Principal's report

Dear Parents, Carers, Students and MPWPS Community members,

How wonderful is Melbourne in the autumn?

It is really the best city in the world around this time every year.  The cooler evenings, crisp morning and glorious days make it wonderful to be here and part of it!  I hope you can take time to glance at the weather from a busy work or home schedule.

Movie Night This Friday! 

Come along and enjoy an outdoor theatre experience on our very own tiger turf. I will be around for a little while on Friday night but as I have a previous engagement, I am unable to stay until the end.  Please accept my apologies.    The Fundraising Team (hardest working parent group in any school) have worked tirelessly for this event and they urgently require volunteers to run this event. Please consider volunteering at Sign Up Zone.

 https://signup.zone/FPK4Z9CX9YPArWAyR

I wish it every success.

Parent Calendar for Term 2

The Parent Calendar is being finalised to accompany the next newsletter.  Staying informed is very important to belonging and so we try to get the dates right so you can rely on them.  Sometimes we slip up but generally we get it correct. Again, we will be offering two Parent Forums during the term. They will both focus on resilience and reducing anxiety in families.  Dr David Collins has agreed to facilitate these sessions.  I am very grateful as when we had our first Forum and discussing possible topics of interest, the request was for more from David. The tentative dates are Friday May 10 and Friday Jun 7 from 9-10 in the Community Room.  Small children welcome as we have toys.

Camping Program

The 3/4 Camp is almost upon us. The first group heading to Sunnystones in Bacchus Marsh next week Monday to Wednesday and the second Group Wednesday to Friday. A couple of reminders.  Please remind children they are only going for two nights and clothing must be Sun Smart.  Best to have enclosed shoes, even gumboots for the bush events and thongs for the shower room is a good idea.  I am going up to the camp this week to have a bit of a look and if I think there are other items that are particularly required, I will send a message via COMPASS.    Camp is a wonderful experience. As at 19.03.19, we have 76 students attending  Camp 1 and 77 students attending Camp 2. Our thanks to all parents and carers for supporting this learning opportunity.

An Evening of Pleasure and Memories as a tribute to Lorraine Wilson

As a teacher, I was always aware of the Lorraine Wilson way of things.  Particularly, I used her method for Readers Theatre in my class, and as a strategy for developing reading comprehension through improved fluency.  Lorraine has recently retired and donated all of her educational texts to our Staff Professional Library.  As a way of acknowledging her legacy to literacy learning for teachers and students, in many schools in Victoria and beyond, we are planning a small function. A team of teachers from MPWPS is planning this as I write and will be forwarding information early next term.  Lorraine has left a strong legacy and for many years, Moonee Ponds West was the home of Lorraine’s work.  I am looking forward to this evening.

Toilet Block Construction

The building of the toilet block is coming along and in fact is on target for handover April 24.   We had a site visit yesterday, and I must say the new facility will be wonderful for our students.  The positioning of the block has opened up that corner and we will be landscaping this in some way with the help of our community. The final addition to the redevelopment is a wooden boundary fence, which we are to fund.  How good would that look! 

Well that is about it from me at present.  Next week I am travelling to a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) Expo in Brooklyn NYC.  The invitation to the EXPO is because of an international partnership formed with my previous school and the schools in District 20.  Maybe we could join this Network with STEAM as the focus.  What better way to engage and extend our students!  In my absence Barbara Springfield will be in-charge supported by the Professional Learning Team leaders (PLT).

Next week is week 9 of a 10 week term.  My time has flown! 

Sincerely and in good faith

Kerri Simpson (Principal Acting at MPWPS)