Learning and Teaching

NAPLAN 2023 - DONE! 

Congratulations to our Year 3 and Year 5 students, who completed their NAPLAN tests last week. We are proud of the way our students approached the week - giving everything their best go!

For those students who were absent on any of the test days, catch up opportunities have been made available this week - parents of these students will have received an email from Sentral regarding this. If you have not received an email and your child missed one or more of the tests, please contact the school as a matter of urgency. 

We would like to extend our thanks to the entire staff support team, including: classroom teachers, ES members of staff who supported small groups or provided 1:1 support, leadership and a final special mention to Kristen and Tri, our ICT team. The online requirements for NAPLAN are extensive and thus Kristen and Tri have been preparing for this week, since the start of the school year. 

The NAPLAN test window was moved forward this year, from May to March. With this transition, it is anticipated that student results will be made available to parents and schools at an earlier date, although exact timelines are yet to be published by the test administration authority. We will communicate with families as we are made aware of this information. 

SCHOLASTIC DECODABLE READERS

A quick mention that $1600  was raised from the Scholastic Book Club over the course of the 2022 school year. We wanted to let you know that this money was used to purchase a collection of decodable texts for the school; these texts will be added to our growing take home collection for Year 1s and Year 2s. 

"Decodable books are sequential in nature and build phonic knowledge gradually, allowing students the opportunity to practice grapheme–phoneme correspondences and quickly build their confidence and ability to read connected text." -  What are Decodable Books and Why are They Important? 

SUBPOD PILOT AT WEMBLEY PRIMARY SCHOOL

Adriana Jankulovski, alongside our Year 4 and 5 students have been busy looking at ways to launch a composting system at Wembley Primary School after our successful Bake Sale fundraiser in Term 4, 2022. Our engagement with the company Subpod has meant that they have invited us to be a part of a Pilot Program where we will receive a free Subpod composting system. This is a great opportunity for our school to be one of the first to benefit from our program, and to engage your community, promote sustainable living, and provide hands-on learning opportunities for our students.

As you may know, Subpod is a revolutionary composting system that makes it easy and fun for people to compost food waste while also improving soil health and growing food. This program provides a Subpod Classic composting system, raised garden bed, and aerator (compost mixing tool) to schools interested in teaching their students about composting, food waste reduction, and sustainable food production.

To participate in the trial, our school needs to rally 300 supporters to sign up and support the initiative, see an example page here. Details for our sign up will be available soon and we will have two weeks to gather 300 supporters. Once we've reached this goal, Subpod will donate a complete composting system to our school.

YEAR 6 CANBERRA CAMP

In Week 7 of this term, our Year Sixes attended a five day/four night camping experience in our nation's captial. Our staff are very proud of our students for representing themselves, their families and Wembley PS with the utmost respect at each of our venues, and also for the incredible resilience the students showed towards the end of the week.

Students were given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs with a focus on Australia’s history, culture, heritage and democracy, creating a real world link with our Term 1 study of Civics and Citizenship. Together we visited: Parliament House, Electoral Education Centre, Old Parliament House (the Museum of Democracy), Australian of the Year Walk, Australian Institute of Sport, Questacon, and the Australian War Memorial.

We were lucky enough to meet our local member, Tim Watts, at Parliament House on Wednesday after visiting the House of Representatives and the Senate, which were both in session. One of our students, Alison Feely (a passionate Penny Wong fan!), was also surprised with a special, handwritten note from Penny herself, acknowledging Ali and celebrating International Women's Day- a very special moment. 

We thank Renee Johnson, Sofia Courtney, Michael Fitzclarence, Simon Zammit, Josh Bramham, Kristen Kosowski, and parents, Beck Thomas, Dave Appels, Belinda Ryan, Jacinta Chetcuti, and Helen Pretty, for being away from their families to attend camp, and honour this experience and rite of passage for our Year 6 students! Despite some set backs, the staff and parents were able to work together to create a safe and supportive environment for students, where health and wellbeing were the top priority.

Secondly, we would like to deeply thank the Year 6 parents who had to navigate the Sentral communications in order to follow the updates and decision making made in the second half of the week. Thank you for your support and compassion. 

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government is contributing funding of $45 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

YEAR 7 TRANSITION INFORMATION 2023-24

Term 2 marks the beginning of the formal Year 7 transition process for 2023-2024. In the week beginning 24th April, Year 6 parents and carers will be sent digital copies of secondary school applications. These will be sent to families via the Wembley transition email address, and are to be digitally returned to the same email address. The soft copy application that Year 6 parents will receive is already prefilled with the family’s details and also provides text boxes for you to enter information. Once complete, simply hit ‘reply’ and return your application to our transition email address. You will also find an information pack about how to fill out the application attached to this email.

Please note that the applications will be prefilled with your family details as we have them documented. If you have moved house and not updated the school with your new address, please do so as soon as possible so that your application is prefilled with the correct family information. Should you find your prefilled application has details that are incorrect, please contact us to advise of the changes. 

We will also be hosting a parent information session early in Term 2 to address general questions and queries you may have regarding high school applications. We also highly recommend that you read the guide attached to your application forms as they include the most up-to-date information. 

We will be in touch at the start of Term 2 with the parent information packs/applications and regarding our parent information session date and time. 

YEAR 3 & 4 EXCURSION TO MELBOURNE ZOO 

This term the students in Years 3 and 4 have explored Biological Sciences through the concept: Living things go through a lifecycle and they can be grouped according to their features. In order to further develop this understanding and celebrate their learning, students visited Melbourne Zoo this week. They enjoyed exploring the zoo and taking part in a guided activity called ‘Change and the Environment.’ We thank all the parent helpers for the support on the day.