A Message from Vassie 

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land, the the Wurundjeri, Woi Wurrung and Boonwurrung  Peoples of the Kulin Nation and pay our respect to their Elders, past, present and emerging. Aboriginal people have a deep and continuous connection to the place now called Victoria. Aboriginal people have lived in the Maribyrnong River valley for over 40,000 years.

Celebrating Term One

Congratulations to all students, teachers and parents on a successful first term for the 2023 school year. We are very proud of the independence, resilience and responsibility that our students have demonstrated in settling into their new classrooms, building relationships with students and teachers, and focusing on their learning, health and wellbeing. 

Upon reflection of term one, we should be very proud of the significant learning growth, wellbeing achievements, camps, excursions, sporting successes, staff professional learning, breakfast club treats, wellbeing dog love, harmony day, student leadership improvements, Peer Mediator support, Easter fun, building improvements, sustainability action, and much more. Amongst it all, we have seen our Wembley community come together to support one another in more ways than one, and for this we thank you. 

We sincerely thank our dedicated staff members for their passion, heart, commitment and tireless dedication in supporting all students to learn and thrive as people and as learners. 

We are proud of how our students have demonstrated the Wembley values of respect, resilience, empathy and inclusion as they have been learning, growing and playing their way through the term. 

We are grateful to our parents and carers for their support and partnership in harnessing the learning, health and wellbeing needs of our students, your child/ren, as we have worked together throughout the term. 

We also acknowledge our prep students for their very first term of school, and in transitioning to being full time students. We understand that this is a special time for parents also, in seeing your child/ren grow and develop into the next stage of their lives, and we acknowledge your partnership. 

We wish all Wembley PS families a restful, safe and enjoyable Easter break with your little bunnies, celebrated by doing what you love with those you love the most. We hope you enjoy the easter eggs, hot cross buns and quality time. 

End of Term One - Thursday 6 April at 2:30

Term One concludes at 2:30, with an assembly commencing at 1:45pm

We welcome all parents to come along to our final assembly to join in the celebration of term one, the drawing of the Easter raffle, the SLAA awards, a prep performance, and a special farewell to Taxia! See below for more details regarding the end of term assembly.

The Out of School Hours Care Program - TheirCare, will be operating from 2.30pm on this day. Please call Jacqueline or Chelsea if you require care, on 0424 652 142. 

Term Two - Monday 24 April

Term two begins on Monday 24 April at 8:55am. 

Tuesday 25 April is the Anzac day public holiday and school will not be operating. 

We will be having an Anzac Day assembly on Monday 24 April at 3:15pm. Parents are welcome to attend. 

I will be on long service leave for the first week of term as I'll be celebrating a family event overseas. I leave you in the capable hands of Katie McClue who will step in as Acting Principal for the week, and Renee Johnson will be stepping into Katie's role as Acting Assistant Principal for the week. 

Easter Raffle

Once again thank you to the generous Wembley families who have responded overwhelmingly to the call for donations to baskets to raffle. At the moment we have over 30 Easter hampers to send home on Thursday at our assembly. We sincerely thank the volunteers in the WPA for coordinating such a special and delicious fundraiser. Tickets can be returned to the office up until Thursday morning. Any families who require an additional book of raffle tickets please ask Loredana at the office.

Assembly - Farewell Taxia Katsouranis

We are thrilled to share that Taxia has been invited to attend our assembly to acknowledge her 33 year contribution to Wembley PS and farewell her on behalf of the Wembley PS community.

If parents wish to write a card or share something with Taxia you are welcome to pass it on to her on Thursday, or alternatively you are welcome to drop it into the school office as we have a special keepsake box which we are collating for Taxia.

Assembly running order:

1. Acknowledgement of Country, National Anthem, Wembley PS Song
2. Student Learning and Achievement Awards (SLAA)
3. Easter Raffle
4. Prep musical performance
5. Taxia's farewell presentation

Parents and friends are of course welcome to come along. I hear that the Easter Bunny will be visiting Wembley and attending assembly too!

We will remind students to wear hats and re-apply sunscreen.

The forecast is looking favourable at the minute.

Capital Building Works - DEMOLITION

Monday 27 March 2023, marked a significant (bitter sweet) milestone in Wembley Primary School's capital works journey as the original Block A building, circa 1958, was demolished. Now for the phoenix to rise from the ashes! 

