Principal's Report

In this week’s newsletter:

• Welcome Back / Preps Starting Today
• Principal Partnership
• Weekly values focus
• Holiday works / Appreciations / Building project completion and first use
• Adjusted School Times
• Container Mural
• Well done, Ziggy! 
• Food Delivery Service
• Sunsmart Reminder

Coming Up

• TheirCare relocating to Emu Corner next week
• Inform and Empower Cyber Safety Program
• Year 4 to 6 Swim Trials
• School Council Membership
• Photographing, Filming and Recording Students
• Annual Privacy Reminder
• Camps, Sports and Excursion Fund Applications for Families

Welcome Back!

We hope all families enjoyed some time away from their work places and together with family and friends.

On Tuesday our whole staff team attended for the first official time. We of course had to start in the new gym space before Carolyn worked with the Prep to 4 teams with a professional learning focus on Explicit Maths Program, a learning innovation for us this year. On such a hot day we appreciated staff teams being able to work together and individually over the day in airconditioned spaces.

We loved seeing our community coming together on Wednesday for the real start to the school year. There was much interest at the start of the day as many families took the first opportunity to have a peek into our new Eagle Building. It was great to see the looks on children and adults alike as they first stepped into this huge space. Many popped into our wonderful new STEM (Food Tech) and Music spaces as well.

Welcome also to new teaching team members, Samantha Jarred and Holly Heitmann joining the Year 3 team, Alex Clarey joining the Year 5 team and Tom Li joining the Specialist team in STEM. Welcome back to Lauren Baker returning from family leave, joining the Year 1 team part time (Mon and Tues).

As Wednesday was a Prep assessment day, today was another special day, it always is when we officially welcome our whole prep cohort for the first day of school. This initial day is a little shorter and after a welcome afternoon tea hosted by our Parents’ Association, parents and carers returned to the classroom to collect the children.  

Tomorrow will be the first full day for Preps, so we are all pleased that the extreme heat, at least this week, was short-lived.

Principal Partnership

At our final assembly last year I announced the news that this year I will be reducing my work days from fulltime to 0.8. In a regular week I will now be working Tuesday to Friday.  This change was driven by me when I reached 40 years as a teacher / principal in 2025. I am delighted that this year, Assistant Principal, Liz Beasley will be Acting Principal in my absence, a role that she is born for and has worked incredibly hard to achieve the experience and capability to perform exceptionally well. As I was successful in applying for the Department of Education’s Flexible Work for School Leaders Initiative, this effectively provides Liz the opportunity to work in a Co-Principal role at 0.4 despite me reducing my workload only by 0.2. We are delighted with this opportunity to maintain leadership continuity in an ever changing and challenging educational environment.

Weekly Values Focus

For those who have been with us for a while, you may remember that in early Term 4 of 2024, we introduced our new school vision and values. Our vision is simple: “Working together to create a better world.” This vision is supported by four core values—Belonging, Respect, Responsibility, and Resilience.

Since then, our staff have worked hard to make these values part of everyday life at our school. Last year, we realized we could go even deeper. We want these values to be more than just words or rules for students while they are here. Our goal is for students to carry these values with them when they leave Footscray West Primary School and step out into the wider world. This is what we call “The Footscray West Way.”

This year, we are adding to our approach. Each week, we will focus on one of the foundational skills that make up our values. In Term 1, our focus is on BELONGING. We will explore what it means to truly belong to a community and what actions we all need to take to help everyone feel included.

Every morning, our Welcome Circles will highlight these ideas. Our Pupils of the Week awards will also connect to the weekly focus, celebrating students who show these values in action.

To help families support this work at home, we will include a special page in the newsletter each week. This page will outline the focus for the upcoming week. Since this is our first newsletter, you will find information about the focus for both Week 1 (this week) and Week 2 (next week).

Holiday Works

Over the last fortnight we have been working towards a smooth start to the school year. A very big appreciation to the many staff who worked on preparation at school, or at home.  

We have been busy with the construction team ensuring that we could start the school year in our new Eagle Building. As we were only able to start moving in furniture and equipment after lunch on Thursday, time was limited, but thanks to Taleb, Liz, Jane, Kerrie (and her 2 sons), Stratos, Yiannis, Ken Owen and Shannon, classes were all able to be hosted in our new specialist programs today. In some cases we have some temporary furniture, as not everything we have ordered arrived on time (no surprises there), or we have chosen to use temporary items in the interim.

To prove the building is in our hands, I will post the official letter prepared by the Victorian Schools Building Authority (signed by me no less!)

Following the informal visit by our families before school on Wednesday the specialist teaching team took their first classes during the second lesson of the day. I popped in for a visit and took the following pictures:

As stated in Sunday’s Welcome Back to FWPS for 2026 Compass post, we will also invite parents and carers for another opportunity to visit the gym and specialist classrooms from 3:15pm tomorrow (Friday).

During our preparation over the last fortnight there was lots of movement of items from temporary storage. As part of that solution we have re-used the space created at the front of the school with the removal of the redundant community water tank. A concrete slab was installed and a new 20” shipping container purchased and expertly delivered.

This container will provide replacement storage space with Emu Corner no longer being able to store furniture and equipment that was previously kept in the shelter shed that was removed as part of the Eagle Building project. This will also serve as a location for our recycling bins.

Adjusted School Times

In support of our Welcoming Starts communicated to families in December and recapped in our Welcome Back to FWPS for 2026 Compass post on the weekend, we have some minor adjustments to our school day. Gates will still open at 8:40am, for ten minute playground time and then students will have the opportunity to go into class (no lining up required) after the 8:50am bell. Students still wishing to play may remain doing so for several minutes until calming music plays - that will be time to head into class, perhaps via the toilet to be ready for learning at 9am. Teachers will only welcome students into the room from 8:50am, no earlier, to ensure they have preparation time for the day ahead.

