As we say goodbye to 2024, there is a lot to talk about and much to celebrate with our community.

On Friday last week, we had our Meet the Teacher session, and all the students were able to meet with their teacher for next year. We have one new addition to our teaching staff, which is Nori Sato. Nori comes with a great deal of experience in the education sector, having been a lecturer at LaTrobe University and now moving across to the primary sector to follow his passion for teaching and children. If your child was in level 1/2 this year, you may already be familiar with Nori as he worked in Chris' classroom for a while.

Nori will be joining the Grade 1/2 team with Claire, Chris and Kylie and I know he will made a great addition to this very strong and passionate team of teachers.

All the new teacher teams have participated in a planning day in preparation for 2025. We will also have two non-pupil curriculums at the start of the year. Teachers start back on the 28th of January. Grade 1-6 students start on Thursday 30th January. Our 2025 Preps will begin their school journey on Monday 3rd February. We are looking forward to seeing them come through the gates for the first time as fully fledged WPS students.

Grade 6 Graduation

On Tuesday night a great time was had by all you attended the Grade 6 Graduation. As is the tradition, the Grade 6 students dined with the staff of WPS in an Italian themed dinner. The Bampi has been transformed by the Graduation parent committee, who passionately create a celebration their children will not forget.

The reflection and dance after the dinner was a medley of past musical performances and the students danced proudly as they recalled the songs and dances of years gone by. As always their stage presence is confident and professional having built these skills over the years with Kirsty's careful guidance and care.

Greg and Sam put together an awards ceremony that ran like clockwork and I thank them for their time on this as it does take a lot of organisation behind the scenes.

The awards for 2025 went to the following students:

W.H. Everard Award - Jai Poole

Member of Legislative Assembly Award - Isla Wells

Academic Award - Robert DuPlessis

Rats of Tobruk Award - Jed James

Sian Hamilton Award - Jack Costen

Menzie's Award - Atticus Stephens

Visual Arts Award - Olive Richards

Auslan Award - Archie Pelosi

Performing Arts Award - Lilla Baker

Sport Award - Mack Whitbread

Congratulation to all the graduating students of 2025. You have been a strong and very connected cohort, and I am sure that despite moving into a range of different High Schools, you will stay connected to each other. We look forward to hearing about all your successes and experiences in the near future.

Christmas Celebration Evening

Our Christmas Celebration at Stiggant's Reserve was an absolute reflection of the close community we have. With a huge turnout, the students loved the range of songs they had the choice to sing in, with many choosing to participate in all the items.

Thanks to Kirsty and her son Lachie and daughter Hayley for once again helping us with sound and organisation of the event. Kirsty out did herself again with the 12 Days of Christmas being signed as well as sung by the school.

Thank you also to Chris Cavill who put two classic songs together that provided students an opportunity to use their wide vocal ranges and explore music genres. The electric guitar was definitely a winner with the students.

Kevin O'Mara very kindly offered a last hurrah with all students welcomed to participate in 2 Bushband classics. The Preps and younger students relished being a part of this performance and the turnout on the Saturday night Community Carols to perform with Kev was fantastic. Sadly it will be Kev's last performance as he was adamant to me that he is hanging up his guitar (at least for the Bushband).

Thank you also to the FOWPS committee and parents who helped run the sausage sizzle and ice-cream. As always, they did a fantastic job keeping the flow of food and drinks going for most of the night. Thanks also to Riverview Cafe, who donated the ice-cream to the school.

A special thanks to Terri Fernando, who has once again excelled as our FOWPS President. Thank you to Terri and all the parents that have helped FOWPS throughout the year. We have been saving up our FOWPS fundraising money to allow us to begin purchasing some improved ICT equipment. This will include tablets, laptops but also a large screen and projector for the Bampi so our audiences are better able to see the screen during assemblies and events. We are even planning on building a Podcasting Studio for our students, which I cannot wait to get up and running. Our Grade 6 leaders will be working on this project closely with James and myself.

We say goodbye to Steph...

Last night the staff got together to say goodbye to Stephanie Chivell, who has been a huge part of the WPS culture and community for so long. When Steph told me she was moving up in her career I was proud of her but at the same time incredibly sad to lose someone so special to our community and someone so loved by the staff and I. For so long we have laughed at her quick wit and gone to her when we needed help knowing she would do it no questions asked. We have watched her nurture every child in the school and offer kindness and compassion to children when they need it the most. She has supported her families and gone above and beyond.

On behalf of the entire WPS community I wish Steph nothing but the best as she walks towards a new career challenge at Balwyn North PS as a Learning Specialist. She will no doubt make the same mark there as she did here. We will miss you Steph but feel fortunate to know we will see you again next year as you remain a parent of our school.

Steph - written by Rick Griffiths

Steph’s the teacher you can’t forget,

With sprinkles of humour, her heart is set.

She’ll argue with passion, and take a chance,

That round hundreds and thousands make the best dance!

