Principal  Message

Working Bee

Thank you two all the families that came along to last Friday afternoons working bee. We had a good turnout and positive feedback about doing it on the afternoon rather than the weekend. I appreciate that it takes time out of personal and work duties to contribute. The grounds look neater with added stones, pebbles, plants and sand. It is always nice to see a community come together and the students that stayed behind to help their parents did a marvellous job also. 

Camp is coming up!

The Grade 3-6 camp is coming up quickly and preparations are being made so that the students have a positive and fun experience. There are quite a few benefits to participating in camp that from a school's perspective are very important.

Building independence:

Time away from home allows students to make decisions on their own, away from the spotlight of their parents. A student deciding what to eat, what to wear and having to make their own bed are important life skills that can be practiced on camp. Camps encourage students to use their self-management skills, organisational skills and problem solving skills. Making individual choices leads to a greater sense of independence. 

Building Resilience and Confidence:

Students have the opportunity to participate in activities that are new to them. Accomplishing something in a new environment may help them overcome fears and anxieties. 

Building Relationships:

One of the greatest benefits of a school camp allows the deepening of current friendships or forming of new ones. Friendships are tested and affirmed in new environments and experiences. This includes a student’s relationship with a teacher who get a chance to see a child in a different environment to the classroom. These connections can have a positive impact on learning when returning to the classroom.

Building Social Skills:

Camps allow students to develop their leadership and team building skills. They can practice their communication skills as well as demonstrate care, support and empathy to others. Working well with others for a common goal is another important life skill. We see a lot of this on camp when they comfort friends who are homesick in their cabin.

Building Physical Fitness

The YMCA camp is an outdoor activity camp.  Students have the chance to operate outside of their comfort zone and are exposed to activities that may become an interest to them outside of camp.  On camp students are away from screens and devices, so they can be active and engaged in hands on activities. This may also have a positive impact on mental health.

There are students (and parents) who will be feeling anxious about heading off to camp. It is completely normal and part of the experience in pushing through those feelings and coming out the other end having been able to participate and enjoy the activities. Once there, almost all students feel better and if there is anxiety or their wellbeing is significantly compromised, we call parents. We can also make arrangements and provide for students and make reasonable adjustments, so please let your child's teacher know as soon as possible if you have any concerns. The more we know, the more we can support. We have a lot of first-time campers in our Grade 3 cohort. Having been to the Mt Eliza YMCA camp, I can assure you they are going to a great facility with great accommodation and activities. 

We still have families who have not paid or fully paid for their child's camp. We will require payment for them to be able to attend, so please call the office or pay via Compass as soon as possible. It is difficult for us to plan cabins, activities and menus if we do not have the final figures. 

Report Writing

Teachers are working on the first of the 2025 student reports and finalising their comments and assessment, but not before a great deal of work has been done by the students and teachers. Testing comes in 2 forms, summative and formative. Formative is on the spot collection of data to inform the teacher of the next steps in the unit of work and to highlight students who might need to be retaught, consolidate or offered enrichment. Summative is the data used to give a broader overall assessment of a child's point of need on the Victorian Curriculum continuum. For reports the indicator is a dot that is teacher judgement based on the at least 3 sets of summative data. This is known and triangulated data. Summative assessments generally only take place around report writing time or if a teacher is seeking clarification about a child's needs (e.g. Reading levels). 

There is one subject that is the hardest to assess and always has been... writing. Writing is a cyclical process and there are many skills that need to be combined for a student to plan, draft and edit a piece of writing. At all levels there are skills that need to be mastered before moving up that continuum of learning. WPS is using Victorian Curriculum 2.0 version ahead of schedule, so teachers and I are developing our process using the updated curriculum. Before each report can assess on Writing, we conduct Writing Moderation. Rick has been putting together a bank of resources that can be used to compare and contrast worked examples of students writing.  We layout the curriculum from pre foundation to Year 8, we use the Achievement Standards and Content Descriptors to look at each piece of writing a teacher has collected from a student. There is discussion within teams and whole school in writing moderation workshops conducted after school. 

Mathematics 2.0 Victorian Curriculum

It is also important to note that the Mathematics Victorian Curriculum 2.0 has changed also. There were 3 areas of Maths that were assessed separately, Number and Algebra, Statistics and Probability, Measurement and Geometry. These have all now been amalgamated into one point in the school report. All schools are now combining the assessments, keeping in mind that Number and Algebra is by far the largest component of the mathematics curriculum that needs to be covered. The other 2 domains make up roughly 20-25% of the skills and strategies students need to learn.

Uniform

I have been noticing that there is an increase in students wearing non uniform beanies and jumpers as the weather gets colder. We sell beanies with the Warrandyte logo at the uniform shop, and I encourage you to purchase this for your child/ren in the winter months. Otherwise, a standard navy-blue beanie is fine.  Uniforms can be purchased anytime online via the Flexischools App and at the office on a Tuesday morning.

Bushfire Safety and CCTV

Our school has an obligation to ensure the school environment is safe and secure, and fulfil our duty of care to students, staff and visitors.  A CCTV system will assist our school to fulfil these obligations and to prevent and manage, vandalism, theft and inappropriate behaviour on school grounds. More importantly we will be able to ensure the safety of visitors, staff and students in the event of a bushfire evacuation by being able to monitor the grounds at critical times in our evacuation or relocation plan. 

We will follow Department of Education and Training policy requirements for the design, installation, management and use of the CCTV systems. This policy is available at: CCTV in Schools – Installation and Management. We will also place a CCTV Privacy Notice on our school website with more information about our school’s use of CCTV before it is rolled out in Term 3.

Enjoy your weekend and take care,

Nieta