Assistant Principal Report

STAFF PROFILES

Belinda Gill

What is your role at WNPS? Administration and Communication Officer (at school for 22 years).

Why and how do people contact you? I’m a multitasker, I look after quite a bit at school doing all sorts of work. Some of which include, looking after the front office and assisting parents with questions over the counter and taking phone calls, I send out the Newsletter and Compass Newsfeeds, assisting students at the counter and also visits to the Health Hub and directing general visitors to the school. I wear many hats. I also manage the handy man, Anton in ensuring the issues around the school are being repaired/fixed. I am happy to be contacted via the school telephone or via my email address – Belinda.gill@education.vic.gov.au

Something that you might like to share about yourself: I am also a volunteer Life Saver at the Port Melbourne Lifesaving Club and have been for 35 years.

Arlene Lawrence

What your role at WNPS? School Nurse (at school for 3 years)

Why and how do people contact you? - When you receive a compass notification that means your child has visited me in the Health Hub and they have been treated accordingly. If your child is on daily medication or as-needed medication, you can stop by the health hub, or you can call me on the school number or via my email Arlene.lawrence@education.vic.gov.au

Something that you might like to share about yourself: I am a US and Australian citizen who is very passionate about and love my position as a WNPS school nurse.

Kerri Allerby

What is your role at WNPS? Enrolment and Administration Officer (at school for 1 year)

Why and how do people contact you? Contact can be made via telephone, email, Williamstown.north.ps@education.vic.gov.au or at the office regarding enrolments, school tours, Compass queries/password resets, updating your contact details, dropping off Swap Shop items, Qkr! app enquiries (Canteen), and passing messages to your student/s teachers, specialists, and wellbeing staff during school hours.

Something that you might like to share about yourself: You may have picked my Kiwi accent – I have been in Australia for over a decade, but it will not shift!

Giorgia Moss

What is your role at WNPS? I am the Mental Health, Wellbeing and Inclusion Learning Specialist.

Why and how do people contact you? I am contactable via email or school phone and my office is located in the main building.

Some key elements of my role are to:

· Build the capacity and confidence of all staff to better identify and support students with mental health and wellbeing concerns.

· Destigmatize mental health, wellbeing and inclusion issues.

· Increase mental health literature and build whole school approaches through ongoing professional learning, through cultural and structural change.

· Implement affective teaching and learning strategies, aligned to social and emotional learning in the curriculum and whole school approaches on health, wellbeing, teaching and learning initiatives.

· Facilitate Student Support Group meetings with staff, families, external practitioners for individual students.

· Plan, implement and deliver social thinking sessions across P-6 with Education Support staff, along the wellbeing scope and sequence continuum.

· Assisting and providing strategies to whole staff and Principal class to track student wellbeing and child safety concerns. Ensuring a shared and collective responsibility of all students. E.g. having a restorative conversation with student/s.

Information Evenings

What a great turn out we have had this week with our Information Evenings. It was great to see so many parent, guardians and students, firstly enjoying a snag from the BBQ and then participate in the Year Level and Specialist information sessions. Congratulations to all our teachers for providing such rich information about their programs.

Year 3/4 Swimming

We have nearly completed our first week of Swimming for our Year 3/4 Students. The program has been run very smoothly at the nearby location of Bayfit Leisure Centre. Students in Year 3/4 will have 3 more days, completing their program on Tuesday 27^th February. The Year 1/2 Students will commence their program on Wednesday 28^th February and conclude on Friday 8^th March. Please ensure that your child’s swimming equipment is packed each day. If you are yet to pay for Swimming, you can do so via Compass or at the school office. Reminder, while the students are swimming, please do not place a canteen lunch order for them.

Weekly Timetables

Watch this space for emails that will come out from your child’s teacher regarding what is happening in the classroom and what their Specialist Timetable will look like. Stay tuned……

Finance at WNPS

If you ever need to speak or enquire about anything Finance related, please reach out to me and I will be more than happy to assist. You can contact me by calling the school office, by email: sarah.nobbs@education.vic.gov.au or visiting the school office. Please see some information below regarding Voluntary Financial Contributions, Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) and State School Relief.

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, at the school or via BPAY. 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. We are nearly at the halfway point of the Term. What an great, but busy, start we have had to the year. Enjoy the weekend and please reach out to the school if we need to assist you in any way.

