Message from the Executive Administration Team
Dear parents and caregivers
We enter our second week of term with a number of new protective measures coming into place as a result of the high caseload settings announced yesterday. Although these restrictions will be challenging for the community, the positive aspect is that students and staff will be back at school much quicker should they be deemed a close contact of a positive case and continue to test negative or exhibit no symptoms.
The goal is to minimise the impact of the pandemic on your child’s learning journey and keep schools open as COVID-19 becomes more present in the community. Although we know it will be difficult for you to have less involvement in the classroom and less opportunities to connect as a community, I’m sure you will agree that face-to-face learning, staff and student safety and keeping your child connected to their friends needs to be the priority at this time. Let’s hope we can transition back to how we operated for the majority of 2021 before too long.
Teaching and Learning
STEAM: A key strategy for school improvement in our current Business Plan is to ‘embed opportunities for students to create solutions through the STEAM design process with and without digital technology’. Over the past three years, we have made significant progress as a school with STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) embedded into teaching and learning programs from K-Year 6. In 2020, we were one of the top four schools in the state, being named a finalist in the Governor’s School STEM Awards and in 2021, we won champion school in the inaugural Keen2STEAM challenge in the Churchlands Schools Network.
STEAM learning fits together with our Inquiry Learning approach, encouraging students to develop the creative habits of learning – being collaborative, inquisitive, persistent, imaginative and disciplined. It presents the opportunity to engage in deep learning and thinking plus enables students to develop essential understandings and skills for life.
The Year 5 & 6 students in Room 14 engaged in some collaborative STEAM challenges in their first week of school.
Year 5 students have been learning about white light and splitting it into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet in their specialist Science class.
Engagement and Relationships
Parent Information Sessions: Although we had hoped to hold face-to-face parent information sessions this year, the new operating guidelines released to schools today following the transition to the high caseload settings means they can’t go ahead in that format.
Teachers will be preparing a pre-recorded video, either individually or as a year level team to deliver key messages to you about how the school year will operate. A PowerPoint with further information will also be distributed to ensure you have the information you need. Due to the shift in format, we need to give teachers time to create their videos. We hope to have these ready by the end of next week.
Teachers will also make themselves available outside before or after school a minimum of twice per week so incidental messages can be shared and you can connect with your child’s teacher/s. Please wear a mask if you are speaking to a staff member face-to-face and maintain physical distancing.
Term Overviews: An overview of the teaching and learning for the term will be uploaded to class blogs by this Friday afternoon. These provide you with information on the skills and knowledge that students will be learning in Term 1. These are collaboratively developed by each year level with information added from our specialist teaching team.
Class blogs: Please go to the ‘Classes’ tab on the school website to locate your child’s classroom blog page. You can find the teacher/s email address and when you scroll down the page, select the ‘Subscribe’ button and you will receive an email update every time a new post is added.
Community Engagement
Year 6 Leadership Assembly: The Year 6 leadership assembly and badge presentation will be held on the School Oval on Tuesday 15 February at 2:40pm. Parents of the Year 6 students being presented with a badge are invited to attend. Please wear a mask and maintain physical distancing. Only Year 6 students will be attending the assembly as per the new cohorting strategy to reduce mingling between year levels (siblings will not be able to attend).
School Board: We have a wonderfully supportive and engaged School Board at Wembley Primary School. We draw on the skillsets of our School Board members to inform strategic directions, policy making and provide input as elected members of the parent body in relation to the local school context. The School Board also reviews our allocation of resources, takes part in reflecting on school performance and later this year will take part in helping to develop the next school Business Plan for 2023-2025.
An important element of Wembley’s School Board is the subcommittee structure, which helps to progress strategic directions. Over the past 2-3 years, there has been a sub-committee for the development of the Community Engagement Plan and School Grounds Master Plan. These are important partnerships between parents, staff, the school leadership team and the School Board.
Your School Board Chair is Professor Tama Leaver and you can find all members of the School Board listed here on the school website.
Yours in learning
The Senior Leadership Team
Tamara, Milani, Alan, Rachel and Natalie
Pre-primary Playground Jungle Gym Upgrade
Next Tuesday, works will finally commence on the upgrade to the jungle gym in the Pre-primary playground. The expanded design will include a double slide, tube net, congo net, steering wheel, shop counter, letter sounds panel and a new platform. Some of the existing soft fall rubber will also be replaced. This is the second stage of the Pre-primary playground upgrade. The first stage of the upgrade to the PP playground was completed in 2021. This upgrade is thanks to a partnership between the school and P&C, with a 50-50 split for the cost of the upgrade. I thank the P&C for their continued support to improve our school learning environment and to all parents for contributing their voluntary P&C contribution. It makes a huge difference to what we can achieve. A special mention must also go to the original School Board sub-committee which was formed to oversee this project. Thanks to Donna Snow (substantive Wembley PS principal), Jeff Gidman (School Board), Natalie Landmann (parent) and Tamara Misson (ECE staff member).