“It's castle, not castel,” she’ll say with her Mooroolbark tone,

And cushion, not cush-shun —hey Steph ya not alone!

Her question starts a sentence with such might.

As she corrects us all and asks, “Are all right”.

In the staff room, we are all pranksters, too,

The water cooler might be leaking and Steph wants to know who?

Dog poo Steph forgot? It’s a forgettable smell,

How it happened? No one knows, but with laughter AAAAAHHH well.

No one knows.

Steph and I play a game, no doubt,

Who leaves the milk with just the smallest amount? I do!

A bit left, just to annoy,

Sorry teachers, but we really enjoyed.

Steph and us teachers are a quirky crew,

We look at each other like cameras in view.

With laughs and stories, we’re always at ease,

Thinking we’re stars on a TV series!

We will make the best TV show.

We also say goodbye to Maria Suhr-Hansen...

We also say goodbye to Maria as she also takes on a new challenge and life journey moving up to Darwin and working in a rural indigenous community. We know she will absolutely thrive there and spread her kindness and warmth. We are hoping to make a connection with her next year and have the two schools form a relationship and learn from each other.

Again, I thank Maria for her contribution to our school over the last 2 years and I wish her all the best and hope that we see her again if and when she returns to her hometown.

Calendar for 2025

We have reached a point in our school where we can plan further ahead for events and special dates in a school year ahead. As such we have a 2025 calendar that has outlined the major dates for you to be able to plan ahead. There may be some minor changes if circumstances require us to, but we will do our best to honour these dates. Camps have been booked and confirmed, and curriculum days are now locked in. You will also note that our School Production will happen in Term 4 in the final weeks of the year. This means we will not run a Christmas event in 2025 as this would be too much for staff and students alike.

NB: If you don't see a date for something we regularly have, such a discos or family nights, these will still take place but are often slotted in across the year through FOWPS and are dependent on availability of helpers. We will list these dates in our Newsletter. If you are like me and would prefer a hardcopy of the calendar, we have printed some A3 copies and can be collected at the front office.

Survey for 2025 Out of School Hours Care service

Please take a moment to complete this very short survey about the OSH service to allow us to plan which sessions might be offered before and after school.

https://forms.gle/GcuWJJ1BdwPxeiWU8

We say goodbye to Katrina as she begins a new career in Education Support. Katrina has been a huge asset to the OSH program and I know the students and families she looked after, will miss her. We thank her for all her hard work helping us to set up our own OSH service.

We welcome Franzelle DuPlessis as our new Coordinator of the OSH program. She has worked side by side with Katrina for several weeks now to learn the ropes. I look forward to working with her next year and welcome her to our community and staff.

We are currently in the process of setting up a booking and administration via a software company, Kidsoft. This app will allow families to enrol, book, sign in and out, pay and receive CCS rebates. We have now been linked to the CCS process so we will begin booking at the regular fees next year, but you will be able to claim the CCS rebate if you have set this up via Centrelink. I encourage you to do this as the rebate is on offer to all families earning under $500,000 per year. We will keep you updated throughout the holidays as we set this all up.

New Disability Inclusion Team

The school has developed systems over the last 12 months that allow for teachers to have detailed information about students, and in particular students that have been identified as having specific needs to support their learning and wellbeing. If this applies to your child, there will an opportunity to meet with next year's teacher and myself early in 2025. But the documented information about children's needs, their learning and social emotional goals, strategies and differentiation being put in place for them in the classroom and in specialists will all flow through next year from this process.

Last term the school formed a Disability Inclusion team. This team is made up of myself, Kylie Somerfield, Greg Edwards, Penny MacDonald and Helen Wong. We have met and participated in Professional Learning to set up a systemwide process to support and implement strategies and resources towards improving inclusion and support for all our students. This includes Tier whole school strategies, Tier 2 small group work and then Tier 3 strategies for one-on-one intervention. We will continue this work in 2025 as we try to improve our practice and system wide process' to support our students.

Behaviour Management Process update

We have updated our Behaviour Management Process by adding a couple of new major behaviours. This has been added as we reviewed this process as part of stage one implementation. Adding these falls in line with our values as we seek to ensure all people feel safe and free from any kind of behaviour that has the potential to harm a child's wellbeing.

Targeted discrimination against a persons gender or identity
Repeated targeted behaviour that is inappropriate or discriminatory towards an individual or peer groups

I would like to end by thanking the staff at WPS for another amazing year. The extra lengths you go to in providing so many opportunities for our students is very much appreciated by myself and the families of WPS. We are so lucky to have the staff that we do and once again, I look forward to working with them in the new year. Another year of hard work but done with a clear purpose and goal to improve the wellbeing and outcomes for all our students. I hope all the staff enjoy their well-earned break!

As we head towards Christmas at a running pace, I hope you are able to hit the brakes and slow down over the holidays to enjoy the summer weather and spend time with family and friends. Have a very Merry Christmas and New Year. We will be back before you know it so rest up!

Stay safe,

Nieta

FOWPS News