A Message from Vassie 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land, 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.

WELCOME BACK

Welcome back to school for our third term. 

I hope that all Wembley community members managed to enjoy a restful break, and are feeling ready for a great term of learning. 

This term we have a number of camps, the school musical, a continued values focus on inclusion, respect, empathy and inclusion, cybersafety provision, and significant milestones in the building project, to look forward to. 

2024 PREP ENROLMENTS

We are currently conducting tours for 2024 prep families. This is a reminder to current families to enrol children of school start age at your earliest convenience! Enrolment forms can be found on the school website and/or collected from the office. Letters of enrolment offers will be sent to families in late July so we ask for all enrolments to be sent through with urgency. 

REPORTING - PARENT SURVEY

We thank our students, teachers and parents/carers who engaged in the student led conferences, which is an important part of our process for celebrating and reporting learning progress to parents/carers.

We would like to invite you to share some feedback regarding our reporting to parents processes, to assist us in celebrating, reflecting and improving our partnership between home and school, and also regarding our school day processes and changes that occurred this year as a result of the Victorian Government Schools Agreement. 

We remind parents of the importance of sharing feedback respectfully in line with our code of conduct: https://www.wembleyps.vic.edu.au/uploaded_files/media/code_of_conductstaff_parent_carer_student.docx1.pdf

Thank you to the parents that have completed the survey. 

The survey will be open until Friday 14 July to enable parents the time to complete the survey: https://forms.gle/hbCsiRLLinXJyJjt6 

Later this term we will seek feedback from our community regarding:

-Language at Wembley PS in 2024

-Communication at Wembley - regarding the use of Sentral, newsletter, social media and assembly

ROAD SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS

I'd also like to inform our community members that I been in contact with the Hon. Melissa Horne MP, Alison Wilson (road safety officer-Maribyrnong Council), and Vicroads regarding the ongoing concerns we've had around road safety around Wembley Primary School. 

Minister Horne responded immediately and arranged a meeting together with herself, Dom Torpy from her office,  and Department of Transport associate, Marcel Vidales, late last term, which enabled us to discuss concerns and share recommendations regarding road safety improvements.

As a result, the Department of Transport has approved a change in the traffic light signals on the corner of Wembley Ave and Francis Street! Moving forward, the pedestrian crossing green light will not operate concurrent to the green turning arrows. There will be a pause following the pedestrian light, before the solid green light signals. This time factor and shift, will be helpful in enabling pedestrians to move across safely without pedestrians and drivers having concurrent green signals. 

We have also asked for the provision of road crossing supervisors to operate for longer periods of time, the blindspot surrounding the phone booth, and civil services box to be assessed and potentially relocated.

Minister Horne has been a great advocate for safety, and the Wembley PS community, as she was instrumental in installing the barriers a couple of years back on the corner of Wembley Avenue and Francis Street, and she supported us in securing the Capital Works Building Funding.  Minister Horne and Marcel Vidales will get back to me once escalating these further queries with the Department of Transport. 

I also have a meeting with Alison Wilson, Maribyrnong Council, road safety officer, and the Department of Transport and Planning (Vicroads) in the coming weeks. I will update our community accordingly. 

in the interim, please speak with your child/ren about the importance of road safety, and revisit the conversation in ensuring that they: Stop, look, listen, and think, whilst travelling to and from school, and in walking bikes/scooters across the road, and on neighbouring footpaths.

INCLUSION AND ANTI-RACISM

We would like to take some time to advise you that from Term 3 onwards, we will commence a body of work within the school as part of developing a proactive approach to responding to, and providing education around racism. 

Please visit the wellbeing tab of the newsletter to read more about how we are supporting the learning and engagement of students and community around a focus on anti-racism. 

SCHOOL REVIEW

Some exciting news - we have been informed that our School Review will be held in Term Four, of this year. 

