From the Principal

Dear Families,

Welcome to Country and Smoking ceremony.

It was amazing seeing so many families join us on Monday morning for the school’s first ever smoking ceremony and welcome to country. Supported by the Bunurong Land Council, the morning was a time to reflect and celebrate our connection to the local land while acknowledging the contribution of our first nations people as its original custodians. As a collective we were taken on a journey on the importance of the branches and leafs that were used as part of the ceremony. It was a great experience that saw all students, staff and attending families, have the opportunity to be bathed in the smoke.

As we continue to strengthen our connection to land and history of our first nations people we will look to incorporate more events and experience such as this as part of our everyday school culture.

2023 Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey:

Next week the school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey. The Department of Education based survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage all families to participate. 

All families are invited to participate in the survey and will be emailed a personalised link and pin.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open from Monday 7 August to Friday 8 September 2023.

• The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

The school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. 

2023 School Review Feedback Forum and Feedback Survey

In term 4 the school will be undertaking its 4-year school review. An important component of the review is to capture the voice of our families. To support this the school will be running two feedback opportunities.

The first opportunity is through a face-to-face feedback forum.

The workshop style forum will seek input for our school self-evaluation which will inform the first stage of our School Review process.

Parents will be invited to celebrate achievements and highlights of the past four years.

Feedback will be sought about aspects of our school’s educational program under the headings of:

• START 
• STOP 
• KEEP

The forum will follow a brief presentation of aspects of the school's 2022 Annual Report as well as key elements from the school's current strategic plan.

We are asking parents/guardians who are keen to attend to register via the link below.

https://forms.gle/tYiyC4BD9FRnfxKM7

The second opportunity is through a targeted google form survey. Unlike the Departments annual Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey, this Google form survey is targeted to support the school’s review process and gives written feedback opportunities around key school themes.

Details of this survey will be email to families on Monday 21st August and will be available to complete for a 2-week period.

School Celebration

Tomorrow, we welcome the community to attend our 150-celebration day. 

Details of the day were emailed to families on Friday 21st July.

As part of the celebrations, we are also inviting Ex-Willy Kids in particular the graduating classes of 2020 and 2021 who effectively had their final WPS years interrupted by the COVID pandemic.

100 Days of School - Prep

It was an amazing sight on Tuesday seeing our Preps celebrate their 100 days of school. Dressed for the occasion, it was great seeing all our prep students embrace the milestone, many acting out the characters they were dressed as. There were lots of grey hair, walking sticks, big glasses, and long beards. 100 days of school is not only a memorable moment for our students but also plays a key part of the maths learning program.

Winter Sports

Our T-Ballers headed down the freeway to Geelong this week to compete at the Regional Championships. Winning 2of their 3 preliminary games they just missed out on qualification for the final. They came back to 3016 with their heads held high as the represented the school with spirit and pride.

2024 Prep Enrolment Applications

Prep enrolment applications for 2024 have now closed. The next stage in this process sees applicants receive correspondence regarding application outcomes by Friday 11th August.  It is always exciting preparing to welcome the next generation of Willy Kids. The school’s process sees enrolment priority for families that live within the school zone and current student siblings. At times the school is able to take outside of our allocated zone, but this changes from year to year and is pending applications from within our zone and current families.

Warm regards,

Mathew Montebello

Principal