Principal's report

Dear Parent, Carers, and friends of MPWPS,

WOW what a wonderful performance last Wednesday evening when Alice in Wonderland came to the gym at Moonee Ponds West Primary School.  This was a wonderful production that enabled maximum participation and enjoyment for all.  The singing, dancing and acting by our children was not only entertaining (like a Cabaret style) but the children had real joy on their faces!  A true Performing Arts performance!  My thanks goes the children and families that are the Senior Choir; the children who go to practice at lunchtime each Monday and Friday, to Vicki Mc Cormack who assists Kate with supervision on these Choir days; to the Education Support officers (Donna, Lurinda and Julie who have spent weekends painting sets and assisting in other ways, to the parents/carers who have assisted along the way particularly Kerrie Ahrens who has given many Fridays to rehearsal especially when Kate was unwell, to Kate’s daughters and niece who helped Kate with the dance routines, making of costumes and the many other things that are required. Finally to Kate herself for the vision, creativity and courage to provide such a wonderful opportunity for our students. We are truly very lucky to have Kate and her extended family in our community. We salute and gratefully thank-you for your effort to provide this wonderful learning experience each year for our students.

Staffing News

We have gone through an internal process to appoint for 2019 our Professional Learning Team Leaders at each of the year levels.  The Professional Learning Team leader is new in our school structure and replaces what you may know as the Team leader.  The new role has a focus on teachers collaborating together each week in an allocated time, with the planned focus on student learning and achievement.  Our new leaders in this role will be undergoing training commencing at a Leadership Conference in late January. The school structure also features a School Improvement Team (PLT) where a regular meeting of the PLT leaders, the Learning Specialist, Assistant Principal and Principal meet to monitor implementation and support teachers and Education Support Officers to carry out the learning required by our students.  It is very exciting to have our teachers willing to undertake this role within the new structure. Our Professional Learning Team leaders for 2019 are:

Foundation/One: Emma Campbell

Year One/Two: Alyena Mohummadally

Three/Four: Jessica Greenbaum

Five/Six: Lisa McLachlan

New to our school structure for 2019 is the role of Learning Leader-Engagement.  This role has grown out of the School Review where it was identified that having a more targeted approach to student engagement in their learning would enhance learning generally for our students.  The students and staff identified that our students have lots of choice in their learning, and so the next step is to have teachers involve students in their learning goal setting and monitoring through the use of learning intentions and success criteria for learning sequences. Many of these next learning opportunities for staff will enhance what already is our pedagogical practice.  We will be just ‘tweaking’ around the edges to ensure that student voice in learning is enhanced, purposeful and really enables our students to fly with relevant and appropriate scaffolding and feedback.

Class placement today

The children moved to their new classes as our Step-Up day for 2019. We have spent many hours (thank you Jarrod for your patience

and collegiality throughout this process) to enable the classes to be balanced.  The class placement process is usually a lengthy one, with some adjustments being made from the first run of groupings.

Please remembers children mix really well together, and I monitor the classes until Easter 2019. We would appreciate you at home supporting us in your conversations and taking the chance to build resilience through what could be a change process for your child.

Well that’s about it from me for this week.  Hope things aren’t too hectic for you at this time of the year.  Remember to breathe and take care of yourselves.

Sincerely

Kerri Simpson

Principal (Acting)