Leadership

Welcome Back 2022

It has been fantastic to see how well everyone has settled back to school (or begun their school journey) over the past week.

Unfortunately we still have some staffing issues, but we expect these to be resolved very shortly. 

Staffing - classroom teachers

We would like to welcome back Angelica to Newlands. 

We need to inform the F/1 team of Daisy and Roberto, that Roberto will not be returning next week. Due to personal needs, he will unfortunately not be returning for the remainder of this year. The good news is we have secured a teacher who has spent a number of years teaching in Spain. His name is Rob and we welcome him to Newlands as our F/1 Spanish teacher from Monday 14th February. 

Staffing - Office

This week we have experienced significant disruption having both Mandy and Bronia unavailable all week. Thank-you for understanding, and if we didn't answer the phone in time, our apologise. 

SENTRAL

Thank you for your patience, I can report SENTRAL is fully operational for parent access. 

RAT tests

The next batch of tests will be sent home with your child on Monday 13/02/2022. Please do not contact the school asking for more tests as we only have enough for our students and teachers. 

School Council Elections - 2022

An election is to be conducted for members of the Newlands School council. Nominations are open now. Nominations forms may be obtained from the school office and must be lodged by 4.00pm on Friday 25th February. The ballot will close 7th March,2022.

Newlands Houses

Exciting New House Names

Over the past to years we have been looking to change our House Name and House Flags to better represent our wider community and Newlands PS as a bilingual school.

In 2021 we were fortunate to be given a Creatives Grant and Hanna Tai was appointed to work with us on developing the New House Names and Flags. In Term 4, 4/5/6 students embarked on an inquiry project to develop these names that would have meaning and a purpose. Through their Inquiry Project they wondered what one thing would unify all houses, thus they investigate how best to get information 1st hand from the Traditional Owners of the Land, the Wurundjeri People.

We were very lucky to have an opportunity to enlist Uncle Bill from Wurundjeri Education Engagement, who could give students a yarn about symbols and how waterways connect us all in a meaningful way. Uncle Bill then listened to what students had investigated and where they want to develop the ideas, giving insights into how this area developed.

With all this, students embarked on Discovering different words and meanings to create something special and thus, by the end of the inquiry cycle we had 5 house names that represent a waterway, a symbol that reflect either flora or fauna of that waterway and a colour named in Spanish.

And without further a due our new houses are:

Birrarung Salvia

Merri Merri Ámbar

Edgars Carmín

Kurrum Malva

Darebin Celeste