A Word from the Principal

Welcome to our school community

Can you believe it....it's week 4 of the school term!

Family Fun Night & Wellbeing Day TODAY!

We are all looking forward to a fabulous night tonight at the family fun night. It is a great way to come together and also celebrate Weeden Heights PS’ 40th birthday. The students will have had the opportunity to be with their grade to ‘go crazy’ on the inflatables in a small group and will enjoy participating. The day is a wellbeing day and supports the students developing relationships within their class.

Please come along tonight with your picnic dinner, mix and mingle with our amazing community. It is one of the very special things that we do at Weeden Heights to celebrate our community. Please introduce yourself to our new families and new staff. See you tonight!

Make sure you take a look at our Facebook page to see videos and photos of the night!

School Council Elections

We have now completed our final School Council meeting with our current school council. Our last meeting was on Monday 17 February. Councillors take up a two year term on council and each year we go through a process of re-election to establish the composition of school council for the current year.

I have been calling for nominations to fill the 2020 council positions that have become vacant. Unfortunately we have been only able to fable to fill two parent positions and the rest have been left vacant of the vacant parent and DET positions. I will extend the nominations until MONDAY 24 February as some people may need a little further time over the weekend to decide.

We welcome existing councillors to re nominate and we definitely require new parents to join the council. Nomination forms were made available to you on Flexibuzz, attached to this school newsletter and available in paper form at the school office.

If you have ever thought you would like to know what happens on School Council why not offer your services this year. It is very simple; all you need to do is come to the office and collect a nomination form. There are two types of nominations. One requires a person to second your nomination or you can simply nominate yourself. In order to become a school councillor, you need to have child enrolled at the school and a desire to see Weeden Heights PS continue to improve as a school community.

The following positions will be advertised as vacant:

Parent Category for School Council for 2020: 2 year term x 4 positions (now 2 positions), 1 year term x 1 positions and 1 x 2 year community member
Department of Education and Training (DET) Member Category on School Council: 2 year term x 2 positions and 1x 1 year position

If you have any questions around becoming a part of School Council then please speak with the current School Council members. It is an excellent opportunity to participate in your child’s school.

Thank-you to our exciting and valued School Councillors

On behalf of our school community, I would like to thank the following School Councillors for their amazing work over their two-year term: Emily Zhang, Simon Billingham, Gavin Hodgins, Nicole Seneviratne, Paul Keeghan and David Saville.

One of their highlights would have been to be involved in representing our school community and the support you have given the school. You should all be very proud of the work completed in the sub committees along with your generous commitment of time, advice and expertise.

Sunsmart Hats

Students must wear a school uniform brimmed hat until the end of April. Please help by ensuring your child has protection from the sun by having his/her hat at school, reinforcing the importance of wearing a hat and of course please apply sun cream before your child comes to school each day.

Uniform Reminder:

At assembly, we talk about school pride and in particular school pride attached to the wearing of our school uniform. As a reminder, our school council recommended school uniform is:

Hair to be tied back if below the shoulder
No jewellery except for stud/sleeper earrings and a watch
Year 6 students have their own signature school t-shirt and rugby jumper

We expect our students to take great pride in their appearance as this directly impacts on the image of the school. No one should be wearing a WHPS summer dress with coloured leggings or a different coloured long sleeved t-shirt under a WHPS short-sleeved t-shirt at any time. Unfortunately a few students have started wearing the incorrect t-shirt. All t- shirts must have the school logo and the school’s unique colour and sleeve. You can’t buy plain blue polo shirts from a chain store. There are also a few student with slip on shoes which are dangerous. Please support the School Council's uniform policy and ensure that your children are in the correct uniform.

Student Supervision

It is terrific to see how enthusiastic our students are to be at school. However, I would like to remind families that the school grounds are not supervised by staff until 8.45am each morning and are unsupervised after 3.45pm each afternoon. It is inappropriate for students to be in the school grounds unsupervised before and after these times so please ensure that your child remains safe by arriving at school as close to 8.45am as possible and collecting your children at 3.30pm. Parents are welcome to supervise their children playing on the grounds after school hours. We do understand that unexpected incidents happen to cause late pickups but please call the office should this occur. Out of School Hours care is available from 7.30am – 8.45am each day and 3.30- 6.00pm should you need the service.

Safety and Parking

Please observe the parking signs around the school. Parking, walking through and using the car park as a ‘drop off’ point is forbidden due to the interest of your child’s safety. The car park at the front and back of the school is for staff and authorised vehicles and personnel only. We certainly do not want any accidents so please use our school crossings and footpaths and encourage your child to do the same.

Student Accident Insurance/Ambulance Cover Arrangements and Private Property Brought to Schools

This is a reminder to our community that parents/guardians of students, who do not have student accident insurance, are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for their injured children, including the cost of ambulance attendance/transport and any other transport costs. Parents/guardians can purchase insurance policies from commercial insurers to protect their child while at school.

Parents/guardians and DET employees should also note the Department does not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools and it has no capacity to pay for any loss or damage to such property.

Staff Leadership Team

If you have any concerns regarding anything related to your child’s schooling then please see your child’s classroom teacher. Level co-ordinators are also available to assist where necessary to help clarify the answer to any questions that you might have.

Level Coordinators who have this responsibility in 2020 are:

Junior School – Melinda Michalski
Middle School – Aarti Arya
Senior School – Allison McLaren

Information Nights 2020

At the beginning of every year we conduct information nights. This year we ran grade information sessions so that information that is relevant and critical to you could be delivered. We thank the parents who attended but they were not well attended. It was a slight change from last year where we spread the information in different subject areas across the year. Next year we may alternate back to this format to support the wider teaching and learning approaches across the school.

The teachers are currently completing grade information books for each year level and these will be available for you via Flexibuzz and on our new website soon.

Instagram , Facebook and Flexibuzz!

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram follow us on @weeden.heights.ps Please like us on Facebook as well. Search for us at Weeden Heights Primary School (Vermont South). We are always adding posts and updates to our social media exposure to keep you up to date and so that you can see the exciting things happening at our school. Share our page with family as well and they can also see what we are up to at school.

Communication with and from the school is vital and it is always an area we are working on. We are making great use of the phone app, Flexibuzz. Every family by now should be using Flexibuzz . (Our new families were given the instructions to download the free app in your information pack). School information does go out to families on Flexibuzz so it is vital that you download the app to your phone.

Don’t forget that Flexibuzz allows you to send absence notes through to us, book interviews, order lunch orders etc. Your child’s absence should be sent directly through the app on the morning of the absence. This also serves as an absence note and the classroom teachers is aware straight away.

‘Getting to Know You’ Interviews – 2 Way Meetings

Thank-you to the families who participated in the interviews last week. We value the information that you give us about your child as it allows us to develop individual plans to cater for their individual learning needs.

Some of our parents will be involved in Student Support Group Meetings in coming weeks. A note will come home soon to arrange a time with you. We look forward to meeting with you then to develop learning goals for your child

Until next time.....

Ms Kylie Campbell

Principal

Futures are Bright at Weeden Heights!