From the Principal
Diana Ellis
Welcome to School Open Afternoon and Picnic
Next Friday we welcome you all to come along for our open afternoon. All classrooms including Carlsruhe will be open for parents to attend.
At the main campus classrooms will be open for the last hour from 2.30 – 3.30. Parents can attend Carlsruhe from 1.50 until 2.50.
Upon completion of the open classrooms, we then invite families to bring a picnic basket and gather on the oval. This is a great opportunity for parents to meet new families and broaden your social network. We look forward to welcoming you and we know your child/children will be excited to have you on site and share their learning with you.
Meet and greet interviews
A huge shout out of gratitude to our teachers and parents who made the time to meet each other this week and share information. As educators it is essential we know as much about each student as we can. This helps us to cater for their individual needs and provide the best possible opportunities for them to achieve success. This means knowing about their interests and hobbies, any medical or health conditions, family background, their strengths and areas that are challenging.
Taylor Swift at W.P.S
On Monday the school was buzzing with many of our very tired students and staff who had attended the Tayor Swift phenomenon in Melbourne, but there were also some disheartened people who had not been able to attend. As a little acknowledgement of the many students and staff who were not able to attend the concert, Mr. Bromley and his lunch time choir group performed “Shake it Off” at assembly. No where in sight was there any glitter or sparkling costumes, but the choir performed a stellar and enjoyable performance.
Thankyou Mr. Bromley and Choir
Hats
For the purpose of being protected from the sun, students are required to wear hats until mid April. At the moment, we have many students presenting at the office each day looking for spare hats. For health reasons we will not being providing spare hats and we encourage you to ensure your child has a broad brimmed or bucket hat that is clearly named.
If students do not have a hat they will be required to play in a designated covered area.
Please see our attached policy:
School Council
Next month we have our School Council Annual General Meeting. This is an opportunity for new members of our school community to become involved with a great team of parents and staff. The meeting is on Monday March 18 at 7.00pm in the portables at the top of the school. We would love some new parent nominations as we value the voice of our families in our decision-making processes. We are required to have a minimum of eight meetings a year. Our meetings start at 7.00pm and are finished by 8.30pm at the latest. During the winter months we have our meetings via Webex.
The feedback we have had from past members is they have loved hearing about the behind the scenes decision making processes in regards to policies and how the school finances are provided, budgeted for and spent. If you are interested in joining us, please grab a nomination form from the front office. Nominations close Friday March 8 at 4.00pm.
Dress Code
At Woodend Primary we like all students to feel a sense of inclusion, connectedness and equity. For this reason, we have Dress Code Expectations. We expect students to wear the school provided/recommended uniform. Our Dress Code Policy also recommends that long hair be tied up for both boys and girls. Jewellery and nail polish are not to be worn at school. The wearing of jewellery is a safety issue as necklaces, earrings and rings can be a safety risk on playgrounds, during play and in Physical Education sessions. Only stud earrings should be worn. We hope you will assist us to keep your children safe. We love nail polish, coloured hair and jewellery however we are recommending that these items are weekend wear or for social events only. You can read the attached policy:
Dogs at school
Recently we have noticed an increasing number of dogs on the school premises. At W.P.S we have a policy regarding Dogs on premises and for safety reasons it clearly states that dogs should not be on school grounds. Whilst you might think your dog is very well trained and behaved, we ask that you respect that some children are terrified of dogs and sadly no matter how well you know your dog, their behaviour can be unpredictable when faced with a large number of boisterous children at face height. As required by DET occupation and health safety compliance, we also have signage on our school fences reminding people that dogs are not allowed on site. Please see the attached policy:
This week during my time in classes there were many things I observed that should be celebrated. When teachers are planning, they plan with High Impact Teaching Strategies in Mind (HITS)
The 10 strategies include:
- Setting goals for students
- Structured lessons with prompts, supports and extensions
- Explicit teaching of concepts
- Worked examples that teachers have modelled and students can refer to during the lesson
- Collaborative learning opportunities with their peers
- Multiple exposures and opportunities to try their learning
- Open ended questioning that elicits deeper responses from students
- Regular, explicit, timely feedback to students about what they need to do to improve and how to do so.
- Metacognitive thinking – challenging students to think about their learning and problem solve.
- Differentiated teaching – providing for students at the point of need and providing learning that enables and extends students.
In classrooms this week I observed
- Visual timetables on the boards so that all students are aware of the lessons that will occur throughout the day. The set timetables are written but also have pictorial symbols to assist students that cannot read the text. Teachers also go through the timetable at the start of the day.
- Explicit learning intentions and success criteria written on the boards in all classrooms. These help students to have a clear understanding of what they are learning and why, and what they have to achieve to be successful with the learning for that session.
- Worked examples modelled by the teacher and left as a prompt for students if they need to be redirected to the explicit teaching.
- Many group and whole class collaboration opportunities where students were asked to share their thinking and the strategies they used.
- Immediate feedback to students about their thinking, strategies they used and opportunities for improvement.
Principal
Diana Ellis