Principal's Report

Wingrove St Crossing Update

At Darebin City Council’s meeting on Monday 22 March, there was discussion and a vote on road safety, on and around Wingrove Street. At this meeting, City Council endorsed and approved combining the crossings on Wingrove Street into one crossing located between the two current crossings. This work will involve:

Removal of the zebra crossing near the corner of Fairfield Rd as well as the crossing outside the netball court. These crossings will be turned into speed bumps.
Creation of a new raised zebra children’s crossing, approximately 15m east of the existing unsupervised zebra crossing location (near the gates of the WSC).
Reallocation of the school crossing supervisor from the crossing at the netball court crossing to the new children’s crossing.

To support students and families using the new crossing, a new path and gate will be installed between the Performing Arts Room and the playground during the term one holidays. Once the new crossing is in operation, we will open this additional Wingrove St gate at drop-off and pick-up times, instead of the netball court gate.

In addition to this new crossing, other safety measures approved by Darebin City Council include:

Fairfield Road operating as one-way between Langridge Street and Wingrove Street, travelling south. This is a 12-month trial.
Creation of Kiss and Go parking spaces on Fairfield Rd, next to the school.

This is a great outcome for our school community, with the above measures providing greater safety to students and families, during and beyond the school day.

This has not been a straightforward process and we are grateful for the community involvement. In particular, thank you to parent Toby Hemming for his work with the petition and letter to Darebin City Council. We also thank Toby for his attendance and submission at the Council meeting. Thank you also to Councillor Emily Dimitriadis, for her advocacy for the school, and recognition of the changes needed. We are grateful for Emily’s persistence in helping to achieve the safest outcome for our community.

In fact, many of these improvements were first raised by previous School Council members in 2016, through the Fairfield Village Community Reference Group, so it is great to see that everyone’s efforts have been worthwhile.

I will be meeting with members of the Darebin’s Transport Engineering Department this week, and will provide a more detailed update before the end of term, including a timeframe.

Tutor Learning Initiative and Staffing Update

Faye Söderström has spent this term teaching Writing and Numeracy to small groups of students as part of the Tutor Learning Initiative. Participating students were selected based on their learning progress during remote learning. It has been most beneficial to have funding from the Department of Education and Training to be able to deliver this targeted support, and Faye has been sharing the positive data to demonstrate the positive impacts of the program.

We are in the process of selecting students who will be involved in the program next term. Selections are based on data analysis from remote learning and from term one this year, as well as teacher input. Next term’s groups may include students who are already part of the program as well as other students who have been identified through the above process. Parents of selected students will be contacted early next term.

As Faye will be going on maternity leave next term, she will no longer be teaching the Tutor Program. We wish Faye and Arnie the very best at this exciting time.

Next term, the Tutor Program will be run differently. It will be taught by Tom Edwards for three days a week. Tom is currently teaching 3C for two days, and we are delighted that he will be able to take the Tutor Program for the remainder of the week. As we are reducing the number of days the program is delivered, we will be able to extend this program through to the end of the year. Tom will work closely with Daniel Arnavas, our coordinator of the program, ensuring a smooth transition when he takes over this role.

A Busy Fortnight

A lot of exciting and fruitful events have taken place since our last newsletter:

The school was transformed into a sea of orange last Thursday as we acknowledged and celebrated Harmony Day, with the theme of ‘Everyone Belongs’.
Year 5 enjoyed their first excursion in a long time, as they went to the Chinese Museum.
We had our first working bee of the year on Sunday. Despite the wet weather, our willing band of parent volunteers accomplished lots – have you noticed the neatly trimmed nature strips on Wingrove St? Also, keep an eye out for the newly plumbed water tank, opposite the bike shed. Thank you to everyone that could help out.
We met with our 2021 School Council for the first time – see inside this newsletter for details.
On Thursday we held Parent Teacher Interviews. These were our first face-to-face interviews for 18 months. Thank you to teachers for their preparation and work for this day.
On Friday we hosted our rearranged Foundation Social Evening. Once again this was a big hit – thank you to our parent organisers.
Today Year 6 students debated their point of view to their peers and family. Thanks to the many family members who came to support the students.
Today Thornbury HS music teacher Sean Nihill and the FPS brass students played a mini-concert in the playground to showcase the brass playing skills of our students.

2020 Annual Report

At last week’s Annual General Meeting, I presented the 2020 Annual Report to the School Community. This document was approved by School Council and can be viewed here.

Works During the School Holidays

With an absence of students at the school over the next two weeks, building activity will increase. Works include:

Completion of the fig tree garden.
Completion of the shelter shed upgrade.
Installation of a storage shed, opposite the bike shed.
Removal of the shipping container, next to the bike shed.
Installation of a path, alongside the gym building, to connect to a new gate.
Replacement of the western end of the Wingrove St fence, including installation of a new gate, to provide access to the new crossing.
Installation of display boards outside the French room, and along the corridor that leads to the Fairfield Rd building (Year 3/4 classrooms) and classrooms in the Fairfield Rd building.

Happy Holidays

Congratulations to everyone for such a wonderful term. After the events of last year, we are all impressed and proud of how students are approaching school each day.

A reminder that we have our end of term assembly on Thursday at 1.30pm on the netball court (weather permitting) and a 2pm dismissal.

Have a great week, and enjoy the holidays.

~ Paul Wallace, Principal