We were fortunate enough to have Melissa Horne MP visit Wembley PS last week to see how our Capital Works Project is progressing. We thank Melissa as she supported us in receiving $10.219million from the Victorian Government, to upgrade and modernise our main school building.

Victor (Project Manager, JohnStaff Project Construction Services) has been invited to visit some classes to answer questions regarding the building works. See some pics of Victor visiting our year one classes. They asked him questions about the building works, as well as what his favourite colour was and how old he was! Very sweet, and mutually informative! 

Emergency Evacuation Drill

We wish to inform you that as part of Department of Education (DE) requirements, all education services are required to have an emergency evacuation drill every 3 months.

Today on Wednesday 5 April, we have planned an evacuation drill, where we will congregate on the basketball court in our assembly area.

Students will be informed after the drill, that it is a 'practice' or a 'drill', in the unlikely event that we need to leave our classrooms, or the school grounds, for our safety.

We wanted to inform you as children may mention this when they arrive at home, and we do not wish for any parents or carers to be concerned as to the health and safety of their children, as it is a process all schools engage in as a safety precaution.

We will continue to conduct emergency evacuation drills each term, in line with DE policy and our emergency evacuation Plan.

If you wish to read further about emergency management requirements, please visit the DE policy advisory library:https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/provide...

Junior School Council

We'd like to congratulate all students that applied for teh role of Junior School Councillor. As we always say, you dont have to wear a badge to be a leader. We acknowledge the time, effort and resilience of all students in this process. 

Congratulations to the students that were elected into the JSC roles for 2023. 

Please visit the student leaders tab of the newsletter to read more about our amazing student leaders and their impact on the school. 

Peer Mediators

Congratulations, thank you and well done to all year 6 students that have stepped into the role of Peer Mediators. Our year 6 Peer Mediators have been trained, and are now in the yard during recess and lunch time assisting students to socialise and play happily and safely. We thank Renee Johnson and Melanie Irons for training and supporting these students. Here are some photos that were shared with me of some of our peer mediators in the yard yesterday. We will share more updates from all peer mediators throughout the year. 

Prime Energy Drinks

We remind students and families that students are only to bring water bottles to school. This is in the interest of promoting health and wellbeing. We have seen a number of students bringing Prime energy drinks to school and have been drinking and trading them in the school yard. 

We ask for parents cooperation in this and ask that you ensure that your child does not bring Prime drinks to school. If students bring Prime drinks to school, we will ask teachers to collect them and return them at the end of the school day. 

YEAR 3-6 PARENT INFORMATION SESSION: RAISING KIDS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

On Thursday 23 March, Wembley Primary School hosted a webinar for years 3-6 parents, through digital health and safety organisation, Inform and Empower, on the topic of Raising Kids in a Digital World. Thank you to everyone that was able to sign up for the webinar to watch at a later date, or tune in on the night. For those that were not able to sign up in time to access the webinar or the shared resources through Inform and Empower, the presenters, Marty and Carley have provided us with links to their webinar, a parent and carers toolkit, and relevant Facebook parent group. We encourage all parents to take the time to watch the 90 minute webinar about how we can work together to keep all students safe online. 

We thank Marty and Carley from Inform and Empower for the highly engaging and informative webinar last week.

For those that missed the live webinar, or in case anyone would like to watch it again, here is the link to replay the video:

Replay:

https://event.webinarjam.com/t/click/z3w5xu46akgiv9cgvkkf4vwtx1ao

Parent & Carers Toolkit (all the information, links and resources from the webinar):

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE TOOLKIT

Inform and Empower Facebook group for parents & carers:

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR FACEBOOK GROUP

Marty and Carley have also asked if anyone who attended the session was willing, if they could please write them a short Google Review.

Sentral - Payment Update

We are pleased to share our school bank details so that parents can make payments without having to pay any fees. 

Whilst Sentral offers easy and convenient payments for excursions, camps etc. via Credit Card or Direct Debit, charges apply which go directly to Sentral.

A new addition to all payment requests which will incur no fees, will be the display of the Wembley PS Banking details if you wish to pay via direct bank deposit included on all excursion notifications and reminder emails, an example can be found below:

E.g. payment: The cost for this activity is $10.00, this can be paid via the Sentral Portal: https://wembleyps.sentral.com.au/portal2/#!/login 

or by using the below banking details:

Name: Wembley PS

BSB: 063 181 

Account: 10056072

Please use student name as reference