Assistant Principal’s Report
Father’s/Special Person’s Day Breakfast—Tomorrow
Reminder for tomorrow—Inviting all dad’s or special person of Williamstown North Primary School for breakfast with your child/ren before we begin the school day on Friday 1st September from 8.15am. Egg and bacon rolls cooked by Mr Buckingham, Ms Emin, Ms Nobbs and wonderful parent helpers. Remember there is a Gold coin contribution. Coffee van will also be on site for you to purchase your morning brew.
Prep 2024 Transition Session
On Tuesday evening parents of our 2024 Prep students attended a ‘transition to school’ session.
This was an initiative introduced this year to enable parents to experience first hand what their child/ren would be experiencing in a Literacy, Numeracy, Wellbeing and Inquiry lesson when they start school.
Prep teachers and staff from the School Improvement Team conducted each lesson. The evening commenced with a BBQ for the parents and staff to meet and mingle, prior to engaging in their learning activity.
Trivia Night—Friday 13th October
Finally we are able to begin to look forward to a social evening for our parent community. It has been a few years since parents had this opportunity to get together at a social event. The school’s Family Engagement Committee is facilitating this activity and co-opting a number of interested parents to assist. Please note the date in your calendar and watch this space for more details/information.
The Trivia night will he held at the Town Hall and tickets will be limited, so don’t miss out!
Arriving at School on Time
Just a reminder to families the importance of their child/ren arriving at school before the start of the school day at 9.00am. An increasing number of students are arriving at their classroom after the bell to start the school day. If your child/ren arrive after 9.05am, you must go to the office and sign in as a ‘late start’. Your assistance with this is important.
Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey
Earlier in the week you would have received a COMPASS notification in relation to our school conducting a survey to find out what parents/caregivers/guardians think of our school. The Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional but we encourage all families to participate. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. All families are invited to participate in the survey.
The Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey will be open from Monday 21st August to Friday 8th September 2023. The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information. Since all families are invited to complete the survey this year, the same login details below apply for all participants.
Instructions:
Copy the following link into your web browser: https://www.orima.com.au/parent
Type the following into the school selection tab: Williamstown North Primary School
Copy the following numerical password into the password tab: 649442
We encourage the community to complete this survey, with 73 completed already, that only equates to 15% of the school population. Whilst this is an improvement on last year as we only had 43 complete the survey, the more parents that complete the survey will provide guidance for areas for future improvement.
SCHOOL COUNCIL UPDATE
Hello WNPS families
This is an update from the WNPS School Council as to what goes on at our school council meetings and some of the exciting events and plans coming up for the school community.
For those of you who are not aware, the school council is made up of nine parents and four teachers (including Richard). Our role is to assist Richard and the teaching team in the efficient governance of the school, to represent the viewpoints of the parents, caregivers and guardians of WNPS children and to ensure that decisions being taken regarding our children are in the best interests of them. There are three sub-committees with individual responsibilities and focus all of which report back into the school council, these are: Facilities and Finance, Community Engagement and Education.
Recently, as a group, we attended a School Council Governance Training session run by the Department of Education and two of the outcomes from this session were:
· a desire to increase the visibility of the council, its members and our actions; and
· also the need to provide regular debriefs to both the parents, caregivers and guardians and to the teachers.
On that note, here are some the areas that we have been focussing on in our recent meetings:
· Closely working with Richard to understand enrolments for 2024, the teacher mixes for next year’s grades and staffing needs going forward as we work with the school’s leadership team on the financial budget for 2024 (due to be completed in November).
· Approving 2023 school camps and excursions / incursions and commencing planning for the school camps and swimming programs next year.
· Preparation for the Father’s Day breakfast event.
· Planning the WNPS parents, carers and guardians’ event (our first since COVID and expected to happen in October 2023).
· Setting the framework for next year’s WNPS 150th anniversary celebrations and all of the exciting community events surrounding that celebration.
· Discussing the effectiveness of the multiple layers of communications from the school (Compass, newsletter, class rep program and class WhatsApp groups) and whether there is room for improvement.
We are really excited to see the 2023 parent / caregiver / guardian survey feedback and we strongly encourage you to take the time to complete this.
Enjoy the last few weeks of term and we will report back to you in Term 4.
Regards
Martin Gill
School Council President
ASSEMBLEY ROSTER FOR TERM 3 |
Week 8 - Friday 1st September - 2:50pm—Junior Assembly |
Week 9 - Friday 8th September - 2:50pm—Senior Assembly |
Week 10 - Friday 15th September - 2:00pm—Whole School Assembly - End of Term |
STUDENT OF THE WEEK AWARDS
District Hoop Time Basketball – 24/8
On Thursday 24th August, students across the middle and senior school participated in the District Hoop Time Basketball Event at Altona Stadium. All students were very excited to showcase their skills and play competitive games against other schools. Everyone displayed great teamwork and gave their very best efforts across the day! It was another terrific experience and we congratulate everyone for all of their input. We had a Boys team from the Middle school and a Boys team from the Senior school win their ‘1v2 playoff finals’ which was brilliant! They have now qualified for the next stage which will be the Regionals. This will take place on Monday 30th October for the Middle school students, and Friday 17th November for the Senior school students. More information will be released when this becomes available.
A big Thank You to all teachers, parents & guardians who supported the event! We are very appreciative for their support, not only in this event, but the many that occur throughout the year.
BOOK WEEK Photos
R U OK? I'm here to hear
There's only 2 weeks until R U OK?Day, our National Day of Action on 14 September 2023.
We're calling on all Australians to let the people they care about know they're here, to really hear them. Asking, 'are you OK?' is the first step, but we also need to genuinely listen to what comes next.
