Principal & Assistant Principal Report
Welcome Back
Welcome back to our returning families as well as a very warm welcome to our new families joining the Williamstown North Primary School community for the first time in 2024. We hope that everyone’s summer holidays were a restful and that you are all re-energised for a productive and fun filled year ahead. We encourage all new and returning parents/carers to contact your child’s teacher to introduce yourselves, touch base and/or seek any support you or your child/ren may require. Thus far, we have had a very smooth start to the year. It’s been great to see our students here on time, ready to start learning by 9:00am and all dressed in full school uniform.
New Staff
We have a number of new staff members who are joining us this year across various year levels. We welcome them to our school, and I’m sure that they will love being part of our school community as much as we do and contribute in various ways to support our parents and students. Throughout term one we will showcase each of our teaching teams, education support team, leadership team and admin/grounds team introducing each staff member (new and retuning), explaining their role within our organisation, how and when to contact them and providing some ‘get to know you’ facts about each staff member.
Student Leaders
Our student leaders for 2024 will consist of our School Captains, Sports Captains and Junior School Councillors (JSC). JSC nominations will take place in the coming weeks and will be decided on by our students within each class.
2024 School Captains are: Nellie, Mac, Sam, Eliza, Scarlett, Alissa
2024 Sports Leaders are: Albie, Lucinda, Aaliyah, Chloe, Maya, Charlie, Tex, Jeremy, Jemma, Sophie, Pippa, Jack, Olivia, Keanu, Tom, Zoe, Madeleine, Alexandra, Mason, Oscar
2024 Curriculum Days
Our student free days at Williamstown North Primary School consist of 4 curriculum days and 1 school council approved professional practise day and are as follows. On these days students are not required at school and OSH Club operates for any families requiring that service.
Monday 29th Student Free Day (State-Wide Staff First Day)
Monday 18th March (Student Free Day)
8.50am-1.20pm: Teacher Planning and Lunch Break
1.20pm-3.20pm - Parent Teacher Interviews (meet and greet focus – 10 minutes each)
3.20pm-3.30pm – Teacher Break
3.30pm – 6.00pm: Parent Teacher Interviews (meet and greet focus – 10 minutes each)
Friday 26th April (Student Free Day) - Staff Professional Learning/ Curriculum Day
Friday 7th June (Student Free Day) - Whole School Professional Practice Day
Monday 4th November (Student Free Day) - Report writing day – staff onsite
Newsletters, Assemblies and School Communications
This year, in response to previous Parent Opinion Surveys, we are streamlining our school communications ensuring that the right, relevant information is provided to families regularly and that there are avenues available for families to contact their child’s teacher when needed.
We will have whole school assemblies each fortnight with our first assembly being held this Friday 16th February in the school gym. Assemblies will commence at 2.45pm and all families are welcome to attend. Throughout the year, we will be working at making assemblies more engaging, promoting student voice and leadership experiences to all students across the school, providing insights into the learning that has taken place and recognising the efforts, special talents and successes of our students.
Newsletters will be published fortnightly on alternate weeks from assemblies (with the exception of this first newsletter – there will be another newsletter next Thursday) and will include a school leadership blurb, School Captain recap, year level/specialist insight, literacy, numeracy or wellbeing insight, staff show case (term 1) and important dates/announcements.
The preferred method of communication is through the COMPASS school management tool. Instructions for how to contact staff via COMPASS are included in this Newsletter. (make sure these are included please). When parents/guardians need to contact the school, regarding any issues, we remind families to firstly contact your child’s classroom teacher, followed by the year level team leader. For issues that remain unresolved both the Assistant Principal and Principal can be contacted at williamstown.north.ps@education.vic.gov.au or by calling the general office.
School Council Elections
Our first School Council meeting will be on Monday 26th April. We have 4 parent positions and 2 staff positions that are available for nomination and election. I would like to sincerely thank our 2023 School Council members who volunteered their personal time to assist our school community and acknowledge the hard work of the returning school council members
If you would like to be a school council member in 2024, please ensure that you are comfortable with the duties, functions, outlined below, and with the commitment of attending and actively participating in the school council meetings for the entirety of the year. These occur on school grounds outside of work hours as we’ve found that the hybrid model isn’t conducive for the purpose of the meetings.
The indicative timeline and stages of election processes are outlined below:
Monday 26th February: Stage 1: Setting the election framework and calling for nominations
Monday 4th March: Stage 2: Closing and assessing nominations and deciding if ballot is required
Tuesday 12th March: Stage 3: Preparing the ballot (sending out ballot papers and close of ballot)
Monday 18th March: Poll closing date
Monday 25th March: Stage 4: counting ballot papers and declaring poll
Monday 26th April: Stage 5: special and first school council meeting after the poll
School councils play a vital role in Victorian government schools and are established and operate under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic), the Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017 (Vic) and a constituting Order. School councils are also required to comply with state and federal laws, relevant Ministerial Orders and certain department policies when exercising their powers and functions. A well-informed and effective school council strengthens community confidence in the school and helps to build and secure the school’s reputation.
The objectives of a school council are set out in the school council’s constituting Order and section 2.3.4 of the Education and Training Reform Act and are to:
· assist in the efficient governance of the school
· ensure that its decisions affecting students of the school are made having regard, as a primary consideration, to the best interest of the students
· enhance the educational opportunities of students at the school
ensure the school and the council complies with any requirements of the Education and Training Reform Act, the Education and Training Reform Regulations, a Ministerial Order or a direction, guideline or policy issued under the Education and Training Reform Act.
These school council objectives must be taken into account by school council members when exercising any of their powers, duties or functions, as outlined below.
150th Year Celebration @WNPS
This year we celebrate 150 years of Williamtown North Primary School! And we need you!
