Principal's Report

Greetings to all families of MPWPS,

Again, I have the amazing opportunity to act as Principal during Kerri’s current leave period. I welcome Karen Wheeler to the role of Acting Assistant Principal during this time. This is a great opportunity for Karen in her career to experience this role and for us to draw from Karen’s knowledge and experience from a different setting. Karen will be out at the gates with myself before and after school so you will be able to put a face to the name.

Return to onsite learning Wednesday 28th July

Announced this morning, we are set to return to onsite learning tomorrow, Wednesday 28th. We are awaiting further guidelines from the Department of Education and will update the community via Compass to confirm further arrangements.

At this stage, we will revert back to our usual process for drop off and pick up of students coming out of a lockdown.

F/1s to enter and exit via Lennox St gate
3/4s to enter and exit via Athol St gate
2s, 5/6s to enter and exit via Eglinton St gate
Students supporting younger sibling collection can exit via the same gate
Students will be required to sanitise at the gate on entry
Face masks to be worn at all times
Parents needing to come onsite must enter via the office and check in using the QR code. Please note there is a limit to the amount of people able to be in the foyer area at one time, this is displayed on the door.

Please remind your child to pack their school related materials to return for use back in class, including borrowed classroom library books and literature books.

If you have borrowed a laptop from the school, we ask that this is returned directly to the front office.

Remote Learning 5.0

Well here we are again with another round of Remote Learning. I would like to acknowledge the response from staff, students and the community to quickly adjust yet again to the requirements of a snap lockdown. It is reassuring to know that even with a short amount of notice, we were able to be on the front foot to support students and families in preparing for the current lockdown. It highlights the collaborative work and focus on students that is the culture of the MPW community and these now embedded processes.

With our ongoing use of familiar platforms, WebEx and Google Classroom, across the school and the established daily processes for home learning, teachers acted quickly to plan and organise learning tasks for their students. We continue to follow the best practice model for student learning in this way with daily whole class check-ins and small group teaching or instruction for students across the week.

Thank you to our office staff who have been organising materials and devices for collection to those families who required additional support over the lockdown.

Our intervention and support staff continued to provide some additional learning experiences for those students we think would benefit. Marg, Robyn, Adele and Lisa are providing this from our intervention team and Julie and Donna under the supervision of Ally, our Speech Therapist, will offer some sessions for the Speech Therapy Assistance Program. Education support staff are working with class teachers and teams to support the learning of specific students.

We have continued to offer onsite supervision for those children of essential workers or students who may be vulnerable. I would like to thank those staff members who have been able to support these students through this period. Thank you to parents for their patience, we know it is a difficult time for all and everyone manages as best they can.

Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences week beginning July 23rd

Three-way conferences began on Friday and run until Thursday 29th July. All meetings are being held virtually through WebEx.

These conferences give an opportunity to touch base with you on the progress of your child and their current goals and enable teachers, parents and students to come together on a collective understanding of the expectation around the learning. It is important that students be part of this meeting, as they will be called on to contribute to the discussion.

It is also an important part of our relationship building between school and home.

Curriculum Day Postponed

This Friday 30th July was set to be our next Curriculum Day, we decided last week to postpone this Curriculum Day to later in the term. With restrictions easing tomorrow, Wednesday 28th, we feel allowing students to come back to onsite learning with some continuity will be of benefit to staff, students and families at this time.

We hope to communicate a new date for the Curriculum Day as soon as possible.

Please look for more updates and information to be communicated via Compass.

If you are not receiving school notifications through Compass please contact the office to ensure your email address details are up to date.

Regards,

Jarrod Sutton

Acting Principal