From the Principal

Term 4, Week 3

Welcome to Term 4 everyone! We trust you all had an enjoyable and restful holiday break and that everyone is now ready for the exciting term of engaging learning activities that are planned for this term. I would like to welcome the following new students to our school,  Alice in Room 1 and  Ken in Room 14.

I would like to congratulate Tina Nesbitt who has won the position of Teaching and Learning Coordinator: Embedding Learning Technologies, for the next three years. Tina has worked in this role since 2014 and we look forward to Tina leading us through the next phase of our Digital Technologies improvement process which will continue to have a major focus on ensuring students have the skills that they need for future learning engagement.

I would also like to congratulate Paula Walker on her short term appointment as Finance Offier at Forbes Primary School. This appointment is until the end of term 1, 2017. 

Elisha Cunniff has also won a permanent position at Burnside Primary School and will sadly be leaving us at the end of 2016. 

This year our end of year concert will have a “Movie” theme and will be held on Wednesday 7th December. Our students really look forward to the concert and love participating in their class performance. Teachers and students put a lot of effort into preparing for this event. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to showcase their talents and demonstrate their learning in the area of performing arts. Please put this date in your calendar as it is a very enjoyable end of year celebration for our school community. The evening is also another wonderful opportunity to fund raise. Each class will be putting together a themed basked that will be auctioned on the concert evening. Further information about this event will be shared in the near future.

Pupil Free Day

This Friday 28th October was our last Pupil Free Day for 2016. On this day staff reviewed the 2016 school year. We examined a variety of data sets including learner achievement, engagement and perception data to identify our successes and to assist with planning and identifying school improvement priority areas for 2017. During the first hour of the day parents and students joined teachers to discuss how we can strengthen authentic student influence in the learning.

This is one of the directions from our External Review process.

In a recent newsletter parents were invited to provide information in writing that they wish to be considered when their child is being placed in a class for 2017. This could be information about social, emotional, health or learning issues. Please note that parents do not have the right to select the teacher they want for their child and should be careful about making judgements about any teacher’s ability based on the opinions of other parents or children. Attached to this newsletter is information outlining the class placement process. The timeline to submit information to be considered has been extended to Friday 11th November. Please put this information in writing to the Principal, Katrina Sexton.

 Over the next few weeks teachers are writing End of Year student reports which will go home to parents in week 9 of this term. These reports are a summary of each child’s achievement  this year and areas for further development in 2017. At West Beach Primary School teachers have agreed to forego one fifty minutes session of preparation time that they are entitled to each week and bank this, as time to support report writing. This will mean that classes may have a Temporary Relief Teacher for a few days over the next 4 weeks. Teachers will try to minimize disruption by having the same relief teacher if possible. The TRT is able to continue the learning program that has been planned by the class teacher. Thank you for your understanding in regard to this. Please remember that if you have any questions about your child’s progress that you can make a time to meet with your child’s teacher at anytime throughout the year.

Student Enrolments 2017: Please let the school know in writing if your child will not be returning to West Beach PS in 2017. We are currently working out class structures and it is vital that we have a clear picture of how many students will be in each Year level in 2017.

Volunteer Thank You Morning Tea.

Each year we acknowledge and thank the wonderful parents and community members that volunteer their time to assist our students and teachers in so many ways throughout the year. Our “Thank you Morning Tea” is scheduled for Wednesday 16th November at 10:45am. We will be sending home invitations in the near future. Please come along as we would like to express our appreciation for the support that you have provided for our students and teachers. Without this support many activities would not be able to happen.