Newsletter 1 – Week 1, Term 2, 2021 – Message from Admin Team, Collecting Students from School, 2022 Kindergarten Applications, Library, P&C Mother’s Day Wine & Paint Evening, CSHS Mamma Mia

Message from the Executive Administration Team

Dear Parents and Caregivers

It was lovely to see happy and refreshed students, parents and staff on the first day back yesterday. We had a very busy last term, packing a Public School Review, swimming lessons and carnivals and EduDance into a short 8 week term.

This term, there is much more time with 11 weeks ahead of us. As I said to staff yesterday, although the length may feel daunting it will give us time to delve deeper into teaching and learning programs and really connect with our students and embed those positive relationships which are so crucial to successful educational outcomes.

It’s important we pace ourselves and the same applies for your children. It’s inevitable that students will tire as the term goes on. So I ask you to allow your children time to slow down when they need it, pare back after school activities as appropriate to allow them to focus on learning at school and feeling happy and relaxed in the family environment. I know that it will be just as important for you as parents to successfully navigate the juggle of work and family.

As you are now well aware, Ms Donna Snow has now officially begun her new role as Collegiate Principal, with time in the school this week to handover to myself, Ms Tamara Doig as Acting Principal in Term 2. Donna has been at Wembley for almost 4 years and has led the school through enormous positive change including the Community Engagement Plan, School Grounds improvements, prioritising the modernising of the technology infrastructure, new Business Plan development and placing evidence based pedagogy and data informed practice at the fore of everything we do at Wembley. We thank Donna for her tireless work to make sure everyone at the school from the support staff to the school board and P&C, students and staff have the best opportunities made available to them. We wish Donna all the best in this highly respected role which attracted a hugely competitive field, demonstrating what we already know about Donna, she is an outstanding leader.

Together with Alan, Rachel and our new Deputy Principal Melinda, I will continue to lead and support you on the path we as a community have set out for ourselves in our Business Plan and to achieve our vision – To foster a culture of curiosity and innovation, empowering our students to be caring, courageous members of our community.

Learning Environment

Over the past couple of years, our Kindergarten-Year 2 teachers have been working together on strengthening connected practices and their pedagogical approach that aligns with early childhood development and the Early Years Learning Framework. This has involved our approach to Literacy, Numeracy, Inquiry Learning and Play-Based Learning. A target we have set for ourselves in our current Business Plan is to ‘Plan for students to regularly engage in intentional, student-centred play in K-2’. While Play-Based Learning has always been central to the learning programs in Kindergarten and Pre-primary, our goal is to still provide planned opportunities for students to learn through play in the ‘big school’.

Over the past several months, the Year 1-2 teachers have been working hard on planning to transform our enclosed junior verandah space into an area that facilitates and encourages this play, with learning pods being set up according to the needs and interests of students which reinforce concepts introduced in class. You will now start to see the fruits of their labour with the transformation beginning to take place. What is our approach to intentional play? It’s about forethought being placed into the design of each play experience but also enabling students to have agency and be creative. Often the play experience will have a question prompt to get students thinking as they approach the play while some experiences will be much more open ended. I thank Chrissie McGovern and Tamara Misson for their work over the holidays setting up the verandah ready for students to ignite their curiosity from day 1 of term.

Leadership

As Ms Snow described in her letter to parents during the holidays, Dr Melinda Harris joins the senior leadership team this term as Deputy Principal. Dr Harris has a wealth of leadership experience as substantive Deputy Principal at Subiaco Primary School and time in roles at the system level. We welcome Dr Harris to the team!

Last term, we called for School Board Parent Representative Nominations due to (3) parent representative vacancies on the School Board. The functions, roles and responsibilities of Boards are prescribed by the School Education Act 1999 and the School Education Regulations 2000.

WPS Board is an unincorporated Board. Board members participate in school governance by supporting the principal and school staff to implement the strategic directions outlined in the Department’s 202-24 strategic directions Every student, every classroom, every day and Building on Strength and the WPS Business Plan 2020-22 to achieve year on year improvement.

• Endorsing and reviewing the school budget and Business Plan
• Processes to review school performance
• Processes to determine satisfaction levels
• Reporting school progress and achievement and endorsing the Annual Report
• Input into policy development
• Communicating with the broader community the functions of the Board.

The Board requires parents with diverse skill sets. We are currently in the development phase of two strategies; communication and a buildings and grounds master plans.

On the school website, you will find candidate information for all six parents who have nominated to become a representative. http://www.wembleyps.wa.edu.au/our-school/school-board/

Shortly, you will receive a link via email to the online election survey and your unique voting code. If you do not have an email address registered with the school, please contact our administration and we can provide you with the survey’s online location and a unique voting code or alternatively, a paper form if necessary. Please check for the invitation to vote email and if you have not received an email (check junk) by close of business tomorrow, please let the school office know.

The election will close next Thursday 29 April at 4pm. You are encouraged to vote.

Community Engagement

On Friday 23 April at 9am we will hold the school ANZAC service on the school basketball court. We are looking forward to holding the event after the ANZAC service was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020.

Each year, we invite families to bring in flowers on the day of the service between 7:30-8:15am to create wreaths and flower posies for students to lay at the base of the flag pole. The drop off point will be the staffroom on the junior verandah. We have several wreaths and over 25 posies to make so we would appreciate as many flowers as possible being dropped off. To ensure the flower arranging is done in time for the event, we ask these to be dropped off prior to 8:15am, the earlier the better!

Thank you to those parent volunteers who have offered to help between 7:30am-9am on Friday morning to create the wreaths and posies, accept donations and clear up the area afterwards. We still need more helpers, if you are able to, please email wembley.ps@education.wa.edu.au.

Finally, please join us for the event on the basketball court if you are able to, maintaining physical distancing where possible. We are thrilled to have members of the Jackson family attending, Christine Tonkin MLA and Alan Downes from the Highgate sub-branch RSLWA speaking at the event with a Welcome to Country from Aboriginal Elder Ken Hayward. In addition, the school choir will be performing. The ANZAC Service is an incredibly important event on the school and national calendar as we remember those who gave so much to protect our freedoms.

Collaborate, Connect, Communicate.

Yours in learning

Executive Admin Team

Tamara, Alan, Rachel and Melinda