Newsletter Week 7, Term 3 2022 – Message from Administration, Book Parade, Roadworks Ruislip St Road Closures, Children’s Crossing Review – Herdsman Parade, Compass for Parents, Senior Choir, MS Readathon, The Fathering Project, Chaplain Corner, Canteen, P&C Kindy PP Tea Towel Fundraiser, Before School Mark Lee Football, Teeball, Golf

Message from the Executive Administration Team

Dear parents and caregivers

What a wonderful event last week for our annual Book Week parade! It was amazing to see students and staff getting in the spirit and inspired by children’s literature. We want our schools to be playful, fun and spark joy and last Wednesday morning, we saw just that. I know too well that it’s an added job for a working parent but it’s all worth it seeing how much fun they have. A big thank you to all our parents and carers for supporting Book Week once again and to our amazing library staff – Mrs Jordan, Mrs Devenish and Mrs Chadbourne.

PP-Year 2 Carnival:

It is time for our junior athletics carnival tomorrow morning and the weather looks like it will be perfect. We welcome all parents and caregivers to come along and cheer the children on.

Our Kindy students, who attend on the day, will be the first event at approximately 9am, having a fun running race (no competition or scoring) on the track.

Our PP-Year 2 students will then begin a tabloid style team game rotation around the oval at approximately 9.30am.

Pre-primary students will be grouped together and Year 1-2 students will be grouped in their factions competing in small teams.

You are welcome to move around and watch. Students will then return to their faction bays and begin their sprints and relays.  These will run from approximately 10:30-11.30am.

We look forward to another great community event.

Education Assistant Appreciation Week:

This week, we are spoiling our dedicated education assistants across the school during EA Appreciation Week. Our education assistants are just incredible working with our youngest students in the school in every Kindy and Pre-primary class, in our Year 1 & 2 classes but also with our neurodivergent children who need support to engage in learning. Not only do they support students in class, but our education assistants also run the before school reading groups in our junior years and Mrs Fernando runs our Sounds-Write intervention groups. We are so lucky to have a committed and caring group of education assistants on our staff. If your child has an education assistant they work with, take a moment to thank them this week. I’m sure it will make their day.

Patricia Hawkes Retirement Assembly:

This Friday afternoon at 2:40pm, we will be holding a farewell assembly for Mrs Patricia Hawkes, who is retiring from teaching after 32 years at Wembley PS and a total of 46 years with the Department of Education. Our Year 3-6 students will be at the assembly as will current and past staff, and Mrs Hawkes family and friends. We would love for the community to join us at 2:40pm in the undercover area for the event, particularly if you or your child has been taught by Mrs Hawkes over the years.

Mrs Hawkes has made an enormous impact on our school community and will be missed. Mrs Hawkes was a passionate advocate for cultural inclusion and our students who speak English as an additional language. She has run our Harmony Day events for many years and most recently worked in the school library sharing her love of children’s literature with our early childhood students. It would be wonderful for parents and caregivers to come and show their appreciation as we officially farewell Patricia into retirement. Our students will be singing and I will be presenting Mrs Hawkes with her Public Service Medallion on behalf of the Director-General for her lengthy service to public education.

Teaching and Learning

Public Speaking:

Last night, Year 6 student Zephyr T represented the school at the Rotary 4 Way Speaking Test District Final at the Bedford Bowling Club, after coming 2^nd in the local semi-final a few weeks ago.

Zephyr was outstanding last night, confidently and articulately delivering his speech about ‘The Power of Music’ to a large audience with schools represented from all over Perth. The standard of public speaking was truly impressive and the subjects covered demonstrated the depth of engagement our young people have with the world around them. The future really is in good hands.

I am proud to announce that Zephyr came Runner-up for the Year 6 District Final last night. What an achievement! Zephyr was presented with a Rotary medallion and certificate, also wining a gift voucher for his efforts. As the one of top two Year 6 speakers, he has been invited to speak at the Year 10 State Final at the UWA Club. Congratulations to Zephyr and thank you to Miss O’Malley who attended both finals with me to support Zephyr. I also thank Rotary Cambridge, including Mr Jeremy Wood and Mr Frank Nathan who are so supportive of local schools and work so tirelessly to create opportunities for young people in our community.

We are also very proud of every one of our students who have been drawing on their creativity and courage to deliver their speeches in class recently.

Maths at Wembley:

In the last newsletter, I shared the link again to express interest in a parent forum to answer questions that parents may have after receiving a communication about streaming. We had some who used the form to provide some positive feedback (thank you) and a few more had specific questions. Overall, there was still extremely low interest in a forum. However, it is very important that those who did take the time to respond had an opportunity to have their questions answered so the Admin team has reached out personally to those people. We will summarise and collate the questions and answers and share these with the community in the next Admin newsletter.

Our focus is squarely on evidence-based teaching and learning for the benefit of all students, so we will continue to adapt and shift our practices in line with what the data and research is telling us so that we can meet your child’s learning needs, in all subjects. Bob Hawke College also run mixed ability mathematics classes in Year 7 and 8 so we have been very grateful to their leadership team for sharing the different ways they run their maths program at the College recently.

This Saturday, a group of Year 5/6 maths enrichment students will be competing in the Maths Association of WA ‘Have Sum Fun’ Maths Competition at Penrhos College. We wish you the best of luck and thank Mrs Evans for giving up her Saturday afternoon to accompany our teams.

Science Week Photography Competition:

Last week, we announced the winners of the Year 1-6 as these students attended a guest speaker session during Science Week to receive their prizes. Kindy and Pre-primary entrants, we haven’t forgotten you!

Congratulations to Chloe (Kindy A) who came 1st, Livia V (PP3) in 2^nd place and Zara (Kindy B) who came 3rd. We love seeing our youngest students exploring the world through a science and nature lens. Thank you to all families who took part. We hope you enjoyed getting out in nature and exploring photography together.

You can view the winning entries here.

Community Engagement

National School Opinion Survey:

On Friday, parents and carers were sent a link to complete a biannual survey, called the National School Opinion Survey. There are a standard set of questions that all schools ask parents, and a further three questions developed by the School Board and school leadership team. It will only take 5 minutes to complete and we really appreciate your thoughts and time. We have had a great response so far. I encourage as many parents and carers as possible to contribute. The survey link closes at 3:30pm this Friday. Please contact wembley.ps@education.wa.edu.au if you did not receive the survey invite.

Inquiry Learning Showcase:

On Friday 16 September between 3:30-5:30pm, parents and carers will be invited into classrooms so your children can share their learning with you. The focus will be on students being able to show you the learning process this term for the inquiry statement – How and why we connect to the world. Each year level takes a different approach, connecting their own year level curriculums to this statement.

You may be asking what is inquiry learning? Inquiry learning is a cross-curricular approach to learning, where students can begin to apply the skills and content from History, Geography, Science, Technology and other subject areas. Teachers extend students past surface learning by teaching them thinking skills, encouraging curiosity and posing questions about real-life issues or situations so they can pursue critical and creative thinking. Students develop their abilities to design solutions using the STEAM design process, interpret evidence, form explanations and arguments, and communicate findings. We take a very guided approach to inquiry and teach and model to students explicitly how to approach each step of the inquiry process. We look forward to welcoming you into the classrooms.

At the same time, the Year 6s will be running a cake stall and the P&C have a sausage sizzle. It was a great community event last year. Make sure you keep it free and hopefully working parents can schedule an early finish for that day.

‘Collaborate, Connect, Communicate and Care’.

Yours in learning

The Senior Leadership Team

Tamara, Milani, Rachel, Stacey and Natalie