Every four years, schools move through a review process, in line with the Department of Education's Improvement Cycle. It's an opportunity for us to engage with our entire community in order to celebrate achievements and successes, as well as consider our improvement priorities for the next four years. 

At the end of the review process, we develop our School Strategic Plan (SSP), which outlines our intended direction, goals and key improvement strategies for the next four years. Every year, we develop an Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) which relates back to this SSP and outlines the actions we intend to take in order to reach our overarching goals. 

As part of this review process we will be engaging with students and our parent community; we will send further communication about what this will look like as we progress through the term. 

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

We welcome Bec Grieve and Laura Keays who are teaching Environmental Science/Sustainability this semester, as a specialist;

This is in lieu of the French Language considering the recruitment challenges that were shared in our last newsletter. A survey will be shared with our community in the coming weeks regarding seeking input from parents, students and staff regarding language options and provision, to inform 2024 language program.

This week students have been engaged in learning about the living things surrounding us at Wembley Primary School, investigating and reflecting upon vegetation, creepy crawlies and bird life! 

CAPITAL WORKS BUILDING PROJECT UPDATE  

We are making progress in our Capital Works Building Project. Please visit the Capital Works project tab for an update of the works to occur over the next month.

Thanking you

In our most recent site meetings over the school holidays and just this week, we communicated the importance of understanding that this is a live site, and that we must protect the safety first and foremost, and also the access of all students into our minimised playground footprint in the interim during the capital building works project.

We are working daily with the project manager and site manager regarding the project and look forward to moving into the new building in early 2024. 

We thank our students, staff members and parents for their ongoing patience and resilience. 

Lunch time clubs

See below for lunch time clubs that are in place to support student play and socialisation in light of the minimised yard space, as a result of the capital works project. 

NETBALL AND SOCCER GALA DAY

Congratulations to the students who participated in Gala Sports Day today, and not only did they demonstrate great teamwork, respect and resilience, however they were also victorious! We thank the parents and staff members who were able to assist with carpooling arrangements to ensure all students were transported to and from the event safely. Special mention to Renee Johnson who coordinated the day, together with Jonathon, Simon, Janine and the year 5 and 6 teaching teams. 

COLD AND FLU SEASON

As we move into prime cold and flu season, we wish to remind families of the importance of prioritising your health and wellbeing.

We ask parents to keep children home from school if they are unwell, and return to school when they are feeling healthy and well. 

We thank all staff for supporting the health and wellbeing of all students, with particular acknowledgement of Kathy in the first aid room for her care, consideration and communication with students, teachers and parents.

Teachers are continuing to ensure that students are sanitising regularly, air purifiers are on in each room set to the highest setting, and our cleaners are continuing to clean all spaces in the school thoroughly, and wipe down high touch surfaces.

We thank you in anticipation of your understanding, cooperation and support, in protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of all community members. 

WEMBLEY PS ON SOCIAL MEDIA 

We invite all community members to join in on the celebration of learning as we share key events, achievements and acknowledgements on our Wembley PS social media pages. 

If you haven't already, we invite you to follow along. 

A reminder that our school website, Sentral notifications and emails will continue to be our formal avenues of communication, whilst our newsletter will serve as a link between all platforms.

We ask that you take some time to familiarise yourselves with the Wembley Communications Policy, and the Code of Conduct-staff/students and parents, regarding the safe and respectable use of our chosen social media platforms. 

Communications Policy

Code of Conduct-staff/students and parents

Each school year we ask for permission to use our students’ images on various platforms, ie: newsletter and media release. This permission form addresses social media. If you don't wish for your child/ren to be included in social and hadn't indicated this on the consent form, please contact the school office on 93147054 or wembley.ps.@education.vic.gov.au to update your preferences. 

We look forward to continuing to engage with our community through these platforms, which will offer regular opportunities for connection and celebration. 

Please find us on Instagram at: @wembleyps4788

And via our official Facebook Page: Wembley Primary School (link here)