The works are due to commence on Tuesday morning and are likely to take 3-4 days to complete. The area will be blocked off by the contractors to allow Pre-primary students to play in the rest of the playground. Students will also rotate through a flagged off area of the oval and the Kindy playground. PP5 parents will need to enter the classroom via the school oval gate while the works are being completed. We look forward to seeing the finished result! The design render for the project is pictured below.
Voluntary School Contributions
The amount of school voluntary contributions parents/caregivers are asked to pay is set at $60.00 per student which is in line with the School Education Regulations.
Funds are used to supplement school expenditure in the curriculum areas. While the contributions are voluntary, the quality of our teaching and learning programs is maximised when families make a contribution to supplement the funding received from other sources, including the State and Commonwealth Governments.
If you have not paid your school voluntary contributions via Campion while paying for personal items lists, these can be paid via the Qkr payment app (under the Payments’ tab), or by credit card at the school office.
VOLUNTARY P & C CONTRIBUTION:
The P&C is the fundraising body of the school. P&C contributions help to keep fundraising activities to a minimum. The P&C donates money to the school, in response to submissions from the school, towards projects, assets and resources that directly benefit students. The P&C voluntary contribution is set at $85.00 per student.
If you have not paid your P & C voluntary contributions via Campion while paying for personal items lists, these can be paid via the Qkr payment app (under the Payments’ tab), or by credit card at the school office.
The school collects P&C Voluntary Contributions on behalf of the P&C and transfers the funds to the P & C bank account.
Qkr
The Qkr payment app is the school’s preferred payment method and is a secure and convenient way to pay for school excursions, incursions and other payments anytime, anywhere, using your phone or another device.
Please ensure that the following information is selected correctly in Qkr when choosing an event/item for your child:
- Ensure that the correct child is selected for each relevant excursion, incursion or payment.
- If both parents/caregivers have the Qkr app, please communicate with each other to ensure that payments are not duplicated (paid by each parents on separate devices).
- If you were using Qkr in 2021, you will be required to update your child/ren’s Year and Form group profiles for 2022.
Qkr PAYMENTS/School Payments Tab: Please select this option to pay for your voluntary contributions (if not previously paid) and online learning programs. Please note, these options will remain on the Qkr system even after you have paid). Please refer to the online learning information below before making the payment on Qkr:
Kindy and Pre-primary | Reading Eggs | $20.00 |
Years 1 – 3 | Nessy Reading and Spelling | $ 8.00 |
Pre-primary – Year 1 | Mathseeds | $12.00 |
Years 2 – 6 | Mathletics | $12.00 |
Qkr EXCURSIONS AND INCURSIONS Tab: Please select this option to pay for and give permission for all excursions and incursions throughout the year. Notification from the teacher, with details of the event, will be sent home before the event is loaded onto Qkr. If you have notifications for Qkr activated on your device (recommended), you will also receive a push notification once the event has been loaded.
Please come and see us in the administration area if you have any questions regarding Qkr.
New Parents
Welcome to Wembley Primary School!
Newsletters
To get the weekly newsletter you must subscribe through our website. Please click the link below and follow instructions to receive the newsletter.
Thank you.
Payments of Accounts
The Qkr payment app is the school’s preferred payment method and is a secure and convenient way to pay for school excursions, incursions and other payments anytime, anywhere, using your phone or another device.
Please ensure that the following information is selected correctly in Qkr when choosing an event/item for your child:
- Ensure that the correct child is selected for each relevant excursion, incursion or payment.
- If both parents/caregivers have the Qkr app, please communicate with each other to ensure that payments are not duplicated (paid by each parents on separate devices).
Library
Library News
Welcome back everyone. We are excited about heading into another year in our lovely library. Just a reminder for students to please bring a library bag – even if it’s only a plastic bag! We don’t use plastic to cover our books anymore and they need to be protected Hopefully we will soon be able to welcome parents/carers back into our library for a browse and to borrow any extra books!
Book Club
Issue #1 catalogue has been sent home with your child. Ordering is only done online via LOOP (see back of catalogue for login details), and it is open till next Monday 14th. There are some fabulous resources as always and remember – every order you place, the library earns reward points which enables us to select the equivalent of around $4,000. each year! Thank you for supporting your school library
Canteen
QUICKCLIQ Online Orders
For those new to school, to place orders at our canteen, please sign into www.quickcliq.com.au and set up a profile for each child.
