Principal's Report
Welcome back
It was great to see students return to school last week, excited to be back and settling in immediately to the established learning routines. Term 2 is a shorter term than usual this year, only 9 weeks. Teachers will ensure they make the most of this time in classrooms as they work through their assessment and semester reporting obligations.
As I replace Kerri as Acting Principal this term, we are fortunate to have Kim Simmons step into the Acting Assistant Principal role. Kim’ class will be covered by Miky Smith and Katherine Ayrton throughout the term, both teachers have previously worked at Moonee Ponds West so are familiar with the school and known to us.
I would also like to officially welcome Miranda De Virgilio to the Physical Education role from the remainder of the year. Miranda has previous experience as a PE teacher, bringing knowledge and enthusiasm to her appointment at Moonee Ponds West.
Well done to those students who participated in the Cross Country trials last Thursday, I was fortunate enough to be able to support the trials and see the effort of students. Thank you to the parent helpers on day, the event wouldn’t have been able to run successfully without your support.
Congratulations and good luck to the 36 students who have progressed to the district level this Friday.
NAPLAN Online
The NAPLAN national testing begins next week, Tuesday May 10th over a 10-day period. This year NAPLAN is delivered online, except for the year 3 writing which will still be on paper. Last term, students in years 3 and 5 engaged in some practice testing for the platform which students found to be familiar to other assessments conducted as school, such as PAT testing.
We have scheduled the NAPLAN over 4 days, one assessment each day and allocated two catch up opportunities for students who may be absent for a particular assessment.
Our scheduled days are:
Tuesday 10th –Writing
Wednesday 11th – Reading
Tuesday 17th – Language Conventions
Wednesday 18th – Numeracy
As with all assessment tasks or activities at school, we ask students to have a go and do their best.
6-7 Transition
This week application forms and information from the Department was sent home to families regarding the year 6-7 transition. The booklet has a lot of information in it regarding the process, including school zones and deadlines.
We will be holding a Year 6-7 Transition Information session next Monday at 6.30pm via WebEx to support with information about the process. A Compass push with the details and link was sent yesterday.
https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=m814fa6ccf45b879c0846ebc8a65fc9fb
Common Professional Practice Day- student free day
For Term 2, the Department of Education and Training has recommended schools hold each teacher’s allocated professional practice day on the same day for all staff. This is to enable the most effective and efficient use of this day.
As a result, we have scheduled our common professional practice day for Wednesday 8th June. Students will therefore not be required to attend school on this day.
The Camp Australia service will be available on the day for parents and carers who require care for their child(ren).
Dress Code Update
In the coming week on our school website, we will be providing the community with an update on the review of the school’s Dress Code policy, including the review timeline, the summary of findings from the community, staff and student feedback and information for a potential revamp of the existing uniform items based on the community’s feedback.
We will communicate via a Compass push, when this information is available on the school’s website.
The review process began at the end of 2020 and is expected to conclude by the end of this term, including the communication of the updated Dress Code policy.
State Budget 2022
In exciting news for the school, with the release of the Victorian Budget 2022/23 today, the government have announced major upgrades for schools in the state. Moonee Ponds West Primary School were fortunate enough to be in the list of schools for ‘metro school upgrades’. This is great news for us and we will provide more information once we have more details.
In case you haven’t seen it, here is a link to the budget announcement. You can find us by scrolling down and clicking the ’metro school upgrades’ section.
https://www.budget.vic.gov.au/major-upgrades-classrooms-and-special-schools
Regards,
Jarrod Sutton
Acting Principal