A Warm Welcome to our Weeden Heights Community

Hello everyone and I hope that you all had an awesome long weekend with your family. The weather was amazing and I know many of you took the opportunity to take a break and get away with the family.

School Council

Next Monday night, we will have our first meeting with the new School Council. The councillors will be inducted with the new members through the AGM where office bearers will also be elected. I will be able to introduce them to you all in the next newsletter.

The school council also operates with sub committees and their main role is to advise council through their research and investigations. Parents are more than welcome join sub committees and you don’t need to commit to being on school council either. Please come and speak with a council member if you are interested in being involved in a sub- committee: education, buildings and grounds or community building. We welcome our parents and the council would greatly appreciate input from the wider community.

School Fees

I would like to thank those families who have paid their school fees this year. This money is used to pay for all of the items that are required to run our extensive programs that are offered at Weeden Heights Primary School. For example, it buys paint for the art room, books for the library, take home books for students, musical instruments, licences for computers etc. These are absolutely essential items for all of our students to fully participate in the school programs and achieve the great results that they do through rich learning experiences. Every child in the school uses these items so we all need to contribute. The school prides itself on the extension activities and specialist programs that we can provide our students particularly in comparison to larger schools. We simply offer so much more!

While we do have ‘free education’ in Australia (the cost of the school building and staff wages), we are lucky to only be asked to contribute to what our students use while at school. Once again I thank the families that understand this and we are already purchasing new items for this year based directly on your support for your school. I hope you have had the chance to check these items out on Facebook/Instagram as we do show you where your contributions have been directed. Senior classes are enjoying sharing their work on their devices via the new televisions that are in the senior school! The whole school is about to be using the VEX robots next term. Exciting times ahead! If you have not paid your contributions then I encourage you to make your payment soon so that your children can benefit for all of 2023.

Capital Works Update

The junior school and tutoring groups will be returning to the junior school classrooms by the end of term! We are all so excited to be back in our ‘homes’. Room 1 will become the French room in the afternoons and tutoring room in the mornings. Room 2 will house the prep class, room 3 is allocated to year 1 and you will find our year 2’s in room 4. The staff have a new collaborative space in the corridor so their office/desk will be located there. This will allow for students to have even more space in their classrooms which is awesome.

The senior school toilets will also be ready to use next term which will be amazing! New everything…. cisterns, toilets, urinals, wash troughs, plaster, flooring and lighting. The work then begins in the junior corridor toilets and students will use the newly renovated bathrooms while the work is being completed in the junior school.

Extensive work has been completed in building the server room and ensuring that all of the electronics are in place. There has been many surprises behind the walls and under the grounds! There is a slight hold up with the NBN connection at the moment and the builders are pushing Telstra to complete the work so that they can move forward with the build.

During the term holidays, the builders will demolish the portable (currently the year 1 and 2 rooms) as it requires heavy equipment which makes a lot of noise. This will ensure that there is less disruption for our learning at school.

More Exciting News

Many things happen around the school and you may not see them all if you are not up regularly:

New dishwasher to sanitise the utensils and plates in our kitchen
TV’s in all senior school classrooms
Shade sails finally being installed (from the Shade Sail grants from last year – there have been delays with installers)
Clearing of the undergrowth from the Errol Linke garden (in front of rooms 6 – 9). Replanting will be happening soon
Planting in the library courtyard which is temporarily the front door
Removal of mulch from the back carpark
Flattening of the ground around the new sheds along with back fill
Planting around the school
The green wall on our kitchen deck
Removal of trees in the garden along the hall
Displays in the school – the art work is pretty amazing at the moment!

We have more coming as well including the outdoor table tennis table from the PFA! Now that’s exciting!

Prep 2023 Tours and Enrolments

We have had several calls for information regarding enrolments at Weeden Heights Primary School for 2024. Tours started this week and enrolment information is available now. Positions are filling so if you are an existing family, please complete your enrolment form and hand it in at the office.

If you know anyone who requires assistance with 2024 placements, please direct them to call our office to book a tour date and time. . Thank you for helping us with this process and in promoting our great school through the community.

Parent Helpers Workshops

Please look out for the information that was sent home for the Parent Helpers Course. The workshops begin next week. There is a reading, writing and numeracy workshop being held at school so if you intend helping in the classrooms, we strongly encourage you to participate so that you are aware of the approaches that we use to support student learning.

Classrooms, routines and strategies have changed significantly since we all attended primary school (way back!) so this will be a huge support for you when working in the classrooms. It is even a good idea to attend if you would simply like to support your own child at home. We look forward to seeing you all soon. Please speak with your child’s teacher about helping in the classrooms!

Parent Association/ Parent Group/Parent Association

Thank-you to the wonderful parents who have shown great interest in our PFA. The parents have met conducted their AGM and have organised all the events for this year.

The parents welcome anyone who would like to join them to support the school and most importantly our students. They have a few events coming up to celebrate Easter so please stay tuned and support their fundraising activities.

Until next time……

Kylie Campbell

Principal

Futures are Bright at Weeden Heights!

Archibald Competition