Mobile phones not allowed at school

A reminder that the Department of Education has in place a mobile phone ban that requires students who bring mobiles phones to school to have them switched off and securely put away during school hours. Specifically:

The department is requiring all schools to ensure this ban is in place and enforced from the start of the 2024 school year.
The ban applies equally to all government schools right across the state.
This helps ensure that school is a learning environment free from unnecessary distractions and disruptions.
By ensuring mobile phones are kept away at recess and lunch times, students can interact with each other face-to-face, without the distractions and social pressures that mobile phones can cause.

I ask for the support of all our families, staff and students in continuing to support the implementation of this policy in our school.

Further information

Exceptions: For a very small number of students with particular health needs, an exception to the policy may be granted. Please contact Hayden Barker if you would like to discuss this.

Emergencies: In the event of an emergency or if you need to immediately contact your child, I ask that families contact the school office who will pass on a message as required.

School mobile phone policy: A copy of our school’s local mobile phone policy, which implements the government’s mobile policy in line with our local context, is available here:

https://www.wyndhamvaleps.vic.edu.au/file-share/8cbe3e0f-431a-467c-9bae-24952bb03bb3

Parent support: The Mobile phones in schools webpage provides links to resources for families to help them balance their children’s time using mobile phones.

If you have further questions, please contact the administration office.

PERSONAL PROPERTY POLICY

Help for non-English speakers

If you need help to understand the information in this policy please contact the school on 8754 0888

PURPOSE

To explain Wyndham Vale Primary School’s policy in relation to personal property and to ensure that special or valuable items of personal property are not brought to school.

SCOPE

This policy applies to all school activities, including camps and excursions.

POLICY

Wyndham Vale Primary School understands that staff and/or students may sometimes like to bring items of personal property to school.

The Department of Education and Training does not have insurance for personal property of staff, students and visitors. Wyndham Vale Primary School does not take responsibility for items of personal property that are lost, stolen or damaged at school or during school activities. Damage to personal property brought to school is the responsibility of the owner of that property.

Wyndham Vale Primary School encourages staff and students not to bring items of value to school, or to obtain appropriate insurance for such items.

If students bring items of value to school, they will be confiscated and stored securely at the School Office until the end of the day, when the items may be collected by the student and/or parent.

COMMUNICATION

This policy will be communicated to our school community in the following ways:

Annual reminders in our school newsletter
Available publicly on our school’s website (or insert other online parent/carer/student communication method)
Included in staff handbook/manual
Discussed at annual staff briefings/meetings
Included in transition and enrolment packs
Discussed at parent information nights/sessions
Hard copy available from school administration upon request

RELATED POLICIES AND RESOURCES

the Department’s Policy and Advisory Library (PAL):
- Claims for Property Damage and Medical Expenses

POLICY REVIEW AND APPROVAL

Policy last reviewed

3 March 2022

Approved by

Susan Seneviratne

Principal

Next scheduled review date

March 2025

Dear Wyndham Vale Primary School Families,

I hope you had a lovely long weekend!

This week myself and Hayden Barker (our Assistant Principal for Wellbeing) are completing training through the Mental Health in Primary Schools program to learn about building the capacity of our staff to supports students’ mental health and wellbeing as well as supporting specific students’ or cohorts’ mental health and wellbeing needs. We can’t wait to start working with staff to implement our learning!

For this newsletter I thought I would share a resource that can help to develop mindfulness skills. Mindfulness is a word that describes being in the present moment, which has many benefits for mental health and wellbeing.

Smiling Mind is a free app and website that has a range of mindfulness activities for children and adults. The app version contains many different types of mindfulness practices, including mindful meditations to assist children in getting to sleep, mindfulness to prepare for school and meditations for parents as well! The app can be downloaded by searching for ‘Smiling Mind’ in the App Store for iPhone or Google Play for Android users.

Emilie Wilson

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader (MHWL)

Wyndham Vale Primary School

Our Year 2 Students - a snapshot of what they have been doing.

Over the past term in writing, the Year 2 cohort have been deconstructing and building their understanding of Persuasive text structure and features; such as rhetorical questions, repetition, statistics, emotive language and experts options. Over the term we have built our understandings by creating class persuasive texts on topics like “why we should have a tv in our bedroom” and “dogs are the best pet in the world”. This past fortnight, all students have applied this knowledge learnt throughout the term and have been working independently to write their own persuasive text. It was great to see books open and pencils writing, with all students giving convincing arguments and trying their best to convince their teachers.

CSEF

If you are the holder of a Centrelink Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card you are entitled to receive funding called CSEF - Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund. You may have received it last year but if you have a sibling that started this year you will need to fill in a form for that child. If you have transferred from another school you will also need to fill in a for with us, forms are available from the office, more information is available under the CSEF tab within the newsletter.

Yard Duty and Supervision

Student safety at Wyndham Vale Primary School is our highest priority and the safe and appropriate supervision of students is an important element of our duty of care to students. Part of this duty is ensuring parents and students are aware of our student supervision arrangements before and after school.

Before school: School gates are opened, and grounds are supervised at 8:20am until all students have entered classrooms at 8:45am.

After school: School grounds are supervised at the conclusion of the school day at 2:55pm until gates are closed at 3:10pm.

Students on school grounds outside these times will not be supervised (unless they are attending a before or after school care program or supervised extracurricular activity). Parents/carers/guardians are requested to ensure that students do not attend school outside of these supervised times unless they are attending before or after school care, or a pre-arranged supervised activity (i.e. sports practice).

Families are encouraged to contact the school office on 03 8754 0888 or refer to Team Kids for more information about the before and after school care facilities available to our school community or if you would like any further information about our student supervision arrangements.

For a copy of our school’s Yard Duty and Supervision Policy please contact the school office on 03 8754 0888. This policy includes Wyndham Vale Primary School’s student supervision arrangements across the school day, including before and after school.

Michael Laird

Assistant Principal

All late comers need to go straight to Mrs Bebend to be signed in.

Please remember to label you child's uniform with their name. We have many items of clothing in lost property that we cannot return because there is no name on the items.

Road Safety:

Wyndham Council have contacted us to inform us they will be patrolling our school area due to the large number of complaints they have received regarding dangerous driving, parking across drive ways and on the nature strips as well as the school crossings not being used.

We are asking that you are vigilant at all times and role model for our students the following:

Cross at the school crossings

Do not park on the nature strip

Do not park across our neighbors driveways and block them

Do not double park to drop children off/pick them up

Do not speed, be aware of your speed and the speed limit during school hours

Pedestrians are to give way to vehicles at round abouts.

It is in everyone's best interest to keep the students safe and be respectful to those around you and be a good role model for the students -

WVPS Staff - DO NOT cross the road without using the crossing

Important Dates