A Word from the Principal 

A Warm Welcome to our Weeden Heights Community

A warm welcome to our community

I hope everyone is staying warm! The weather has certainly change but we still have many students in their summer uniform.  In the last newsletter edition, I included uniform to encourage some warmer clothes but it is a battle with our ‘warm blooded’ students who never seem to get cold. 

Education Week!

This year, Education Week runs from Sunday 14 to Saturday 20 May. The theme Active Learners: Move, Make, Motivate celebrates the many ways students learn, through physical activity, hands on learning and student voice.

Education Week is an opportunity for our school to celebrate and share with you how we encourage our students to be active learners.

Our school is proud to encourage active learners through:

Weeden Heights has taken the opportunity to celebrate Education Week by:

Capitial Works 

I hope that everyone takes the time to look around the building works that have been completed on our open night (tonight…..Thursday night).  The senior toilets have a few finishing touches to be done along with the teacher office in the junior corridor.  Extensive work has taken place to move the server and build out the new server room.  The school’s infrastructure is one of the hidden upgrades but an important one considering the direction of technology.  The electricians are making sure we have new electrical cabinets and wiring.  There are extra WAPs (wireless points) being placed around the school to cater for the future.  Future proofing the school is very important as we do not know exactly what technologies we will have access to in the future. 

We have had a few setbacks with asbestos being found in the concrete slab in the administration area.  It has held up work but is being removed on the weekends.  The VSBA prioritise students attending school everyday so it just takes a little longer to remove. 

We also have been trying to find a potential gas leak which is why the gas has been turned off in the senior school.   All junior school classrooms now use split systems so they are unaffected.   Thank you for your patience and sending your children in a coat last week.  Small electric heaters were purchased for each classroom as we can only work on the gas while the students are not at school.  The builders are continuing to work on this issue and are close to a resolution. 

Open night

We hope that you also take a moment to look at our newly painted classrooms.  The most impressive inclusion in the upgrade is the new roof on the junior school classrooms but you probably won’t notice that. We are very thankful there will be no more leaking roof lines.  You will also notice that the junior corridor has new carpet due to leaking during the build. (now that’s a bit of a bonus that was not allowed for). 

The school has purchased all of the TV’s in the senior rooms, laptop trolleys and Chromebooks. They are not a part of the grant but have been purchased for the newly renovated classrooms.  You will also see the new shade sails at the front of the school on open night and these were funded through the Shade Sail grants that were on offer in 2022.  We were lucky enough to be successful with two of the rounds of grants.   

There are more great changes to come soon so stay tuned. 

Attitudes to School Survey

The annual Attitudes to School Survey will be implemented this week with the year 4 students.  Year 5 & 6 will complete the survey next Thursday.  Providing our student with a ‘voice’ is important to us and we do act on what is said.  This is a school review year and the data obtained from this survey forms a part of the school review process as an accountability measure.  I must say I am very proud of our survey results to date as students indicate a strong connection to their school and their peers while feeling safe and believing in a positive future.  I’m crossing my fingers for more amazing understandings and voice from our students. 

Student Safety

This is a reminder that the staff car park at the front and back of the school is out of bounds for all pedestrians (students and parents).  There are staff leaving at different times and the driveway at the front car park is steep with low visibility due to the bend.  It is far too dangerous for pedestrians to use.  Also please be very careful when walking on the footpath near the driveway as there are cars exiting and I have noticed that a couple of parents are using it to turn around in. 

PFA Mother’s Day Stall

A huge thank-you to our PFA and the work they put in to sourcing and packaging items that our mums and mother figures would love. Thank-you also to the parents who helped with our students purchasing from the stall.  We hope that all our wonderful mothers and mother figures had a wonderful day on Sunday (and got very spoilt!). 

Annual General Meeting 

This year our Annual General Meeting was held after our school council meeting on 15 May.  The 2022 Annual Report was presented to the community, which highlights our successes during a most difficult and challenging year.  For anyone who missed out, the 2022 Annual Report is currently available for our community on our website and available for anyone to read. There are some amazing results especially when you compare our performances to other schools.  We are very proud of our achievements!

Enrolments for 2024 - Looking for successful learners to join our team!

This is a reminder for our existing families (and please pass onto your neighbours), that enrolment forms for 2024 Foundation year students are now due.  Our highly successful Bright Beginnings transition program commences at the end of term 3 and we do not want our future students to miss the opportunity to attend. 

All preschool parents know that for the first time they must submit enrolment forms to their school by Friday 28 July.  This is the new deadline for every school in the state and it will assist schools in developing budgets and allocating staffing for the following year.  The enrolment process is being run more like a secondary school process now. 

Please contact either Kerryn or Cindy in the office and collect an enrolment form for your    pre-schooler.  The enrolment for is also available from the website.  Thank you. 

Until next time……

Kylie Campbell

Principal

Futures are Bright at Weeden Heights!