School News

Our Wonderful Foundation Students - What we have been doing

WOW what a terrific start the youngest stars of our amazing school have made over the past three weeks!

Our Foundation students have been working extremely hard in learning about a wide range of things including the rules and expectations at school, classroom routines, letters and their corresponding sounds, numbers, how to write and so much more!

As part of our writing program in Foundation we have been using a language experience focus. The main idea of a language experience is the students participate in an activity that relates to the letter we are focusing on for that day, we have extensive discussions, brainstorm vocab related to the activity and then write and draw about the activity the following day.

We have participated in a range of activities thus far including making a fish or flower and going in the sandpit (just to name a couple).

Checkout some of our amazing writing we have done so far below!

Happy 2nd Birthday Day to Wynston, Wynston celebrated his 2nd birthday on February 8th.

COVID 19

Dear parents and carers,

There is at present an increase in community transmission of COVID-19 in Victoria.

You can help us keep our school as safe as possible by taking 2 important steps:

1. Ensure your COVID-19 vaccinations are up to date. Information on how and where to get vaccinated is available on the Get vaccinated webpage.
   
    
2. If your child shows symptoms of COVID-19, please ensure they stay home and get tested. 
   The easiest way to test is to use a rapid antigen test (RAT).

Free RATs are available from your local council where you can collect 2 packs of 5 RATs and an extra 2 packs for each person in your household. People with disability and their carers can get 4 packs of 5 RATs. You are not required to have a Medicare card and you can collect RATs as many times as you need. You can also buy RATs at                                                                                               supermarkets, pharmacies and other retailers.

If your child has symptoms but tests negative, please ensure they stay home until they no longer have symptoms.

If the RAT test result is positive, please ensure they say home for at least 5 days and until there are no more symptoms.

Thank you for your support – these steps will help us all stay well.

Sue Seneviratne

Principal

Protecting against mosquito-borne diseases

Warm and wet weather can result in greater numbers of mosquitoes and increased risk of illnesses from mosquito bites. While the overall risk is low, some mosquitoes carry diseases that make people sick. 

The best protection against mosquito-borne illness is to avoid mosquito bites.

Families can protect against mosquito bites by: 

• covering up as much as possible with long, loose-fitting, light-coloured clothing  
• applying insect repellent that contains picaridin or DEET on exposed skin when leaving home 
• limiting outdoor activity if lots of mosquitoes are active.

Families with any health concerns should see their doctor or phone NURSE-ON-CALL: 1300 606 024 (available 24 hours).Free Japanese encephalitis vaccines 

Japanese encephalitis virus is spread to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes and can cause a rare but potentially serious infection of the brain.

Free Japanese encephalitis vaccines are available to protect Victorians at higher risk of the virus. 

The Victorian Department of Health encourages eligible people who live or work in high-risk local government areas to get vaccinated. 

For more information, including what is considered a high-risk area and eligibility for a free vaccine, refer to the Department of Health’s Japanese encephalitis webpage. 

Find out more

For more information on protecting against mosquito-borne diseases, families can refer to the following Better Health Channel pages:

• Mosquitoes can carry diseases
• Protect yourself from mosquito-borne disease, including a handy checklist to help reduce mosquito breeding sites at home and resources translated into other languages.

Annual privacy reminder for our school community

Our school collects and uses student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy and the Schools’ Privacy Collection Notice.

Our Photographing, Filming and Recording Students Policy, describes how we collect and use photographs, video and recordings of students. The policy also explains when parent consent is required and how it can be provided and withdrawn. 

We ask parents to also review the guidance we provide on how we use [Microsoft 365/Google Workspace for Education] safely at the school and what parents can do to further protect their child’s information. If after reviewing the guidance, you have any questions or concerns regarding your child using [Microsoft 365/Google Workspace for Education], please contact the school.

For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages:

• Amharic
• Arabic
• Dari
• Gujarati
• Mandarin
• Somali
• Sudanese
• Turkish
• Urdu
• Vietnamese

WVPS Active Travel Program

In 2023, the JSC began working with the Wyndham Council and at the time the Mayor Sue McIntyre  to develop our Active Travel program. Our students participated in a zipper pull design competition. We submitted 24 entries, and 4 students were chosen by the graphic design team at Wyndham Council as winners! 1000 zipper pulls have been made with their designs and these will be handed out in the mornings to the students at WVPS who actively travel!

On the 22nd of March we will be celebrating our National Ride 2 school day.

Well done to Eshna, Blake, Estelle, and Harrison! 

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.

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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