A warm welcome to our community

Hello everyone, I hope you are staying warm in this extremely cold weather! There has been many illnesses over the past few weeks at school so I am sure that everyone will benefit from a break from routine over the holidays.

School Review

Next term will be massive for the school as we head into a school review. I am currently writing the school’s self-evaluation of the last four years and with everyone’s support and with significant amounts of evidence, I am reviewing our performance against the goals and targets outlined in the Strategic Plan (which is available on our website).

I would like to thank our School Council, the PFA and the 25 parents who responded to the school survey for their contribution to the school review. I have spoken to our junior SRC and will consult with all of year 5 & 6 in the next few days.

Staffing Announcement and a Goodbye

I would like to announce that Mrs Melinda Michalski who is currently working in grade 1/2 on a Monday and Tuesday, will be teaching Performing Arts for the whole school for the rest of the week. Mrs Michalski has extensive experience in school productions and has taught Performing Arts for several years at other schools. It is going to be exciting with our school production happening early in term 4. I’m sure Mrs Michalski will be in contact with you all very soon as she will need your support with costumes, props etc. Mrs Peddington was in this role for second semester but has chosen to extend her leave for the rest of this year.

We are also saying a sad farewell to Ms Annie Paterno who has finished her Visual Arts position at Weeden for this year. The students have completed the year’s Visual Arts program in one semester by completing double sessions. The focus in second semester is Performing Arts with preparation for the school production being a priority. The students will complete double sessions each week. Ms Paterno has made an outstanding contribution to our school and it is evidenced through the high quality of the work that she has supported the students to produce. The parent feedback and acknowledgement has been fabulous. Annie’s links to literature, famous artists and artistic styles has developed a wealth of knowledge in our students. Thank you Annie and farewell for now! We will see Annie around next term when she visits to replace absent teachers.

New Website

If you have looked us up this week, you will find our new website. It is a work in progress so please bare with us! Our old site had a lot of old outdated information and it is currently being rewritten. The sections that are up are new and we are also including updated photos. This will be worked on next term so new information will go up as it is completed. It should look fabulous when finished and more importantly, have up to date information for all of you.

Reporting to Parents against the Victorian Curriculum

Reports will come home in your child’s school bag tomorrow so please look out from them. The envelope will also include information on booking in for a three way conference which are conducted in the second weeks of term three on July 22 or 23.

In the student’s mid-year report, you able to see the progress that your child has made from last June until now. You will be able to get an accurate picture of your child’s achievement standards against the Victorian Curriculum levels and their progress against their individual learning goals and targets.

The goal of student reports is to reflect on student achievement at a point in time for each student’s learning. Learning occurs incrementally along the learning continuum however, the rate and pace of learning is not fixed or constant. It is recognised that there may be plateaus and even setbacks as different students learn at different rates. Teachers make informed and measured judgments, based on evidence gained from the range of formal and informal assessment tasks and learning experiences, about a learner's progress against the Victorian Curriculum F-10 achievement standards. Teachers will place a student against the position on the continuum that most accurately reflects the student’s level of achievement against the achievement standards.

Uniform – School Shoes

This is a friendly reminder that students are required to wear school shoes or plain black or white runners to school as per School Council Uniform Policy. There have been several students coming to school in snow boots and have found themselves in sick bay after falling over in the yard as they have tripped on dangling tassels and elastic. While they are warm, they are not safe for the school ground. Please adhere to the school policy.

Final Day of Term – Early Dismissal

The final day of term 2 will be tomorrow, Friday 28 June at 2.30pm. We will also take the opportunity to farewell Mrs Mikus who is retiring. There will many awards and presentations as well. We have some very excited new ‘Hall of Famers’ to be presented which is exciting.

Please ensure you have made arrangements for the collection of your children at this earlier dismissal time. There will be a final assembly under the sails for the term at 2.15 pm (weather permitting). As always we would love to see you at this time to celebrate the end of another great term.

Until next time,

Ms Kylie Campbell

Principal

Futures are Bright at Weeden Heights!

Extension & Enrichment

Year 3 Writing Group: Mrs Watts

"Planting a seed", creating string poems and using these as a platform to write an enriching, free verse poem.