Welcome back to school for 2022! What a great start to the new school year. Despite COVID challenges, it has been wonderful to be able to have all of our students and staff back and our families able to be onsite. A special warm welcome to all of our new students and families. We hope you enjoy being part of our Wonga Park community.

It is hard to believe four weeks have already past with all of our students now settled into their new year levels and classrooms and all of our programs already underway including specialist classes, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, interschool sport, assembly and extra-curricular activities. We are very proud of our preps who have done a wonderful job settling into school and enjoying getting to know their Grade 6 buddies.

A huge thank you to our teachers who worked so hard in the holidays to set up their classrooms and have everything ready to go on day one and to Kerry and Lesley and our ES staff who have helped ensure a smooth start to our year.

Over the last few years one of the things we have all missed is the chance for our community to connect. With this is mind we are really looking forward to our first community event for 2022, our much-anticipated Colour Run, on April 1st. Please put the date in your diary!

Staffing 2022

We have a wonderful team of teachers and support staff who are looking forward to working together to provide a wonderful year of learning for our students. We warmly welcome new teachers, Larissa Raymond (Learning Partner – School Priorities), Ryely Brewis (Grade 5), Erin Danks (Grade 1), Angelina Sercia (Grade 2) and welcome back from family leave, Bek Reynolds (AUSLAN) and Mel Lambden (Music/Performing Arts). Congratulation to Katherine Dewick who celebrated her marriage to Matt in the holidays. We wish Katherine and Matt all the very best for the future.

For your reference I have included our 2022 staffing list -

Principal – Julie Crawford

Assistant Principal – Adele Brice

Learning Specialist (Literacy) – Cindy Norman

Learning Specialist (Numeracy) – Terri Gioia

Learning Partner (School Priorities) – Larissa Raymond

Business Manager – Kerry Davenport

Reception & Administration – Lesley Grimley

Classroom Teachers:

Prep A – Julie Barnden (Team Leader)

Prep B – Natasha Tymensen

Prep C – Natalia Anker

1A – Erin Danks

1B – Jocelyn Hollyman

1C – Nadine Gilbee - Team Leader (Mon - Thurs)(Team Leader) & Anita Beever (Friday)

2A – Nathan Percy

2B – Nina Gridchin (Professional Learning Community Leader)

2C – Angelina Sercia

3A – Emily Kiefte

3B – Kylie Sledge (Professional Learning Community Leader)

3C – Katherine McGreevy (formerly Miss Dewick)

4A – Sharmini Philp

4B – Meryl Archibald (Team Leader)

4C – Ben White

5A – Carly Pike

5B – Ryely Brewis

5C – Rosemary Storey (M-W), Lauren Goodwin (W- F) (Professional Learning Community Leaders)

6A – Elle Powell (Team Leader)

6B – Tim Phillips

6C – Kendall Jess

Specialist Teachers:

Tutor Learning Initiative (TLI) – Clare Tahin

Maths - Tony van der Spek

P.E. & Sensory Gym – Sean Holland (Team Leader)

Art – Liz Kearton & Kristy Salisbury

Maker Space – Emma Broadhurst & Anita Beever

Performing Arts/Music – Kristy Salisbury & Melanie Lambden

Auslan – Bek Reynolds

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program – Dimi Mioni

Student Wellbeing:

Special Needs Support – Nadine Gilbee (Friday)

School Counsellor – Jen Dooley (Monday)

Chaplain – Tony van der Spek (Wednesday/Thursday)

Education Support:

Georgette Thompson

Wendy Allison

Julie Evans

Tayla Gioia

Crossing Supervisors:

Briar

Kathy

Communication

Communication is important as we build strong partnerships with our families. Sentral is the platform that we use to communicate with our families. Please contact the school for assistance if you are having any trouble receiving communications via Sentral.

The Getting -To-Know-You Interviews were a great opportunity for parents to share information about their child with their classroom teacher and to begin building the home-school partnership. The online Information and Q & A Sessions were well attended and provided parents with an overview of the year ahead.

The Wonga Weeklies, which began being sent home last week, provide parents with details of the curriculum for the week as well as any special events or reminders. A special feature are prompts that parents might like to use to start conversations about what your child is currently learning.

Thank you to the parents who have volunteered to be a Parent Representative for their child’s class. Each year we seek two parent reps per class to liaise with the parents in the class, welcome new families and help organise parent helpers for events, fundraising etc. If you are interested in being a parent representative please let your child’s classroom teacher know.

We encourage parents to contact the classroom teacher if you have any concerns or questions. The ‘Golden Ten’ (8:50 – 9:00am) is a good time to touch base with the classroom teacher. Alternatively, please email or phone the school and the teacher will get back to you to.

Extra-Curricular Activities

It is exciting that we are able to activate many extra-curricular activities again. Our students are very fortunate to have so many options to explore!

This Thursday, our Walk To School Club will begin with students and families invited to meet at the Wonga Park Hall at 8:15am to walk to school together.

Jogger’s Club will be starting soon on a Tuesday morning before school with students invited to begin their training for the cross country event next term.

Before School Tennis operates on a Wednesday starting at 8:00am. Please contact the office for details about how to join.

