Principal  Message

Hello to all our families,

It seems like the first day of school was only last week, yet we are now on the downward slope towards the end of the term.  There is lot going on up here now that we've gained momentum from the beginning of the year.

Time together as a school community on Wednesday 5th April

You will have received an invitation to all our families to join us on the 5th April for an afternoon filled with lots of activities, music and food.  Look out for the Compass message coming out soon to pre order your dinner. We hope to see as many families as possible there. We have had very limited ability to meet as a community over the last few years, so some time just relaxing with your children and meeting new parents, is long overdue. Grandparents and siblings are all welcome too.

Indigenous planting day

Our Grade 1/2 students had a wonderful time last week planting out indigenous shrubs and bush herbs in the old pool garden area.  Each class at WPS has developed their own Acknowledgment of Country and as part of this, the 1/2 set up an afternoon of learning and fun to build students understanding of the importance of our environment and looking after the land we learn and play on. 

We had volunteers from Warrandyte Landcare group come and give our 1/2 students a talk on the types of indigenous plants you find around Warrandyte.  They also brought some damper and homemade jam for the students to enjoy.  There was a real buzz in the garden when students were all given plants to plant. I would like to thank Ersie for putting this wonderful experience in place for the students.  I also want to thank the volunteers who went to a lot of trouble to offer our students a deeper understanding of the importance of the looking after the flora and fauna that surrounds us in Warrandyte.

Supporting the Warrandyte Festival Art Show

All members of the Warrandyte Primary School community are invited to attend the Rotary Art Show opening on Friday 17th March.  All proceeds for the show are to be donated to WPS, so come along and support the Show and WPS.  The Art Show is a very popular part of the festival and there are always beautiful pieces of artwork on display and for sale. I hope to see you there. If you can't make the opening, make sure you drop in and take a look and thank the Rotary Club for supporting our school.

Warrandyte Festival Stall 

Festival Helpers 2023 - Google Docs

Above in the link that will take you into the Google Roster for helping out on the WPS stall, which will run on both days. There are several things going on at once in our stall, so we will need families to help for it to be successful. 

Terri Fernando is busy getting the paperwork, equipment and logistics ready. There will be a Fairy Floss machine for serving and operating, Baked goods to sell and we are also selling Banh Mi, which were a big hit last year.  If you can spare an hour or two of your time over the Festival Weekend, it will go a long way towards making the weekend a success for WPS and FOWPS.

We are also preparing for the parade and the student’s handmade decorations to use in the parade are under construction.  Eliza has given Claire very detailed instructions and Claire reports that everything is on track to be ready for the Parade. 

Junior School council

I would like to congratulate the students who were given their Junior School Council Certificate and badge at this week’s assembly.  We are proud of their commitment to helping their peers and community by being a part of this group.  The JSC will meet regularly on Friday’s and have started to put together some of their ideas and their peers’ ideas.

Their first project is a competition to decorate a class suggestion box. There will be a box in every classroom and students are encouraged to write their ideas or feedback. Every week the class will go through the list of suggestions to explore further and pass onto the JSC, if they are achievable… sadly, we are never going to be able to put a waterslide in. 

The JSC have also secured a date for a day of games and fun on the 5th April. This runs in conjunction with the Family Fun afternoon and evening.  The JSC will help plan and implement the day's activities and we look forward to seeing what they come up with.  

Teaching Numeracy at WPS

In the classroom from Term 2 the students will notice the approach we take on our Numeracy program will begin to change as we work towards the implementation of our Numeracy Inquiry model. As part of our Annual Implementation Plan for 2023, the staff are currently participating in several professional learning sessions to create a Numeracy teaching and learning program that supports all our students point of need but also provides for a more engaging and more high order thinking.

The model is based on the work of Peter Sullivan, who is Professor of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education at Monash University and President of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers.  His model allows for students to explore mathematical concepts without the limitations of having only one correct way of doing it. The open ended and collaborative approach immediately provides tasks that can have multiple layers of complexity on either side of the curriculum continuum.  Explicit instruction is still an essential element of teaching and learning and can never be replaced, but we will now also focus on providing tasks that encourage high-level student thinking and reasoning.  We also believe that we can also help alleviate some any maths anxiety that some students have due to their perception that maths is hard and not fun. I know when the teachers began to trial this approach in their classroom, it has sparked a passion and excitement about teaching Numeracy.

An example of this approach in early years demonstrates the difference between a closed tasks and an open-ended task. In Prep the curriculum asks student to demonstrate subitising of a small collection of objects: They need to represent practical situations to model addition and sharing. In a traditional numeracy approach this might be a task that a teacher asks their class to do.

The example 1 (above) has either a right or wrong answer and only one configuration. Or we can take an inquiry challenge approach.  Example 2 answers will be able to demonstrate a student’s ability to use many different groups of numbers to reach the same answer.  

For Upper Primary an addition lesson rather than just ask students to practice adding given sets of numbers, we could use a task such as the example below. 

Students are given time at the very beginning of the lesson to have a go at the challenges. This is so we don’t box students into one way of solving the problem. They might work independently or in small groups. Students are then asked to come back and as a whole group to share and summarise their answers. 

Each lesson will be planned to cater for students who need support (referred to as 'scaffolding' in teacher language). In the above example they might use double digit numbers instead of 3 digits and be able to use manipulatives to assist. If we are looking to extend our high ability students in this example, once they’ve solved the initial prompt, they could try subtraction or multiplication. Some would likely naturally also try decimal numbers or negative numbers, stretching their skills beyond Grade 5 or 6. 

On Wednesday 5th April we will open our classrooms up at 2:30pm and welcome any visitors to come and explore the new approach and have a go at some challenging mathematical problems and puzzles that need solving.  We hope to see you there.

Before School Soccer

We have been able to secure a business that can offer before school Soccer clinics/lessons for Term 2. They are offering a multi-age group from 8am – 8:50am on Thursdays.  This is an optional program and if numbers are high, they will split the group into lower and upper years.  They will need a minimum of 6 enrolments to run the program. The lessons run separately from the school so registration and payment is online at Kids Unlimited. Use the QR code on the flyer for more details and to sign up. All instructors have Working with Children’s checks.  Accessing this program is a great way to help students build friendships.

Have a great weekend.

Take care,

Nieta