We are currently putting together a plan to celebrate this milestone throughout the year, and we’d love to get your ideas, thoughts, connections, and stories. We will be celebrating our history, our present, and looking toward our future. Do you have a story about our history? Do you know someone from our past that should be included/involved?
Any local celebrities that we could involve? Do you own a local business that would like to support the celebrations/be involved? Any great ideas to help our school commemorate this milestone? Would you like to volunteer in a small (or large!) way to help with the events, education, marketing, and commemorative program?
Please pop us an email to: wnps150th@willynthps.vic.edu.au – we’d love to hear from you.
Voluntary Financial Contributions for 2024
For our school to provide high quality, engaging and inclusive programs, we invite families to make a voluntary contribution to the school. Voluntary financial contributions to our school will be based on curriculum contributions and other non-curriculum contributions. We invite families to make their voluntary financial contribution to our school as soon as practicable to assist us in purchasing resources and planning for learning programs for the 2024 school year. Payment can be made via credit/debit on Compass or at the school. Payments for excursions, events and camps will be outlined on Compass throughout the year as the events and excursions arise. Thank you for your support and valued contributions to our school.
Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF)
If you hold a Health Care Card number (CRN) or have a Centrelink pensioner concession card, you may have CSEF funds available to use against your child’s Camps, Sporting activities, Excursions etc. Families holding a valid means-tested concession card or temporary foster parents are eligible to apply. A special consideration category also exists. Schools can receive applications from families by June 2024. Families can list more than one student in the one application form if they are attending the same school. Please ask for a form at the office and provide your CRN card.
State School Relief
State Schools' Relief (SSR) is an autonomous, charitable organisation that assists Victorian government school students who are experiencing financial disadvantage because of short-term crisis or long-term chronic need. SSR is supported by the department to provide assistance with uniforms and other essential items for students who need assistance to continue their education. Short-term crisis and long-term chronic need are the primary qualifying criteria for support from SSR, including refugee status, homelessness, family violence, house fire, natural disaster, financial hardship, illness and emergency. SSR assistance will be provided by either direct supply of uniform items or uniform vouchers for redemption from school uniform suppliers. Please contact the school office if you would like to apply for any school uniform.
Child Safe
Williamstown North Primary School is committed to a zero tolerance of child abuse and creates an inclusive school culture that promotes child safety for people of all cultures, abilities and diverse backgrounds, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. For further information, please go to http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au
Privacy Notice
Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy. Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website willynthps.vic.edu.au in the Policies section. For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages:
* Amharic * Arabic * Dari * Gujarati * Mandarin, *Somali * Sudanese * Turkish * Urdu * Vietnamese.
Curriculum Information
All year levels have now completed their Start Up Programs, which is curriculum that is developed to support the co-creation of learning spaces, classroom routines, and expectations. Student voice and agency is sought so that everyone feels welcome in the shared classrooms and a consistent approach to wellbeing is used to support strong student outcomes.
As students move into content specific curriculum, we are running Parent Information Evenings on the following days next week. These are a wonderful opportunity for you to immerse yourself in the teaching and learning that happens at Williamstown North Primary school.
Week4:
|
Monday 19/2 |
Tuesday 20/2 |
Wednesday 21/2 |
Thursday |
Friday |
|
Year 1/2 Visual Arts & Japanese |
Year 3/4 PE & Performing Arts |
Year 5/6 STEM |
The format of the evenings will be as follows:
4:30 – 4:50 – BBQ
Year 1/2 – near the Junior Playground, Year 3/4 – near the canteen and Year 5/6 – near the canteen
4:50—5:00 – Secretarial brief by PLC Leaders in Learning Spaces
5:00—5:50:- 4 X 10 minute rotations
1 Literacy activity, 1 Numeracy activity, 1 Wellbeing activity, 1 Specialist activity
5:50: Exit the learning spaces in a timely manner
Wellbeing and Online Safety
As we near the middle of the term, students and grades are starting to feel more comfortable with their peers, teachers, and the learning environments at Williamstown North Primary School. To set the tone for the year and ensure that school remains a calm, safe spaces for everyone, teachers are holding students to a very high standard of behaviour in classrooms and the yard. Teachers will be following up restorative behaviour conversations with phone calls home to inform and seek your support to reiterate the messages of collective wellbeing.
There are also some sSafety webinars for parents and carers to gain depth of knowledge, skills, and tools to support children to have safe online experiences. These are facilitated online by the eSafety Commissioner and you can register via the link below: https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars?utm_campaign=2401_parent_news_jan&utm_id=f432befbbe7beab2b17fa1d3b75a29fa&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eSafety_edm
School Captain Reflection
On Monday the 12th February we went to the Melbourne Convention Centre in the city.
We had a conference with the GRIP Leadership program. They taught us about how to be a leader and the sacrifices that as leaders we have to make.
At the conference there were around 4,000 kids from all around Victoria.
On several occasions we socialised and worked with leaders from different schools.
We had plenty of breaks where we played games that tied into what we were learning.
“My favourite part was when we learned about how to help the community as Leaders of our school.” - Sam
“My favourite part was when we played games and watched example clips of helping others and befriending one another.” Mac
“My favourite part of the conference was learning about how we could step up as leaders. I also thought it was funny when Eliza got attacked by the vending machine.” Nellie
“My favourite part was doing the activities in the workbook they gave us.” Scarlett
“My favourite part was when we all got to stand up and socialise with other schools.” Alissa
“My favourite part of the day was getting to know my fellow school captains and playing games with the loud noises crew.” Eliza
Scholastic Book Club Order Online by Monday 19th February
For a quick how-to-order video, log-in to www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP and click on HELP in the top menu.