After-School Basketball has just begun with teams from Grade 2 to 6. Please contact Mrs Philp if your child is interested in joining a team.

Our chaplain, Mr V, facilitates Lunchtime Clubs on a Wednesday and Thursday recess and lunchtime. Many children enjoy lego, boardgames, chess and drawing.

Senior Choir (Grades 3-6) will be running on Friday morning before school and Junior choir (Grades 1/2) will be at Friday recess.

Instrumental Music Lessons are available through Junior Rockers. Please contact the office for more details.

COVID Update

Thank you to everyone for helping to keep our community safe by following the recommendations provided by the Health Department and DET. Our latest information is that the guidelines regarding masks and testing twice a week using Rapid Antigen tests will continue until the end of Term 1. Families will receive further testing kits shortly. Many families are choosing to test their child/children on Mondays and Thursdays, helping to detect positive cases at the beginning of each school week. Just a reminder that 30 days after a child has had a COVID infection, parents need to begin testing twice a week again using the RA tests. This will be important as we have had some families report a second infection of COVID after the 30 day period.

Other ways to help our community stay safe include –

Keep your child at home if they are unwell
Please follow the face mask guidelines
Please follow the vaccination requirements for parents/visitors. To enter a school building or be a volunteer there is a requirement that you provide proof that you are double vaccinated or have a medical exemption
Consider the recommendations for vaccinations for children 5 years plus (see attached letter from Victorian Health Department for further information)

Staff Absences

One of the challenges that all schools are facing in this COVID environment is the management of staff absences. Across Melbourne there is currently a shortage of casual relief teachers (CRTs) which can make covering absences more challenging. We thank you for your understanding as we endeavour to minimise the disruption to our students wherever possible. This may mean that sometimes specialist staff will fill a classroom position to avoid the disruption of a different teacher each day, or as a last resort, a class will be split across classes in the same year level. Please know that we will always endeavour to keep disruptions to a minimum and that our teaching teams work closely together to ensure there is minimum impact on learning and teaching during a teacher absence.

Drop-off and Pick-up Safety

Thank you to our families for helping to make the drop-off and pick-up a smooth process.

It is a busy time, but with patience and courtesy traffic can flow and students can be dropped off or picked up safely.

Just a reminder that there is no parking along Lantana Drive until you are beyond the gate onto the oval. When dropping-off or picking-up students we ask that parents please stay in the queue and drop/pick-up your child at the designated drop–off point at the oval gate. Students should not get out of cars before the oval gate.

Wednesdays are very busy with the popularity of the before school tennis program. Could we please ask that parents do not park in the staff carpark before school.

Parents are reminded that students should not arrive at school before 8:35am unless they are attending a supervised before school activity. Yard duty teachers begin supervision in the playground at 8:35am.

Uniform

Our students look so smart in their school uniforms. There are many choices for students to ensure they feel comfortable. We have been asked for clarification regarding the wearing of bike shorts. Bike shorts are permitted under school dresses but are not an alternative to navy blue shorts or skorts that are part of our uniform options. School Council has been asked to review the school uniform options, which is the process for making changes to the uniform choices. Parents will be invited to register their feedback about any proposed changes. Students are encouraged to wear appropriate uniform and footwear on days that they have PE, sensory gym or sport. Teachers will be communicating the specialist timetable in the Wonga Weekly so that students are aware of their PE/sport days.

Curriculum Days - Friday, March 11th and Tuesday, March 15th

Staff are looking forward to having the opportunity to deep dive into two of our teaching and learning priority areas – writing and numeracy at two upcoming curriculum days. The dates are Friday, March 11th and Tuesday, March 15th – days either side of the upcoming long weekend. TheirCare will offer all day care on both curriculum days.

Buildings and Grounds

The holiday period gave us a chance to undertake some maintenance and upgrades. Painting was completed in our new Prep C classroom in the original school room. What a lovely transformation to see our beautiful Prep B settle into such a colourful and inviting space to learn.

Student toilets are often on our maintenance list so the resurfacing of the floors in our toilet blocks was a welcome upgrade.

Plans have been submitted for new shade sails that will cover the asphalt area between the Grade 1/2 building, the prep building, the SAKG building and the administration block. This will create a wonderful outdoor shaded space for learning.

We are currently preparing for an upgrade of the irrigation systems in the SAKG. Thank you to the band of volunteers who have offered to complete much of the work for us.

We are hoping to have our first working bee soon so watch out for information about the date and times that will be coming out shortly. We would love to see you there.

Canteen

We would like to extend our thanks to Julie Evans who has managed our canteen, produced delicious meals for our food bank and organised the catering for so many of our events over several years. Thank you Julie for your great contributions to our school community!

Julie has changed her role this year and is now one of our wonderful integration aides.

School Council is currently looking into options for the canteen moving forward. Thank you for your patience as we find a solution and start up our canteen again shortly.

School Council

Please look out for information that will be coming out in the next week about School Council nominations for 2022. We encourage parents to consider nominating for one of the four School Council vacancies.

Kind regards

Julie

School Community News

Week 5 Term 1