LAST DAY OF TERM—FRIDAY 15TH SEPTEMBER—2.30 FINISH and No Canteen Lunch Orders
Principal’s Report
Fathers/Special Person’s Day Stall and Breakfast Thank You
Last Thursday our fantastic parent coordinators, Jasmyn and Maria held our Fathers’ Day and Special Persons’ Day stall. Much coordination takes place when organising a whole school event such as this with planning often commencing several months prior to the day. We thank our parent volunteers and all of the WNPS families and students who supported this.
On Friday last week, we welcomed our dads and special persons into our school to enjoy a cooked breakfast and coffee with their children. Our Community Engagement Committee spent several months planning the event and we thank Woolworths Williamstown for generously sponsoring the event. On the day our committee members Amanda Morrison, Shannyn Mahon and Elissa Gale (minus Heath Shaw as he was being spoilt for Father’s Day) rallied together parent volunteers to assist in the cooking. We would also like to thank Antoinette Graham and Chloe Gillingham for generously giving up their time to assist as well. I would also like to thank our wonderful staff, Belinda Gill, Wendy Emin, Sarah Nobbs and Crissy Samaras for their invaluable help getting the breakfast cooked and served. It was so nice to see our families onsite and enjoying each other’s company. Our Community Engagement Committee have some extra special plans in place for Mothers’ Day and Special Persons’ Day 2024.
Trivia Night—Friday 13th October
Our Community Engagement Committee have also been busy planning our 2024 Trivia Night which is exclusively for our WNPS community. The evening will take place at the Williamstown Town Hall on Friday 13th October. Trivia will be hosted by Funky Bunch Trivia with drinks available from Peachy Bar and well as a DJ so that patrons can dance the night away. We are in the final stages of organising.
Williamstown North Primary School Trivia Night
Join us for a night of trivia, tunes and tipples exclusively for families of Willy North Primary.
Friday 13th October | Doors open 6.30pm - Williamstown Town Hall
Tickets $50 each | Tables of 10 - Book individually or as a table
https://www.trybooking.com/CLIPG
Tickets limited. Book early to avoid disappointment.
(This is an adults only event)
Footy Week Activities (Free Dress Day—Friday 15th September) (Gold Coin Donation)
Next week is Footy Week with several activities to take place throughout the week. Next Friday, 15th September, students are invited to come to school in their favourite footy team’s colors or dressed in yellow to support R U OK Day. A Gold coin donation is required with all proceeds being donated to the R U OK initiative.
Last Day of Term—Friday 15th September
A reminder also that since this is the last day of term, we will have our regular early finish of 2.30pm. There will be a short whole school assembly at 2.00pm. A reminder also to families that there will be no Canteen on the last day of term. A reminder also that the Canteen is not open on Tuesday’s for Lunches and counter sales.
Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey—LAST CHANCE to complete the Survey - closes Friday 8th Sept.
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 83 completed already, that only equates to 17% 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.
Enjoy your upcoming holidays.
Richard Buckingham
Principal
WNPS 150th Anniversary Working Group
Williamstown North Primary School is turning 150 in 2024!
We are looking for members of our community to join a working group to plan for the activities celebrating our 150th Anniversary year.
We hope to involve a broad representation of current and past families and staff in the celebrations so please consider putting yourself forward for the working group.
To register your interest please visit
https://www.willynthps.vic.edu.au/activities-and-events/150th-year-celebrations
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 to 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/Special person’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. The final day to complete the survey is tomorrow, Friday 8th September
Enjoy the last few weeks of term and we will report back to you in Term 4.
Regards
Martin Gill - School Council President
STUDENT OF THE WEEK AWARDS
