Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome to week 7 of Term 1 2022. It has been great to be able to continue learning on-site, with minimal disruption to learning due to Covid. The number of cases reported has reduced significantly over the past week or so, which is pleasing to see. I will continue to post notifications as they come through. Thank-you to the families who continue to do the Rapid Antigen Tests regularly. We will let you know when the next batch arrives so you can collect it at the office, or expect it in your child’s bag.

School Council: Our first School Council meeting is due to take place on Monday 21st March. I’d like to thank our outgoing members: Mrs Maria Robinson, Ms Amanda Shaw, Ms Amanda Arnell, Mrs Liz Darwish and Mrs Bernadette Stepnell. I’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome Ms Armeena Afreen, Dr Edward Williams and Ms Julie Hermence as new members. One of our important tasks this meeting is discussing the upcoming landscaping works. I look forward to a successful and productive year as we finalise the School Strategic Plan and celebrate the school’s 50 year anniversary.

Respect for School Staff Policy: Staff at Melton West Primary School are committed to providing a supportive learning environment for all our students. Our staff take their work very seriously and feel privileged to be able to play an important role in each child’s education. All staff have a right to a safe and supportive work environment and we expect that all parents/carers and visitors to our school behave in an appropriate and respectful manner to school staff at all times. Please be mindful when interacting with staff in person, over the phone or via messages such as Class Dojo that you remain calm and respectful. When issues arise the best way to achieve a positive outcome is to have productive communication. Being respectful and calm helps achieve this. I have included the Respect for School Staff Policy in this newsletter for your reference. It is available on our website, along with many other policies

Annual privacy reminder for our school community: Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy. Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website https://meltonwestps.vic.edu.au/our-school/ For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages:

Amharic
Arabic
Dari
Gujarati
Mandarin
Somali
Sudanese
Turkish
Urdu
Vietnamese.

Curriculum Day: Last Friday the staff worked together to create a second draft of the School Vision for the next 4 year Strategic Plan. School Council reviewed our previous one and made changes and recommendations. Our staff took these into consideration as they developed a second draft. At our next School Council meeting we will continue this work before seeking feedback from our school community. Thank-you for your input into the Values Survey, another important element of the Strategic Plan. I have included the results of the Parent Survey for your information.

Vaccination Clinic: Our first pop-up vaccination clinic was held on-site on Friday 11th March, whilst we had our Curriculum Day (no children at school). I hope families who took advantage of the clinic found it friendly and convenient. I know walk-ins were encouraged if you had not booked and apologise to any families who arrived between 1:00PM and 2:00PM and found it already closed. This was a decision they made due to lack of appointments after 1:00PM. I did pass on the frustration I had that they inconvenienced some families who came up after 1:00PM. Our next scheduled one is Thursday May 5th from 3:30PM -7:00PM.

High Levels of Learning for All

Michelle Costa

Principal

Community