Principals` Message
Week 6 news
It is wonderful to be back with the great community at Fitzroy Primary School for the remainder of Term 3 and the first week of Term 4. I was very excited to receive the news that I had been reappointed as Acting Principal and am looking forward to continuing to provide leadership to our school over the coming weeks.
Term 3 is a very busy time in schools and I have been working closely with Andrea on a number of items preparing for the remainder of this year and for 2024. Thank you to Andrea for her outstanding leadership for the first half of this Term in Angela’s absence and for supporting me as I return this week.
One great achievement this Term has been the return of the Performing Arts curriculum due to the appointment of the wonderful Bree. Bree has been doing a fabulous job of engaging our students in performance and I have seen lots of acting, singing, performing taking place in these classes. The curriculum for the remainder of this Term in F-2 will focus on singing and music leading into the performance at our French Fete. For the Year 3-6, acting and drama is the focus, heading towards the writing and performance of short plays in Term 4. We look forward to these great performances by our children and warmly welcome Bree as a great addition to our school.
This week was Science Week, a national celebration of science and technology. At Fitzroy we are fortunate to have a great STEM program that is taught by the wonderful Vicki. Students regularly engage in classes that incorporate the different STEM disciplines and combine theory with practical experience. As part of our Science Week celebration there have been science activities taking place at lunchtime throughout the week for all our budding scientists, engineers, designers and innovators to participate in.
Next week is Book Week which is a great celebration of quality books, stories and reading. This year’s theme is ‘Read, Grow, Inspire’. This theme is about how reading books promotes a space where imagination has unlimited scope for growth and infinite possibility. To acknowledge Book Week there will be activities taking place in classrooms on the shortlisted books from the Children’s Council Book Week Awards and there will be a dress up day on Friday 25th August. We encourage all students to dress up as a favourite book character, author or illustrator on Friday and show their passion for reading. There will be a parade for all classes at 9am at line up on Friday 25th August.
Recently we have implemented a trial of splitting the lunchtime play break into two sessions: Year F-2 and Year 3-6. The Foundation to Year 2 students have their lunch play break from 1.15-2pm and the Year 3-6 have theirs from 1.45-2.30pm. This was done to help relieve some of the pressure of having a large number of students sharing the facilities in the yard. The outcome of this change has so far been very positive, with the junior students having more space to spread and play games, and the older students having more freedom to play more active games and activities. We will continue to monitor this change to ensure it is having positive impact moving forward.
On Thursday and Friday I was lucky enough to have some special visitors come by for a shared lunch. Nina, Fatuma, Tabyan, Rayan and Charlie from FFL and Bella, Abdullahi and Antoine from FFR requested lunch with the Principal as one of their rewards for their outstanding work and behaviours. My lunch companions were great company telling funny stories and having a good time. Thank you to my new friends for helping to brighten my day with your great company.
Primary Assemblies will be returning to Fitzroy Primary with the next one taking place on Tuesday 29th August at 3pm, and then every two weeks after. Assemblies are a good opportunity to build community, culture and collective understanding of important information. They will be held on the play field where students line up currently, with the wet weather option being outside the office undercover. Should the weather be truly terrible we will either postpone or run the assembly virtually through WebEx – we will let you know about this in Compass and SMS. Parents and Carers are warmly invited to attend our Primary Assemblies each fortnight. Please mark the 29th August at 3pm in your calendar, we hope to see you there.
The capital works redevelopment of the George St building is continuing to progress rapidly. I toured the building on Monday during a site meeting and was impressed by how far it has come since I was there earlier in the year. The internal framing is almost complete, and floors are down in nearly all rooms. Most of the structural work is complete, with the lift and staffroom areas still to be finished. The internal walls will have plasterboard installed very soon and then we will have a good idea for how it will look when complete. The project is entering an exciting phase and I look forward to seeing its continued progression.
-Nathan Moore & Andrea Hennessey