Principal's Report

Our Communal Days spark connections

To foster connection you have to purposefully create opportunities and an environment for it to grow. Our communal days are designed to bring our four values to life through activities that spark curiosity in a fun, playful and engaging way. We devote days throughout our year where all students are split into cross-age groups (consisting of Prep to Year 6 students) that participate in tasks with a range of teachers across the day. Each communal day has a theme, and our most recent was Harmony Day. 

Students were immersed in tasks that explored the diversity of cultures, looking into the differing beliefs and traditions within our school's rich cultural fabric. Be Kind, Be Curious and Be Joy were on show throughout the day. Carol mapped all of the different cultures that are found within our school on a world map (see picture above), indicating all of the learning we can find if we get the opportunity to share.

During this week we also began discussing Ramadan. Many of our families fast during Ramadan, one of the holiest months in the Islamic calendar. Many of our students share their Muslim faith and beliefs during this time, something we encourage greatly. 

The more we explore our differences and similarities, the stronger our connections become in our community and beyond. 

NAPLAN pride

Our Year 3 and 5 students have completed the 2023 NAPLAN assessment and managed themselves exceptionally well. NAPLAN is but one measure of a student's capabilities and not something that we place a great deal of weight on at Wollert when trying to understand a students strengths and celebrate them. We treat NAPLAN as one measure taken on one day of the school year. It will tell us something about our students but will never tell us everything. Instead we focus on building our students' competency in drawing on learning production behaviours required to meet the needs of assessment. This includes accessing materials, organising thinking, planning for timed situations and becoming resilient when challenges appear in learning. We acknowledge and celebrate all of our students in their approach to NAPLAN.

TRAFFIC SAFETY and BIKE SAFETY

We have had repeated reports of our students not being safe on paths around our surrounding roads, particularly crossing roads. The roundabout on De Rossi Boulevard and Highpark Drive and the four crossing points around this are high level risk areas. We cannot control the speed of traffic along these roads however we can work together to educate our students in road safety actions. We will be reminding our students of road safety this week but your role in this education is also needed. Please talk to students about waiting, looking left and right and not taking risks if cars are approaching.

We also have a high number of students riding to school without helmets. Riding a bike without a helmet is illegal but critically, it increases the risk of major injury or even death in the event of an accident with a car. We will monitor bike use and helmets this week.  This is the responsibility of parents to supervise and monitor however working in partnership in this strong messaging will assist our students to remain safe. 

2023 SCHOOL COUNCIL 

Tuesday 21st of March we were very well supported by our community in forming our 2023 School Council. We are fortunate to have some parents return for their second year of school council as well as have new members of our community join us. I can announce that Sweetha Subhas-Moorthy was elected as our President and Jodie Hutchinson as our Vice President. Throughout the next few iNewsletter editions we will introduce Sweetha, Jodie and all of our members more fully, but for now we wish to thank our parents for volunteering their time and support to strengthen what we do. Our partnership in creating the best school for every child sits at the centre of all we do. 

Happy Easter, Happy EID and Happy Holidays

As we move to the end of our first term together I would like to take this opportunity to thank our parents, guardians, families and friends of Wollert for your ongoing support and kindness to myself and my staff. We feel truly privileged to have a community such as ours and appreciate the trust you have in us to partner with you in growing your children in the best way we can together. 

Stay safe, soak up the joy family life brings and we'll see you back for a BRILLIANT Term Two.

Leanne