. The booking link can be accessed here: bit.ly/FWPSwebinar.

 

By the way, our Inform and Empower online lessons for our grades started with students from grades 1 to 6 last week. Classes have now participated with the exception of the prep team who will have their opportunity to stream their introductory session next week. Parents and carers who access the webcast tonight will be provided with a comprehensive understanding of the nature and purpose of the Inform and Empower program.

 

Booking details included within the newsletter over the last few weeks are repeated (below) and you may also have seen the sandwich boards this week placed near the main entrances inviting you as well.

 

With the financial support of Inner West Enterprises (the community outreach for the Seddon branch of the Community Bendigo Bank), FWPS is delighted to launch our relationship with Inform and Empower. www.informandempower.com.au. The team at I&E are local educators who, experiencing the concerns most of us feel about the ubiquitous nature of the internet and the negative impact it can have on our kids, started an online active education program for primary schools. This is webcast live each term in a series of programs catering for all age groups. We started the program at FWPS over the last fortnight. 

 

Remember all we have been sharing about the space challenges during our big build? We decided that the gallery space was not big enough to meet the interest already shown, so with few alternative venue options and with the agreement of our sponsors and the I&E team, we decided switch to an online presentation - same date Thursday, 27th February running from 7:30 to 9:00pm. The booking link has been changed and families that had already booked have been emailed with the new link.  Here it is: bit.ly/FWPSwebinar.  

 

I hope we have a huge influx of our community online tonight. A flyer with all relevant information and a QR code is again included in today’s newsletter and at key locations around the school.  

 

Please note that this is an event presented for adults.

 

Coming Up

Schools’ Clean Up Day 

Schools' Clean Up Day will be held tomorrow.  At FWPS we will take the opportunity for all grades to spend some time making our environment look a little bit neater.

 

Friday Assembly

Friday’s assembly will feature this week’s Pupils of the Week, sports reporters and the presentation of Marrung leaders representative badges. We are hopeful of dry pleasantly warm weather to again enable an outdoor assembly to be held.

 

Emergency Management Practice 

On Monday afternoon we anticipate holding an emergency management practice drill.  This is a requirement each term for safety reasons. Class teachers will explain (particularly to our preps) the reason for the drill and the importance of responding appropriately on such occasions.

 

Annual Prep Picnic next Tuesday from 4:30pm to 6.30pm  

This is a very informal annual opportunity for our prep cohort to return after school for play and to picnic on the oval. Sports equipment will be made available and we encourage families to spread a rug on the oval and enjoy a BYO snack. This year Karri and I won’t even subject you to a short speech! We will however be available for any parents or carers to join us for a chat about whatever might be on your mind.  All class teachers will be in attendance.

Reminders

Curriculum Contributions

A parent / carer payment contribution Compass post was sent to all families on Monday several week’s back. We appreciate the positive response from so many. We really appreciate your support in making this payment for each of your children as soon as possible. Funds received are directed to subsidising the many curriculum costs in managing a school of this size. FWPS is a school that is underfunded based on the Schooling Resource Standard https://www.education.gov.au/recurrent-funding-schools/schooling-resource-standard for Australian schools.  At FWPS we receive a lower rate of equity funding due to our local demographic than many other western suburb schools. This may be deemed as fair from a systemic perspective, but doesn't help us pay the bills! With annual fees topped at $300 (prep) we really think our community can do better than the 69% of families (grades 1-6) last year who contributed their expected contribution. There is an opportunity to pay by instalments.  Please contact the office team if you would like more information or assistance.

 

Photo and Video permission Form 

The Department of Education now requires parents and carers to sign this permission form annually (this used to be a requirement only when students started school or moved to FWPS). This requirement has made a ‘once off task’ for every child now a x7 task for every child. That is a lot of parent time and you can imagine how that is magnified from a schools’ administration perspective. If you haven't done this yet, please make this a priority to complete and return to the office (or classroom). 

 

We really wish to encourage parents and carers to tick all 3 boxes to enable pictures or videos from class events (incursions, excursions, assemblies, sporting events and camps) and special moments (such as presentations and reports from assembly) to be able to be shown (or linked) in the newsletter and official school Facebook page.

 

Warm regards,

Brendan