Kindy kids are required to bring their own lunch boxes so we cater for Pre-primary to Year 6 classes. PP classes must provide their own recess; all other classes are welcome to come to the canteen, with cash, to buy something delicious between 10.40 and 11.05am.
Recess prices range from 50c to $2.50
PP Parents, it is most important that you have your classroom as PP1, PP2, PP3 or PP5 on your child’s profile.
If you have your class as ROOM 1,2,3 or 5 then these lunch orders get delivered into the big school, not to PP and they will need to be amended, please.
Simply scroll to the bottom of the quickcliq class classroom list to see the PP classes.
Did you Know?
We have many items on our menu that are Halal? Stop by the canteen to discuss what you can safely order for your child, knowing that all rules are closely adhered to.
Price Increases and Supply Issues
Unfortunately, we have had some price increases this year, due to supplier increases.
We may also experience some supply issues in the near future and will alter our menu as necessary but will give as much notice as possible.
COVID 19
In the event of last minute Covid isolations, we will automatically default to a simple menu of sandwiches and toasties. A credit note will be issued for prior-placed orders if the order value exceeds the cost of the sandwich or toastie. This is our plan to keep our services flowing and our WPS kids fed in the case that our canteen staff must isolate.
New Menu Item
Bacon Pasta with Tomato Sugo, Cheddar Cheese and Garlic Bread.
Scoring a favourable 100/10 from our junior taste testers, we feel like this could be a winner!
The good news for parents is that there is hidden vege in every mouthful.
Available on Mondays and Thursdays.
Volunteers
You are always needed and greatly appreciated.
Please sign up to our link here if you can spare an hour or two.
It’s a great insight into what we serve from our kitchen and the kids are thrilled to see you serving them!
Before School Swimming Training
Before school swimming training will start Week 2 and run until Week 9.
When: Wednesday and Friday mornings
Time: Wednesday 7.20am – 8.15am, Friday 7.30am to 8.15am
Where: Bold Park Aquatic Centre, 215 The Boulevard, City Beach
Cost: Students will be required to pay pool entry each time they attend. The lane hire will be divided equally between the number of students who participate at the end of term.
Parents wanting to spectate will have to also pay pool entry.
These sessions will act as good practice for our Faction swimming carnival in Week 6 and Interschool carnival in Week 10.
Jonathon Bowman
Physical Education Specialist
Faction Swimming Carnival Years 4-6
Our Faction swimming carnival for our Year 4-6 students will be in Week 6 on Wednesday 9 March.
It will take place in the outdoor 10 lane pool at HBF Stadium. Events will begin at approximately 9.30am and conclude at approximately 2.30pm.
We will require parent helpers on the day to assist with running the events.
If you are able to help please contact Roula Felekis on email: drfelekis@hotmail.com, or her mobile: 0417 950 613.
Jonathon Bowman
Physical Education Specialist
Choir, Concert Band and Instrumental Music Lessons
Choir and Concert Band are postponed indefinitely under the new high caseload settings.
Instrumental Music lessons will continue to go ahead as these are small group lessons
Gifted and Talented Programs 2023
Apply for Gifted and Talented Secondary Selective Entrance programs for Year 7 entry in 2023. Applications close Sunday 13 February 2022.
Student Safety and Well-being
Please ensure when accessing the school from Rutter Park or the Community Centre car park, via the Alexander Street cul de sac, that you and your children use the footpaths and not cut across the road. This can be very busy at drop off and pick up, so please take care.
Netball
Calling all netballers! Netball is a fabulous way to keep fit and learn to be part of a team. A very important life skill.
I am the coordinator for Wembley Districts Netball Club and this is a volunteer role.
I am currently taking expressions of interest for our Winter season. If there is enough interest to fill teams then you will be required to register.
Years 2/3 and 4/5 will play on Friday afternoons. Please note: Years 2 & 3 will play in a combined division. Years 4 & 5 will play in a combined division. Year 5 players that can’t make a Saturday game or have no previous netball experience will be placed in the 4/5 division.
Years 5 & 6 will play Saturdays and are individual year group divisions.
The season commences on the 6th & 7th May. However, the administration of teams needs to happen over the next few weeks.
It is expected that players will attend a weekly training session once teams and volunteer coaches have been organised.
Please email me with any questions and add your child’s name and school year by February 13th.
wembleydistricts.netball@gmail.com
Thanks
Mel Waldon
Please note this is only open to WPS children and is not organised through the school.