This will be our last newsletter for the year so I wish everyone a very safe and happy Christmas. I hope you will be surrounded by family, good food and cheer.

I would like to thank parents, students and staff for what was a very interesting year, another one that we will never forget. Strangely enough even though the challenges were many, with parents, teachers and students all working together we still have some incredible results that even only two months ago I didn’t think would be possible.

Right now I’m loving the excitement in the air, with ‘step up day’ being a huge success, excursions, grade two sleep over and the 5/6 Christmas/Enterprise market all being about fun. I have had so many children coming up to me to tell me about how very excited they are about next year. But I must say I have probably had more children coming up to me laughing because the naughty elves in the school have defaced another photo of me! It really has been great to feel a sense of normal fourth term fun!

Esther

At our young and inspired night, our grade five and six students heard from five amazing young people that have already done some astounding things with their lives. Esther was 15 when she travelled to Kenya to learn more about Africa. She was so inspired by the wonderful young people there that she decided to help. While still in high school she started the ‘kickstart program’. A charity to help young people in Kenya be able to access education.

Some of our wonderful grade 5 & 6 students were inspired by what Esther had to say and they decided they wanted to help. With the help of parents and Flick they organised lots of lemons and as you are probably aware, they sold real lemonade that they made at school. After a lot of work and a lot of sticky moments in our canteen. The team raised over $700.

They presented a cheque to Esther at assembly. Esther said, “$700 is enough money to put one person in Kenya all the way through to the end of high school.”

I would like to thank all of our students that were involved in this project. I am so proud of them for doing such a wonderful thing. I am also so grateful to Esther for inspiring all of us to do more for others.

Esther with our lemon crew, someone in Kenya will now get to go to school simply because of what they have done in only 4 weeks of fundraising. We are so very proud of them!

OUR 2022 SCHOOL LEADERS

It was pleasure for me to announce our 2022 school leaders at assembly on Friday. I would like to thank all of the students that applied for positions and I look forward to their leadership even if they weren’t successful in obtaining an official role.

The following students were successful:

Leadership Positions

School Captain Tia Malcolm & Arabelle Syme

Vice School Captain Cooper Uren & Echo Schaak-Taylor

ICT Leader Christian Lombardi & Kayla Bald

Animal Leader Sienna Darmody

Environment Leader Lila Pratt

JSC Leader

(Junior School) Sunny Love

(Senior School) Letisha Ettia

Science Leader Emma Hade

House Captains

Muyan Rylee Bond & Brodie Ormsby

Toolebewong Blake Thomson & Sophie Grimson

Barraring Nicky Scott & Logan King

Barak Jake O’Neill & Lili Gentiluomo

EXCELLENCE AWARDS

The following students are our excellence award winners for this term. Winners receive a badge and have their picture in the office area of the school for the following term. The following students have been judged the best student in the grade for the term. They will receive their badges at our final assembly on Friday.

Prep A Jackson McCamley

Prep B Fletcher Nugent

Prep C Elijah Crinis

Prep D Chase Metcher

1/2 A Nalah Duff

1/2 B Oscar Darwall (pink badge 3rd time winner)

1/2 C Charlie Georgiev

1/2 D Amity Williamson

1/2 E Jed Ames

3/4 A Skyla Van Kerkhoven

3/4 B Asher Crowley (pink badge 3rd time winner)

3/4 C Malachi Syme (green badge 2nd time winner)

3/4 D Ruby Hannaford (green badge 2nd time winner)

5/6 A Arabelle Syme (green badge 2nd time winner)

5/6 B Blake Thomson

5/6 C Sarah Hade

5/6 D Ruby Gates (green badge 2nd time winner)

Science Josiah Crowley

P/E Max Conway

German Clay Paull (pink badge 3rd time winner)

Art Ella Robinson

GOODBYE

Our school community will also be losing the following families next year. Some of these families have been part of our school community for well over ten years and it is sad to see them go. We wish all these wonderful families well going into the future and thank them for all their contributions to Woori Yallock Primary School:

The Bentley family (Noah)

The Cathie family (Kyra)

The Cotton family (Tahlia)

The Danher family (John)

The Fedat family (Zara & Zayley)

The Hubbard family (Tayte)

The Lawton family (Jayden)

The Myers family (Ayla)

The Norris family (Sammy)

The Robins family (Horatio)

The Vandenboom family (Liam)

The Verstraten family (Kane)

The Viktorin family (Jorden)

The Western-Pittard family (Jason)

We will miss you all very much. Please make sure you come back and see us when you can.

FINAL ASSEMBLY

We plan to have our final assembly outside under the trees near our oval. We are doing this so that all parents that wish to attend can. We will be awarding the final excellence awards and saying a final goodbye to our current grade 6 students. Assembly will begin at 12:55pm.

EARLY FINISH ON FRIDAY

Just a reminder that we finish at 1:30pm on Friday which is our normal time to finish on the last day of the school year.

JANUARY

As normal we have a number of things happening over the January period so I will be at the school on and off from the 14th of January if you need to speak to me.

It has been another remarkable year at our school and I particularly thank our committed school council and all the parents that have written beautiful things about our school. Throughout this year there have been some beautiful online posts about our school, which I’m always so grateful to read. Due to the great job of our teachers and our wonderful parents we are officially full for next year and will only be accepting new students from inside our school zone. From now on our school will only be accepting the same number of Preps as we have grade sixes leaving. With the new building beginning next year, 2023 will see us not only having the best teaching in the valley but also the best facilities.

I wish you all a safe and happy Christmas and I’ll see you all on 1st February, 2022 for a very normal year.

Thank you all again for the wonderful support of our beautiful school.

When life gives you Lemons.....