A Word from the Principal 

A Warm Welcome to our Weeden Heights Community

Welcome back everyone and I am glad parents are beginning to have the confidence to finally enter the school grounds for pick ups and drop offs.  Don’t forget that if you are coming in the school buildings or staying on the grounds for longer than 15 minutes then you do need to QR code in and show evidence of your double vaccination. 

We are reinforcing our Covid Safe Plan and this includes ventilating the classrooms with a good air flow, sanitising and the wearing of masks.  The students have been brilliant at wearing their masks indoors and they are enjoying not wearing them outside when playing and during sport.  Please remember that it is still mandatory for all Year 3 – 6 students to wear masks and is strongly recommended that P – 2 students remain in masks while they can not be vaccinated.  The wearing of masks is different in primary schools even for staff who work in one compared to the community.  The government continues to take these restrictions very seriously and we even had a surprise Work Safe inspection this week to ensure that the school was implementing Covid Safe practices and checking that staff and students were wearing masks.   We passed!

Whole School Production – We’re all Going on an Aussie Holiday

We are now on the home stretch with the school production.  The result will be incredible and the students have put in so much work.  I know you will be very impressed with what has been achieved during Covid and our will to make this event happen so the students do not miss out. It is going to make you want to go on an ‘Aussie Holiday’ with your family and celebrate this amazing country of ours.  Mrs Watts was running rehearsals through the Google Classroom, students began being filmed last term for their green screen work, massive props….. it is a huge effort to bring this all together and has been a huge effort from all of the staff!  I really hope you can all appreciate the creative, elaborate and extensive work of our Performing Arts Teacher Mrs Watts who has cleverly written a script that had the potential to be filmed.  The script was written in 2020 but who would have thought we would have had to film the production and live through the lockdowns that we did. This is not the 2021 I expected to have and was looking forward to all the events on the school calendar, especially the bi-annual whole school production.

Thank you to the families who have already purchased the family packs that are on sale.  Our production is a fundraiser for our performing arts program and the packs are well worth the cost and much cheaper than paying for tickets to the theatre as your whole family will be able to attend.  All families are being entered into the lucky draw to win prizes and these have been announced on Facebook.   There are still more prizes to win so if you have not bought your Aussie Holiday family pack then please do so!

Prep Information Night

Thank you to those community members who attended our Prep information night. It was terrific that we could finally welcome families into our school to conduct the session face to face.    Thomas and Maria, our school captains, shared their school experiences and spoke amazingly about our school.  Thank you captains!   Our School Council President, Karen Jansen, encouraged involvement in our school and Natasha Moulton from the PFA shared about her role and support in the school.  It really does help to make a difference to welcome the new preps to our school and their families. 

The orientation day for our future preps is this Friday.  They will be meeting in line with our Covid-plan and Department regulations but will get to experience a longer session at school in their new classroom.

You will see many new faces around next year when we are all back on the school site (I’m crossing my fingers right now) so I am very confident that you will be most welcoming.  Our PFA will run their regular welcome morning tea on the very first day for the preps (Thursday 3 February). 

Communication and Reporting Absences

Just a reminder that now we have returned to school our usual processes fall back into place.  To report your child’s absence, please use the school telephone app, School Stream, instead of emailing the teacher directly moving forward.  This allows our office staff and teachers to access this information.

Please make sure you are regularly checking School Stream (app on your phone), please do so as this is a major form of communication. Notices for events will also be distributed through school stream and payments are made on a different app, QKR

2022 Fees and Parent Contributions 

The parent contribution documents will be distributed to all of our families early next year. All families now have their booklists which you can organise via the supplier that has our booklist or independently source the book list items yourselves.    We would like to give you all a bit of a break and fees can be paid next year.  The school will send home the paperwork next year. 

Please purchase all items on the booklist and send everything to school on the first day next year.  Make sure you name all of the items and we will store them for you.  On the first few days teachers will set up all the workbooks with their class and label all of them.  Students work out of many books at once so please don’t send just one of each type as we do require them all. 

Whole School Transition Sessions

The school year is ending soon and one of the wonderful things that Weeden does is allow students to work in their class, classroom and potentially with their new teacher for a couple of sessions.  This allows for the teacher to begin some of the work for next year and establishing the new learning environment and connecting with new peers is the goal. The number one priority is to create a productive and positive learning community! 

These transition sessions days are critical for students to be involved in.  Our sessions are being held during the last 2 weeks of school on December 9 and 13 from 11.30 to 1.10pm.  Students will also have an opportunity to have lunch with their 2022 class which will further strengthen their relationships.  As we are a great size school and know each other well, it can also be about reconnecting with students who have previously been in the same class in a past year.

Christmas Concert 

Hopefully you are seeing the dance moves and maybe hearing the sounds of your children rehearsing at home for the up-coming Christmas Concert being held in the Google Classroom for the second year in a row.   We will have a release date soon as the school production has been much bigger than expected

Please join us with your family to get into the ‘Christmas spirit’ and also to celebrate the achievements of the school and individuals.  The 2022 student leadership team will be announced as well and we also acknowledge our exiting families through the ‘honor roll’.  It is always an exciting night and a great way for our community to come together once again!

Until next fortnight…..

Kylie Campbell

Principal

Futures are Bright at Weeden Heights!