Principal's Report 

For the last three weeks, the Windsor community has had a very heavy heart.  The news of Sam Fitzgerald’s unexpected passing has had an enormous impact on so many people.

Yesterday Sam’s family held a celebration of life at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  While Sam’s life had moved to Queensland, so much of his life was in Melbourne and in this precinct.  For those of us close to Sam, we are so appreciative of his family allowing us to have the opportunity to come together to celebrate his life.

Sam started teaching at Windsor in 2011 and immediately had impact with his infectious smile and dedication to every single student.  He was someone who wanted to bring fun and joy to the student’s school life as well as effective acquisition of physical skills and sportsmanship.

Initially, Sam shared his time between Windsor and Caulfield Primary School as the Physical Education teacher and Sport Co-ordinator but later became fulltime at Windsor.  While Sam will be remembered for his work at WPS, he also took on co-ordination and leadership roles with our sport district contributing to the success of our interschool sport programs.

Sam took a year of leave to return to Tasmania to be closer to family in 2019 and returned to Windsor in 2020.  The two years of lockdowns is what we will associate with 2020 and 2021, however closely linked to this are Sam’s efforts during remote learning with his video and live stream sessions, especially the many home challenges that he presented.

At the end of 2021, Sam and his partner decided to head north for warmer weather and the beaches where he continued to have educational and personal impact at the schools that he taught at.  Towards the end of 2023 saw the arrival of his beautiful daughter, Mae, leading to taking leave from teaching to be ‘dad’.

It was wonderful to see so many Windsor people connected to Sam at his celebration of life yesterday, students and parents from his early days at Windsor and our present day students and families; a symbol of the enduring impact of a wonderful person.

The Windsor community is most definitely the better for being a significant chapter of Sam’s life.