Across Oliver's Desk

Principal's Report

Dear Parents and Guardians,

What a wonderful two weeks we have had, except for the weather of course. Coming up during the next two weeks is the Grade 2 sleep over at school and the Junior School Speaking Competition.

SPELLING COMPETITION

Every year our school spelling competition is full of drama. But it is wonderful watching our students thinking about how our complex language works. Congratulations to our 2025 winners. Our winning Prep student spelt, ‘ocean’ correctly to win the competition which was very impressive. All of our students that made the final were simply outstanding.

I really like that the spelling competition each year as it focuses our students on the importance of spelling. As someone that was never the best speller at school. I wish I was taught the way our students are taught today. They finalists really used great strategies during the final.

STAFFING FOR 2026

We have finalised our staffing for 2026. You will notice that like this year quite a few of our classes will be taught by more than one teacher. This is due to the times that we live in where a lot of teachers with young families prefer to work part time. We also have some teachers released for a day due to them having extra leadership responsibilities in the school.

The line up you see below is full of outstanding practitioners in the craft of teaching. We are so lucky at Woori Yallock P.S. that when we advertise for a vacancy a lot of teachers apply even though there is a teacher shortage. I believe we have the best teachers in Victoria.

Class	Teacher	Teacher
Prep A	Elyse Newman
Prep B	Tess Fraser
Prep C	Rachael Cantwell (Team Leader)	Rachel Boyle (Tuesday)
1A	Casey Runco
1B	Melissa Erickson (Team Leader)	Melissa Rowe (Monday)
1C	Libby Bemrose
2A	Steph Verhoef (Team Leader)	Melissa Rowe (Wednesday)
2B	Cheree Beet
2C	Jess Riley	Rachel Boyle (Monday & Friday)
3/4A	Taylor Collyer
3/4B	Jess Wallace (Team Leader)	Haylee Malan (Tuesday)
3/4C	Hayley Evans
3/4D	Zean Earsman	Sara-Jane Vaughan (Monday & Tuesday)
3/4E	Maddie Holmes	Haylee Malan (Thursday)
5/6A	Lucy Derix	Emma Diston (Monday)
5/6B	Amy Forte
5/6C	Jess Banfield (Team Leader)	Ash Shanks (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
5/6D	Jennifer Gibson	Emma Diston (Friday)
5/6E	Ben Eaton (Team Leader)
P/E	Ash Gibbons
German/Cooking	Sandy Walter
Science	Fiona Echardt
Art	Sophie Young	Alex Dear (Monday & Wednesday)

New to our school is Taylor Collyer who is an ex-student currently working at Birmingham P.S. Amy Forte who the children will know, she did multiple placements here at Woori Yallock. Jennifer Gibson is an experienced teacher currently teaching at Greythorn Primary School but is moving to the Valley. Haylee Malan has worked at Yarra Junction P.S. and in the Northern Territory. Mel Rowe who isn’t really new to us as she has been working as an emergency teacher all of this year and Emma Diston who has also been working at the school as an emergency teacher and has also been teaching at Lilydale High School for many years.

Although there is still a lot of work to be done this year. I am very excited about 2026 and the talented team we will have.

CURRICULUM DAYS

The only curriculum day we have left this year is the last day of the term, Friday 19th December.

Students will finish the year on Thursday 18th December with an early dismissal time of 1:30pm

Next year we start with two Curriculum days:

Monday 26th Jan – Public Holiday

Tuesday 27th Jan - Curriculum Day

Wednesday 28th Jan - Curriculum Day

Thursday 29th Jan – All students (Half the Preps will have their first day)

Friday 30th Jan - All students (Second half of Preps will have their first day)

Monday 2nd February - All students attend

5/6 Sport Stars

Our trophy cabinet just keeps getting bigger. At the summer sports for 5/6 students, the school won both tennis competitions, dodge ball and we also won cricket.

Go Woori

It was another great week at Woori Yallock P.S. If your week wasn’t as good just head to the wonderful world of a book!

Oliver Thockloth

Principal