Sarah Nobbs

Acting Assistant Principal/Finance Manager

School Council Elections—repeat

Our first School Council meeting will be on Monday 26^th 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 26^th February: Stage 1: Setting the election framework and calling for nominations

Monday 4^th March: Stage 2: Closing and assessing nominations and deciding if ballot is required

Tuesday 12^th March: Stage 3: Preparing the ballot (sending out ballot papers and close of ballot)

Monday 18^th March: Poll closing date

Monday 25^th March: Stage 4: counting ballot papers and declaring poll

Monday 26^th 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—Repeat

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.

Numeracy News

Tips for supporting children with mathematics

There are some important things to consider when supporting your child’s mental and emotional wellbeing regarding mathematics that may improve their skills, and attitude towards mathematics. Here are just a few ideas to assist you along the way.

1. “I was never good at maths”

This phrase has to go! This saying, or “I hated maths at school”, is often repeated to children from their parents or older siblings at some point. I think generally people say it to try to comfort children to know that it’s ok if things are hard and that you don’t have to be good at everything. This statement however can have dire effects on children and their beliefs of themselves as mathematics learners. Carol Dweck in her book Mindset introduces her readers to the power of the word ‘yet’. “I don’t know how to do that, yet”, “I don’t understand

mathematics, yet”. The use of the word yet creates a growth mindset where children can see that through practice and effort to understand [mathematics] concepts what you know, and then in turn what you believe you are good at, can change. So, try to use yet when talking with your child, they might not understand how to do that… yet, but we can work together to find out.

• Mindset: The new psychology of success, Carol Dweck, Ph. D.

• Mathematical Mindsets, Jo Boaler

2. Be passionate, it’s contagious!

Building on from point one, be enthusiastic about mathematics, become a mathematical explorer. See the homework as a problem to solve, something exciting where you might not get it right away, but the challenge is set. Peter Sullivan is a mathematics researcher and also writes wonderful teaching resource books for teachers, one being Challenging Mathematical Tasks. In this book he mentions the need for children to persevere and be persistent in solving mathematics task, as overcoming obstacles or struggles can be hugely rewarding for children and helps them learn. It’s ok to say “this looks tough” or “I’m not sure but let’s work it out together”. Even if you need to ‘fake’ some of this enthusiasm to start with, it’s contagious and your child will want to solve the problems too.

• Challenging Mathematical Tasks: Unlocking the potential of all students, Peter Sullivan

3. Always ask questions “How did you know that?”

Working and thinking mathematically involves knowing how and why the mathematics works, not just the steps to ‘doing it’. Be a good questioner of your child. Even if the homework only requires answers, always ask a question like:

• “How did you know that?”

• “Why does that work?”

• “How did you get your answer?”

These questions encourage children to explain their thinking which is extremely important in understanding the mathematical concept itself. For example, when children are solving 6 x 7 our curriculum expects students to be able not just to provide an answer of 42, but to be able to explain multiple ways to find that answer. Maybe the child knew 6 x 6 is 36 then added another 6 on, or worked out 5 x 7 as 35 then added on 7, or used a ‘halve and double’ technique working out 3 x 7 as 21 and doubling the answer. Being able to explain how they worked out the answer, means children can then use the knowledge when the questions change or are in a different format. It is also good to ask questions like these when you can see your child has an incorrect solution. Often talking through how they worked it out allows them to have the ‘ah-ha’ moment themselves and self-correct. Just like re-reading a sentence in a book when the word doesn’t sound right or make sense.

Prep News

It has been a pleasure to welcome the youngest and newest members of the WNPS community into our classrooms over the last 4 weeks. Our Prep cohort have had an absolutely wonderful start to their schooling. It all kicked off with the Prep Playdate, on the Monday before school. It was fantastic to see students so excited to explore their new playground and reconnect with their kinder peers.

The first 4 weeks have provided lots more opportunities for friendships, laughter and play. Students have spent time getting to know their classmates and teachers, learning about our school values and practising those all-important school skills. We’ve tackled learning tasks which required students to be confident and give learning their best effort. If you’re walking past the JLC, you’ll see snippets of the amazing work being produced in windows and we always welcome the community in to explore the classrooms further.

Our Preps have now met all of their specialist teachers and are keenly participated in their first specialist sessions. It has been exciting to hear students greeting each other in Japanese and applying their knowledge of ‘warm colours’ to their classroom artwork. Families can engage with the WNPS Art Room through the Instagram handle @willynorthps.artroom

Finally, the highlight of Week 3 was reconnecting with the Year Six buddies. Preps proudly showed their buddies around their classrooms and did some buddy reading and drawing.

We also want to congratulate our Prep families on their transition to school! We’ve really enjoyed getting to know families and look forward to working closely with the Prep community throughout the year!