Principal  Message

Family BBQ turned Disco! - Friday 15th March

 A reminder that a whole school Family BBQ is happening next Friday 15th from 5pm. We have Bop 'til You Drop coming to our BBQ to host 2 disco/karaoke shows with the children. 

Food and drinks can be purchased and is being catered for by FOWPS. Any money raised will go towards the purchase of ICT equipment such as laptops, tablets and podcasting studio recording equipment. 

Disco is free and Prep - Grade 2 session kicks off @ 5:30pm in the Bampi!

Grade 3 - 6 will follow at 6:30pm!

Hope to see you there!

We have recently put a message out regarding my personal leave from the 18th March. Thank you to all those people who have reached out to offer their support or wish me luck. I know that Rick will do a great job in my absence and that the staff will rally behind him and stick together. Rick will continue to support our Preps in transition and any other students in the morning that are struggling. 

As mentioned in my communication, Winston will still be coming to school most days and Helen, one of our ES staff, will take him on during his time at WPS. Helen has also begun participating in the onsite training sessions that Winston undertakes.   

The work that Winston does has proven to be very positive for our school's culture and in particular in relation to transition. He has had a strong impact on our new Prep students as well as some of our older ones, some of whom have been able to face the anxiety of letting mum or dad go for the day through play and time with Winston. He has become a constant in their morning routine and supported them in ways I could never have achieved without him. 

Relocations - Responding on Compass

We have had 2 relocations now and I am very hopeful that will be the last of them for the remainder of the year. However, if we do need to relocate again, can I ask that all parents read the letter that is sent out when being notified of the closure as it contains important information about the need to respond to us and any administrative or changes to our programs as a result of the relocation. We had to move our interviews to this week, but some parents did not read the letter, causing confusion in relation to this. We also ended up sending an SMS to parents to ensure a response on Compass was generated by each family. Using SMS system on Compass costs us 22cents a message but we will use the SMS service next time as this seemed to be the most reliable method to get our message across about logging into Compass.  

Just to clarify for any future emergency relocations or school closures, we need you to log into Compass and check the boxes as instructed. If it's a relocation, we need to know if your children are attending Templestowe Heights and that you have received the message. If it is a Catastrophic fire danger rating, we will need you to check a box on the Compass message to indicate you have read the message and are aware of the closure. We cannot rely on the SMS as we cannot be sure it is a parent who has read the message on a phone.

School Council for 2024

After conducting the nominations for both parents and staff I am pleased to announce this years school council membership :

Emma Clark (2023 President)

Sam McKellar (2023 Vice President)

Karen Anderson

Katie Penhalluriack (Katie rejoins the council as a parent member)

Carmen Greenhill (2023 Treasurer)

Bec Chivell

Claire Lambert (Department member)

Nerole Blair (Department member)

Each of these members will give up precious time with families to attend school council meetings so our community appreciates this and is grateful for your support. The AGM for WPS is on 13th March @ 7pm where the School Council President, Vice President and Treasurer will be appointed. This will be followed by a school council meeting with the new appointments.

It's a hot weekend, so stay safe and stay cool.

Take care

Nieta