Term 4 - Week 11

Dear families,

Firstly, on behalf of Sarah, Shevani and myself, we would like to acknowledge and thank all of our students and families for your efforts and support of our school throughout the year. We would also like to thank all of our teachers and support staff for their contributions and dedication to our students throughout the year.

We have had an extremely busy term. Our school production of ‘Matilda’ was outstanding over the four performances and many hands did in fact make light work. We congratulate the achievement of the cast and Chelsea Adams, our Performing Arts teacher. I would also like to thank the incredible Laura Pearce, Dean Pearce and Tyrone Lewis for their unwavering support for Chelsea and the cast. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I would also like to say a special thank you to Tess Holland, Dianna Lane, Vicki Symons, Crissy Samaras, Georgina Petty and Kaitlin Hayes for all of their behind-the-scenes coordination of the event. It was much appreciated and ensured the production went smoothly without a hitch. A big thank you as well to all of our dedicated teachers, support staff and family volunteers. Also in the Performing Arts space, I once again thank Laura, Dean and Tyrone for their assistance to Chelsea to ensure the evening ran smoothly.

On Monday this week, we held our Year 6 Graduation. I would like to thank all of our Year 6 Graduates for their outstanding efforts throughout the year. What a wonderful group of Year 6 students they have been, who also happen to be Williamstown North Primary School’s 150th Year of Grade 6's. They are a credit not only to our school but to their families, whose support we are forever grateful for.

I would like to thank Patrick Kelly for his outstanding leadership of our year 5/6 cohort throughout the year as well as high coordination of the graduation evening. I thank all of our year 6 teachers and support staff also.

Yesterday our end of year reports went live on Compass. A reminder to parents that classroom teachers are available to discuss any aspect of these reports should you wish between now and the end of the school year. Thank you teachers for your work in this area.

This Friday, we have our end of year assembly commencing at 1.00pm in the school gym.

Parents/carers are reminded that student dismissal time is 1.30pm on Friday. Our first day of school for students except for Preps in 2025 is Wednesday the 29th January. Prep students begin on Thursday 30th January. All staff will be onsite on Tuesday the 28th of January undertaking professional learning. The 28th January is a student free curriculum day.

Below is the 2025 staff list as it currently stands.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Brittany Davidson, Neil Marshall-Inns and Laura Buckley to our school for 2025.

We also welcome back Fyfe Berry and Robert Black who were appointed to our school this term as well as Tahlia Zanoni who is returning part time from family leave, Declan Caiger, Carolyn Watt and Rachael Middleton who are all returning from extended periods of leave.

As well as these welcomes, we also have one goodbye and some goodbyes for now.

Staff embarking on 12 months leave from WNPS include; Tess Holland will be leaving us for 12 months and will be working in the Catholic Education system, Tania Brown will be spending some well-deserved time travelling with her husband in 2025 (but we expect to see her as a CRT during term 4), Vicki Symons will taking 12 months leave from education which is very well deserved especially since Vicki has been tirelessly teaching at our school since 1989. We look forward to welcoming these staff members back to WNPS in 2026. We also have Dianna Lane taking long service leave for term 1 and Steven Gray taking family leave for term 1. We look forward to Dianna and Steve being back with us in term 2.

Our sad goodbye is to Mr Patrick Kelly who is leaving us this Friday to embark on a new teaching journey at Deanside Primary School. Pat has been a valued member of our school leadership team, a hardworking and dedicated team leader and a brilliant teacher to many students over the last 11 or so years at our school. Pat you will be missed very much, and we wish you all the best for your next teaching chapter.

I would like to thank all of our staff and give a very big thanks to my 2024 school leadership team, Sarah, Shevani, Giorgia, Kaitlyn, Crissy, Kate, Melanie, Bronwyn, Matt and Patrick for your amazing work this year! You have all been much appreciated.

Year Prep-2 Sub-School

Leader: Miss Kaitlyn Hayes

Prep A: Hannah Wilkinson (.8) & Neilma Collins (.2)

Prep B: Zach Schmidt

Prep C: Irini Mavridis

1A: Lucinda McSherry (.6) & Tahlia Zanoni (.4)

1B: Rachel Wilson

1C: Brittany Davidson

2A: Fyfe Berry

2B: Steven Gray (please note that Steven will be on family leave during term 1 and will be replaced by Lisa Caulfield during this time)

2C: Kaitlyn Hayes (.5) & Georgina Petty (.5)

2D: Ben Roosenboom

Year 3-4 Sub-School

Leader Ms Crissy Samaras

3A: Robert Black

3B: Felicity Fyfe

3C: Andrew Papadatos

4A: Neil Marshall-Inns

4B: Crissy Samaras (.5) & Tammy Voukelatos (.5)

4C: Melanie Kennie

4D: Declan Caiger

Year 5-6 Sub-School

Leader Miss Bronwyn Murray

5/6A: Bronwyn Murray (.5) & Ashleigh Paton (.5)

5B: Jamie Peters

5C: Laura Buckley

5D: Kylie Missen

5E: Carolyn Watt

6B: Laura Breen

6C: Nick Reese

6D: Judith Lawler

Specialist Team

Japanese: Helen Aitkins (.8) and Rachel Burgess (.2)

Physical Education: Shannon Carrol (1.0) and Matthew Feeley (.2)

Visual Art: Julie Papazisis

Performing Arts: Chelsea Adams

STEM: Dean Pearce

Curriculum & Wellbeing Leaders

Literacy P-6: Kaitlyn Hayes

Numeracy P-6: Crissy Samaras

Wellbeing – Inclusion/mental health: Giorgia Moss (.8)

Wellbeing – Attendance/behaviour: Matthew Feeley

Intervention and Extension

Numeracy Intervention: Dianna Lane (please note that Dianna will be on long service leave during term 1 and Cameron Brown will undertake numeracy intervention during this time)

Numeracy Extension: Cameron Brown

Literacy Intervention/extension: TBA

Finally, we wish all of our students a very safe and merry Christmas, a happy new year and a relaxing holiday season. We look forward to seeing you all back in 2026.

Richard Buckingham

Principal

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