Another small change is that our lunch and recess eating times have now been moved until after play. Lunch play is still at 11:30am - 12:10pm, eating time will follow. Students will have a healthy food snack in the mornings prior to lunch play. Inside eating will also occur following the 2:00 - 2:30pm recess break. As a consequence of the later official start time of 9:00am, school will revert to a 3:30pm finish.

It is all beautifully detailed in Liz’ accompanying poster:

Container Mural

We appreciate that Shannon from Hey Nice Murals!, who did the marvellous artwork on the PA container last year, fitted us into her busy schedule this week. With a day lost to the extreme heat on Tuesday, she gathered her forces, including some FWPS mums, for some big days of painting in order to stick to the plan of one week from go to whoa. It is already looking like a marvellous upgrade on what we have been looking at for a decade.

Well done, Ziggy! (Donations Still Open) 

Over the holidays, one of our Year Three students, Ziggy, took on the brave challenge of shaving her head to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and to donate her locks for a wig.

If you’ve seen her in the yard since returning, you’ll notice she rocks her new ‘do!

Ziggy’s fundraising page is still open, and she’s keen to boost up the donations to Make-A-Wish before it closes. So far, she’s raised an incredible $4955 towards her goal of $5500. A few more donations from our community would go far in helping the foundation to make more dreams come true for Australian kids who have critical illnesses.

If you’d like to donate, please follow this link: https://gofund.me/2cd7d50a5

Well done, Ziggy. We’re proud of you!

Food Delivery Service 

We are pleased that TK Tuckshop will continue to provide a three day (Wednesday to Friday) food delivery service, starting this week (book online using the Spriggy app). While we are delighted that we now have a canteen, as I have stated previously, we will require a thorough process to consider suitable canteen operators. At the earliest we do not anticipate that to occur during the first semester.

Sunsmart (repeated from Sunday’s Welcome Back Compass post)

In Terms 1 and 4, students must wear school-approved SunSmart hats (legionnaire, broad-brimmed, or bucket) outdoors. Caps are not allowed. Please provide sunscreen to ensure your child can reapply it during the day. Reminder messages are provided before each break time. Students without a suitable hat must stay in the gazebo.

Coming Up

TheirCare Program moving location next week 

Our TheirCare team are pleased that they will be able to return to Emu Corner as their home base next week. The service will continue in Dingo on Monday and Tuesday morning before transferring to the Emu Corner area for afterschool service on Tuesday. 

The new canteen will be an ideal food prep area for the staff and the new garden area an ideal serving location when the weather allows. Once the program relocates, we will ask families to access the program via the dedicated pedestrian gate to the right hand side of the car park entry. This is a new path that safely enables pedestrians to walk between the car park and the Koala Building, past our new bike / scooter parking area and the new Eagle Building and onto Emu Corner. Unfortunately, parent / carer access to the car park will no longer be available, as due to its significantly reduced size, it will not safely cater for the anticipated amount of traffic before and after school. 

Inform and Empower 

This year we will continue with our partnership with the I&E team to provide relevant, engaging and highly relevant cyber safety learning. After the first year of generous financial support from Seddon Bendigo Community Bank, the funding of the program now reverts to us. We will fund the program through your parent contributions.  A reminder that the contributions while stated as being voluntary, are an expectation for all families who can afford to contribute.  

Year 4 to 6 Swim Trials will be held on Friday, 6th February

A Compass post has been sent to all families with students in years 4 to 6 inviting them to register and pay for the annual School Swimming Trials at Vic Uni pool on Friday of next week. Please note that this is NOT A LEARN TO SWIM PROGRAM. It is open to students who are able to swim 50m independently, are confident in their stroke execution and are willing to participate in a competitive event. The students will have the opportunity to compete in up to four events with all four swim disciplines (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly). Boys / girls events will be held for 9/10, 11 and 12 year age groups as per School Sports Victoria guidelines.  To qualify students will need to finish first or second in their individual race or have the best time overall if separate heats are held.  We wish all our participants the very best of fortune.

School Council General Invitation

At the start of the year we provide the opportunity for parents / carers and staff members to consider whether they would like to positively contribute to our School Council. We have been fortunate to have an able and supportive Council consisting of staff and parents who work together harmoniously, most who remain eligible to continue, or renominate.  We may however have several available places for parents / carers who may be interested in joining. Please contact the office or speak to me in the yard if you feel you may wish to contribute.

Photographing, Filming and Recording Students

Our annual reminder that if you wish to adjust your current level of permission for photographing, filming or recording of your child to contact the office. Please see the Policy page on our school website for more information: 

https://www.fwps.vic.edu.au/page/222/Policies-and-Child-Safe-Standards

Annual Privacy Reminder

Our school collects and uses student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ privacy policy and the Schools’ privacy collection notice.

Our Photographing, Filming and Recording Students policy, available on the Policies page on our website, https://www.fwps.vic.edu.au/page/222/Policies-and-Child-Safe-Standards, describes how we collect and use photographs, video and recordings of students. The policy also explains when parent consent is required and how it can be provided and withdrawn.

We ask parents to also review the guidance we provide on how we use the Google Suite (G Suite Information for Parents & Guardians) safely at the school and what parents can do to further protect their child’s information. If after reviewing the guidance, you have any questions or concerns regarding your child using Microsoft 365/Google Workspace for Education, please contact the school.

For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ privacy policy: information for parents. This information is also available in eleven community languages: Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Gujarati, Mandarin, Somali, Sudanese, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Camps, Sports and Excursion Fund Applications for Families

Please also make sure you look at the flyer in the newsletter regarding Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund applications for 2026. Applications close in June and are a great help for families. 

Best regards,

Brendan