Dear Parents and Guardians,

As this is the last newsletter for the year, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It has been a very different year for everyone and I am so proud of each and every student, teacher, Education Support staff member and parent who adapted so well to remote learning during terms 2 and 3. It has been so lovely having the children back on-site during term 4 and we look forward to welcoming our parents back into the school yard in 2021.

Farewelling Staff for 2020: At this time of year we always need to farewell staff for various reasons. The following staff will not be joining us next year:

Mrs Rebecca Salem has accepted a job at a new school opening in the northern suburbs. She has proven skills in supporting a new school establish itself as she did this at the school she was at prior to working at MWPS.
Ms Deena Henaway has accepted a job in a local educational setting, supporting students who have disengaged from school. She will meet up with some of our past students.
Ms Kristy Brockfield is due to have her second baby late January and we wish her well with her growing family
Mrs Brittnee Portelli has recently resigned due to family reasons

I wish to thank all these staff members for their fabulous contribution to the Melton West PS community. All have been instrumental in ensuring the children they have taught or supported over the years benefited from a great classroom program.

We wish all these staff members the best as they venture into the next phase of their careers.

Teachers for 2021: New staff to join us in 2021 include 4 classroom teachers. Ms Megan Stephenson, Ms Charmie Cook, Ms Georgia Dowling and Ms Sinead Duffy. All of these new teachers have spent some time at the school over the past few weeks as part of planning for 2021 and met their class as part of “Meet the Teacher” this morning. If you see them around the school, please make them feel welcome as they are very excited to be part of our vibrant school community.

Mr Matthew McGrath is joining us to take on the PE role. Mrs Nikolina Perkovic and Ms Stephanie Phiri will join Ms Barnes and Ms Slopak as Inquiry teachers for each year level. This is the additional support we are providing for students who did not achieve as much as they could due to Covid-19 (Remote Learning). These teachers will take each class in an area and teach the Inquiry Units of work. Whilst they are doing that, the class teacher will take small groups or work with individual students requiring some additional support, so that they are able to catch-up to where they would have been without Covid-19. This is our school’s response to the ‘Tutoring’ program the government have been communicating about over the past few weeks.

Meet the Teacher: Your child met their teacher today in the classroom they will be in in 2021. They were also given a slip of paper that can be kept on the fridge for the first day next year, which is Friday 29th January for all students, including our Preps. I have included a list of teachers and the classes they are teaching for your information.

2021 Class	2021 Teacher	Room number
Prep S	Lyndon Smith	11
Prep R	Sarah Ralph	12
Prep J	Joanne Briffa	13
Prep B	Sinead Duffy	14
1D	Nicole Douglas	1
1A	Olga Adamou	2
1V	Jacinta Vassallo	3
1M	Zeinab Mehrez	4
2C	Charlene Waldron	21
2W	Kylie Walters	22
2G	Laurence Gatt	20
3A	Aira Agarano	17
3M	Vanessa Moore	18
3C	Charmie Cook	6
3D	Jenna Davies	5
4L	Liberty Lockwood	23
4M	Megan Stephenson	24
4S	Tina Stamoulis	19
5/6B	Ryan Bird	26
5/6F	Jess Fichera	25
5/6G	Georgia Dowling	10
5/6D	Liza Dearing	8
5/6W	Nichole White	7
5/6N	Maddison Nicholls	9
Science	Natasha Devine and tba	OL2
GRIN	Neil Armstrong
Prep Art & Music	Jessica Pfister	Art Room/ Music Room
1/2 Art/Prep PE	tba	Gym/Art Room
3-6 Art	Sally Shoebridge	Art Room
1-6 PE	Matthew McGrath	Gym
P-6 Chinese	Joshua Schwabe	OL1
Year Prep Inquiry	Sarah Barnes
Year 1/2 Inquiry	Nikolina Perkovic
Year 3/4 Inquiry	Stephanie
Year 5/6 Inquiry	Brooke Slopak
Year Prep Team Leader	Klaudia Jellis
Year 1/2 Team Leader	Sarah Mills
Year 3/4 Team Leader	Dani Bird
Year 5/6 Team Leader	Jayden Spudvilas-Powell

Assembly: Our final assembly will be held on the tiger turf outside the library from 1.15 tomorrow. We will hold it in the open air so that all parents can attend in a Covid-safe way. Please maintain social distancing if you attend and you are welcome to wear a mask if you like. This final assembly is an opportunity to farewell staff who are leaving us as well as our Year 6 cohort.

Merry Christmas

Michelle Costa

Principal

Melton West PS

Happy Holidays