Principal's Report

Appreciations and News

Thanks to the many parents who have quickly made time to ensure they are able to secure a preferred time for Meet the Teacher interviews next week.

And thank you to members of our Parents’ Association for providing a terrific and tasty morning tea welcome for our new Preps on Friday 31st January.  I really should have acknowledged this last week …

School captains for 2020 – At Monday’s first assembly I was delighted to present two outstanding choices; Johanna Wells and Stephen Sully, as our 2020 School Captains.  This process where the successful recipients are chosen democratically by their grade 6 peers, has a long tradition at our school.  Johanna and Stephen (pictured) were presented with bomber jackets embroidered with their names, title and year.  The jackets were generously donated by PSW, our uniform supplier. 

Today we will be informing the senior grades who have been elected as the grade 6 Class and Vice-Captains for our three grade 6 classes.  The recipients will be announced and receive their badges at our assembly on Monday. 

Also at assembly Giuliano took to the stage to prime the students for Multicultural Day on Thursday March 12th.

News about our lunch Club's Program

Prep Welcome Bags – Also on Monday, our local MP Katie Hall met with, read to our Prep students and assisted handing out the Prep welcome bags which are supplied annually by the state government. 

Sunsmart – Each year we require all students to wear a broad brimmed (or legionnaires) hat at recess and lunch and for all out door school activities from the beginning of September through until the end of April, including camps, excursions and sports events.  Students who do not have a suitable hat unfortunately will be excluded from activities which take place outdoors and where shade is unavailable.  We encourage parents to apply sunscreen on the younger children and to supply a tube to keep at school for the children to reapply.  It is totally impractical for teachers to apply sunscreen at school.

The policy, updated last year can be accessed at: http://fwps.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/SunSmart-Policy-2019.pdf

VERSO Education and Inquiry learning – We have had an outstanding two day professional learning experience this week.  Phil Stubbs representing Verso Education (who have formed a partnership with FWPS), has been working with our junior, middle and senior school teaching teams in order to model innovative and thought provoking lessons in Inquiry.  I attended an impressive session in 3/4DW on Wednesday, a few of images which I have included. 

Working with the teaching teams, Phil provided a modelled lesson on how to introduce the integrated learning topic through effective and stimulating collaborative questioning methodology.  Dan and his class were joined by all the teaching members of the grade 3 and 4 team so that they could observe and record how their planning could be applied.  The grade impressed with how keen they were to learn, take on new challenges and adapt to the thinking requirements.  Immediately following this session the grade 3 and 4 teachers were timetabled to spend a session debriefing with Phil.  This model, was applied over two days with the grade 1 and 2 and 5 and 6 teams also participating.  After school all the teaching teams joined with Phil for a plenary.  This model of applied professional learning has been used extensively at our school.  For instance last year Maths learning received the benefit of this similar approach. We will be keen to work with Phil again during the year and are very keen to see the Prep team also benefit from this learning opportunity.

Following our extensive school review in 2019, we determined areas for improvement and focus for our new strategic plan.  These included Writing, Student Voice and Agency and Inquiry learning.   With this in mind we are delighted that our integrated learning will be advanced by this exciting education partnership.

First aid news – Our school nurse Zowi sent all students with anaphylaxis, allergies and asthma conditions a letter at the beginning of term requiring updated medical plans.  Thank you to all the families who have complied by the due date.  However we do have a number of families yet to respond.  This requirement is obviously a VERY IMPORTANT one.  Please ensure that if this message is relevant to you that it is complied with in the next week.

Clubs – There has been an inspiring level of interest from students and staff in devising a whole raft of exciting lunch clubs.  No one is more enthusiastic than grade 6 teaching team member, Shannon.  She has included an update on Term 1 Clubs in today’s newsletter.

Information packs … were sent home to each family last week. I am pleased to note that many families have responded and paid fees very promptly.  We also appreciate that this is also an opportunity to update contact details, vital when we need to communicate, sometimes urgently. All excursions and incursions will continue to be paid for separately prior to each excursion or incursion. We don’t want kids to miss out!

As with recent practice, parents who assist with excursions will need to hav,e or have applied for a working with children check in order to attend.  Many families are eligible for fee relief through the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund.  For instance if you currently hold a Health Care card. Please contact a member of the office team, Assistant Principals, Caren or Lyn or myself if you have concerns about your current capacity to meet these requirements.

Coming up …

Tomorrow  … Annual Swimming Carnival at the MAC – A contingent of 26 swimmers from grades 4 – 6 are keenly looking forward to representing our community at the annual swim carnival tomorrow at the MAC.  Thanks to Stratos, Shannon and Binh for supporting them.  We anticipate and encourage parents to attend and support our team of dolphins.

Meet the Teacher – Meet the Teacher interview forms were sent home on Monday along with being posted on Flexibuzz.  FWPS parents clearly appreciate the importance of having the early conversation with our teachers, considering as of Wednesday evening, 360 parents had logged on and made 542 bookings.  Please remember that teachers will be set to provide one interview, for each child, for every family.  This is a really important opportunity for parents to share their unique knowledge of their children at this early stage of the school year.

Specialist team members will be located in the Soundgarage in the Wallaby building.

Please note that MTT is an opportunity for a conversation between the parents and teachers.  The students will be invited to attend the mid-year Parent/Teacher interviews and Student led conferences.

Classroom Helpers sessions - start next week.

Classroom helper’s sessions are an important step for all parents, grandparents, or community volunteers who wish to work with the students in classrooms, excursions, camps, stalls,orchard to plate, Connector bugs and Parent Association......

Each year senior staff members provide some morning and afternoon Classroom Helpers sessions to ensure we have complete compliance.  Along with the obtaining of a volunteer Working with Children’s Check, attendance at one Classroom Helpers session (this year or in previous years) is required for volunteers to be accredited at FWPS