Principal's Report

 In this week’s newsletter:

• Appreciations and News
  • Halloween Disco
  • Parent Payment Arrangements for 2025
• Coming Up
  • Diversity Day - Friday November 1st
  • Student Free Curriculum Day - November 4th, followed by Melbourne Cup Day Public Holiday
  • Prep and 1LL swimming - From Wednesday 6th November

Appreciations and News

It’s been a very busy week at FWPS from both a leadership and teaching staff point of view. Since the last newsletter, we’ve been immersed in operational processes as we prepare for 2025. This has included:

• Finance - Working through the 2025 budgets, including the allocation of funding across the different curriculum and non-curriculum areas.
• Staffing - Running staffing panels to employ new staff for 2025 and determining teaching teams. We look forward to sharing our confirmed staffing profile with families once this process is complete in a few weeks. 
• Tender meetings for the new gym build - We’re very keen to be at the stage where the confirmed gym plans can finally be shared with our school community!
• Grade placements - Staff have commenced this process and we remind families that no further changes or requests can be made at this time.
• Reporting - Staff are well are truly in the assessment cycle and deep in report writing. 

Halloween Disco

It seems like last night’s disco was a great success, and it’s always a joy to experience the students’ happy faces, bouncing bodies and loud voices as they bop away at their favourite tunes in the gym! The many costumes on show were also very creative and we’re sure they’ll be getting a workout tonight with the usual trick or treating festivities in the WeFo community!

We want to say a big thank you to the many volunteers and staff who assisted across the day and night, with set up, pack up, and supervision. Our biggest thanks though goes to Adele Coone (parent of Aster and Harvey) as the event organiser. It’s hard to portray just how much work she put in at the back end to make this event happen for your children, but I can confirm that it was not limited to sourcing the glow sticks and Zooper Doopers, making and pinning up all the decorations, organising and managing all the parent volunteers, and running of the event on the night.  As a leadership team we are so appreciative of her professionalism, commitment and ability to take the reigns during such a busy time for us. If you see her in the yard, you might be inclined to say a quick thanks.

Parent Payment Arrangements for 2025

In the ‘From the Office’ section of today’s newsletter, you will find information about the 2025 Parent Payment Arrangements (voluntary contributions), as approved by the School Council at the last meeting. 

Please note that we are not accepting any payments until 2025. This information is purely for your forward financial planning purposes and notification about payment options will be sent to families at the start of the school year.

Coming Up 

Diversity Day - TOMORROW (Friday November 1st)

As mentioned in last week’s newsletter, tomorrow is the FWPS Diversity Day, so students are encouraged to come dressed in colourful sporting clothes to participate in the day’s activities! This day is to celebrate and encourage students to get out and get active as part of a fun, social, colourful and inclusive event. The focus on colour provides the opportunity to celebrate diversity amongst our school community and integrate key messages around cultural diversity, disability, indigenous and gender inclusion and the engagement of all students no matter their background, gender or ability.

This year the main event will again be run by Kaboom Kid Sports who will run fun, novelty tabloid activities for the students to participate in. We will also run various in-classroom inclusive activities for our students to participate in and celebrate diversity throughout the day.

Students are encouraged to wear colourful clothing to show their support for diversity but are required to wear a suitable sunsmart hat (this can be the school hat). It is important to wear sporty clothing and runners/sneakers so they can fully participate in activities. At this stage there is only a ‘slight shower’ forecast with a mostly sunny day. We’ll keep our fingers crossed!

Student Free Curriculum Day - November 4th, followed by the Melbourne Cup Day Public Holiday

A reminder to families that this coming Monday (4th November) is a student-free curriculum day for staff who are undertaking report writing for the second semester.

If your child requires care, please book with Their Care, our outside school hours care provider.

This day will also be followed by the Melbourne Cup Day public holiday.

We’ll see all our students back at school on Wednesday!

Prep and 1LL swimming - From Wednesday 6th November

After the long weekend for families, our Prep and Grade 1LL students will be participating in their warm water swimming program at the Maribyrnong Aquatic Centre. Please ensure you have read the Compass information/reminders from Anna Kurvink (PAK teacher), who is coordinating the program. 

Thank you to the parents who have volunteered to assist across the eight days. Without volunteers, we cannot meet required supervision ratios and we would need to cancel this important program.

I hope you all get a chance to enjoy a long weekend.

Cheers,

Liz

REPEATED MESSAGES FROM PAST NEWSLETTERS

Leaving FWPS in 2025?

If your family is planning to leave for another school next year, we would really appreciate you emailing us at: footscray.west.ps@education.vic.gov.au using the subject line (above) and letting us know your child’s new school so we can process the transfer.