In this week’s newsletter:

Reminder - Absences and Late Arrivals
Appreciations and Acknowledgements
- Book donations
- ANZAC Day
News…
- Free masks
- School Council update
- Visit of Maribyrnong Mayor Cuc Lam
Coming up
- Remaining Prep 2025 information sessions
- Mother’s and Special person’s Day stall Friday of next week
- Proposed visit of the Netball World Cup
Repeated (and updated messages)

Reminder - Absences and late arrivals - The Department of Education has tightened protocols when students arrive late to school. All students must be signed in by a parent or carer if attending school after 8.50am. Should students arrive unaccompanied after that time , parents/carers will receive a call from the office team requiring them to attend reception prior to the children attending class. The office team have been communicating with parents and carers daily to meet this requirement. Please adjust your family plans if necessary to accommodate this requirement.

Appreciations and Acknowledgements

Book donations - A big thank you to several families for their thoughtful donations of very well kept books to classrooms and our library. A wonderful way to pay a love of literacy forward!

ANZAC Day - An appreciation to the students of 4AF and their teacher, Anthea for preparing a respectful and well paced ANZAC Day commemoration as their assembly item last Friday. The grades were acknowledged for the respectful attentive listening and excellent effort to remain quiet during the conclusion of a minute of silence.

A video report is available at: ANZAC Day Assembly Service (presented by 4AF) on Vimeo

News…

Making space - free masks - Business manager, Sandra and Maintenance person, Taleb have been busy this week making space in the rear store area near the office for better management of stationery. Consequently, there is a large supply of masks obtained during the pandemic that are available for free. They can be collected from reception.

School Council - On Monday evening our School Council membership met online for our third meeting of the year. Council meets a minimum of twice per term, alternately online and onsite. The major item of business was the keenly awaited briefing for the design of our proposed new building development. This was provided by the architectural team of Susan Syer and Yau Nga from Kennedy Nolan Architects, supported by Ainsley Hudgson, the project lead representing the Victorian Schools Building Authority. The design was well presented by Susan and Yau, reflecting their passion and openness to our school’s considerations. Our council members asked many thoughtful questions, some that hadn’t been posed earlier. We will be keen for our plans and the demolition and building timeline to be made available to the community as soon as we are provided the permission to do so. Earlier, the Communications and Policy (ComPol) sub committee met to discuss options to launch our newly developed Vision and Values. We expect to plan a significant, whole school event during semester 2. Meanwhile, the adoption of the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM) is occurring incrementally. Our next whole staff planning day will be on Thursday, 6th June and as previously advertised, will be a pupil free day with TheirCare providing a full day of care if required. A parent and carers forum for an introduction to BSEM is being planned with the support of our Parents Association. Also, during the School Council meeting, all parent and staff representatives attested to completing the annual mandatory Protect - Child Safety training. Distributed reports (Finance, Principal, Parents Association and sub committees that had met) and the draft of the 2023 Annual Report to the School Community were discussed and approved. Some practical aspects that were discussed included:

Holding a public meeting for the presentation of the 2023 Annual Report to the School Community prior to our next onsite School Council Meeting on Monday, 3rd June.
The Facilities update included the recent replacement of 4 split system air conditioners in Koala (1MM and 1LE) and Wallaby (2DK and 4AF), replacement of sections of fencing on the south side of the oval and Crocodile buildings, ongoing communications relating to Wallaby building repair requirements and of course the design of the forthcoming replacement gymnasium, music, food tech and canteen development.
Plans for parent/carer forums for the introduction of the BSEM at our school.

Cuc Lam is a Maribyrnong City Councillor and current Mayor who demonstrates a generous community spirit. Councillor Lam presented her fascinating story of immigration to the grade 5 students earlier this week. Thanks to Logan Viravouth and Zoe Mitchell-Crow who have prepared a brief report on the visit in today’s newsletter. Councillor Lam is pictured (below) with the grade 5 welcome committee.

Coming Up…

Remaining 2025 Prep information sessions (talk and tour) will be held:

Next week - Session 2 on Tuesday, 7th May - 9:30am - 10:45am and our only evening session 3 at 6:00pm - 7:00pm.
Session 4 (final) Week 6 - Tuesday, 21st May - 9:30am - 10:45 am.

To attend one of the above listed sessions, please register via the following link: https://compasstix.com/e/t4uvkuv39j

We encourage parents and carers to attend one of these sessions, particularly if new to our school community. Enrolment forms are now available for all families residing within our school zone and enrolment applications will be offered for all families who reside outside our zone. Places may become available after all those applying within the zone have been offered and accepted or rejected places. For further information please contact Karri Barker at footscray.west.ps@education.vic.gov.au.

Mother’s Day and Special Person’s stall Friday of next week - Please remember to provide $5 for the stall on Friday of next week to enable all children the opportunity to browse and buy a gift for that special person.

Visit from the Netball World Cup trophy - We are planning a unique trophy visit thanks to former FWPS parent, Libby Howe. We are anticipating this to occur on Friday (hopefully) next week, so as well as visiting classes, it can feature at assembly.

Cheers,

Brendan

Repeated (and Updated) Messages…

Library News

New Books - Scholastic Book Fair