In today’s Principal Report:
Appreciations
News
Coming Events
Covid update
Appreciations and acknowledgements
Last Friday we hosted representatives from Envirogroup, the company that worked closely with us in the development and installation of our solar project at the beginning of the year. Our school captains, Annamai and Fletcher represented our school confidently (see below). A big appreciation to Jess Elliott, parent, member of our school council and mum to Owen in grade 3. While due to work commitments, Jess was unable to attend last Friday, she did provide a detailed response to some of the questions that we discussed and will provide background for the information that will be provided on the Envirogroup website. Jess was able to reflect on what our challenges were, what our range of solutions encompassed and why we are delighted with the final installation. Our FWPS community owes a debt of gratitude to Jess!
ews
https://www.compass.education/post/notification-issue-resolved
Coming up
Athletics Carnival
We are excited that our inaugural school Athletics Carnival for students in Years 4 to 6 will be held at Aberfeldie Park next Thursday, 11th August from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm. This event was planned then cancelled last year during our Term 3 lockdown. Families were sent booking details a few weeks ago and we are expecting students to attend as the Athletics program is part of our Physical Education curriculum. Each participant will compete in a minimum of three, and a maximum of four, events on the day. They include running, throwing and jumping events from which to choose. The results of these events will determine the selection of our school Athletics Team who will go on to compete in the District Athletics Carnival a fortnight later. All students are expected to wear the parts of the school uniform that will be appropriate for their activities and also will protect them from the elements whilst waiting to compete. We will be travelling to and from the venue by bus which will depart at 9.30 am from school. Please ensure that all students are at school by 9.00am as we don't wish to have to leave without all participants. Parents/Carers will be welcome to attend as spectators.
Camp information sessions
This year both the 3/4 and 5/6 camp information sessions will be presented online via WebEx. Families of students who are planning to attend camp will have received a Compass invitation to the relevant information session. The grade 3 and 4 camp information session will be held next Wednesday, 10th August at 7.00 pm and the 5 and 6 camp information session will be held on Wednesday, 17th August, also at 7 pm. Parents and carers who are attending as volunteers will be asked to remain in the meeting at the conclusion of the information session in order to discuss necessary legal requirements and protocols.
Smile Squad
Thanks to all families who have returned the Smile Squad permission forms that were sent home with each child on Tuesday of last week. While this program is not mandatory, it is a great opportunity to have your child’s teeth assessed by dental professionals at no cost to you. If you wish to take up this opportunity you will need to have returned the form by next Thursday, 11th August.
Science Week - Next week from August 8th-12th FWPS will be celebrating Science Week! https://www.scienceweek.net.au/ Due to other commitments, we have decided to celebrate Science Week a week earlier this year. The theme for National Science Week in 2022 is 'Glass - More than meets the eye.' However our Junior School Council decided to focus on practical science activities that are more suited to classrooms, teacher time and with easier access to resources. We will look forward to showcasing some of the learning in the assembly video the following week.
Facilities update
New Covid cases this week …
Positive | Household close contact |
8 students 2 staff members | 4 students 0 staff members |
Please remember if your child tests positive there are two steps you must take:
If a staff member or student has recovered from COVID-19, they are not required to get tested or isolate/quarantine if re-exposed to a case within 4 weeks of ending their isolation period. Please note this is a change from the previous period of 12 weeks.
All students and staff who return a positive result from a rapid antigen test should also follow the latest advice at https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/rapid-antigen-tests.
Cheers,
Brendan
DATE | COMING EVENTS |
Mon 8 Aug - Fri 12 Aug | Prep Nurse Visits (selected students) |
Mon 8 Aug - Fri 12 Aug | FWPS Celebrates National Science Week |
Wed 10 August | 5/6 Camp Final Payment Due |
Wed 10 August | Grade 3/4 Camp Information Night 7pm, Via Webex |
Thur 11 August | Grade 4-6 School Athletics Carnival - Aberfeldie Track |
Fri 12 August | Milo's Birthday Surprise Party - Prep |
Mon 15 August through to September | Smile Squad Dentist Check ups / treatment (selected students) |
Wed 17 August | Grade 5/6 Camp Parent/Carer Information Night 7pm, via Webex. |
Thurs 18 August | Henry the flying emu Science Incursion - Prep |
Fri 19 August | 3/4 Camp Final Payment Due Father’s Day Stall Wrapping session - 9:00am |
Tue 23 August | Prep Fire Education with Maribyrnong Fire Department |
Fri 26 August | Book Week Parade - 9am |
Fri 26 August | 2nd hand uniform shop open 8:45-9:15am |
Tue 30 August | Fathers' Day Stall - 5 & 6s |
Tue 30 August | Prep Fire Education with Maribyrnong Fire Department |
Wed 31 August | TheirCare 2nd Hand Uniform Shop - 4:30-6:00pm |
Wed 31 August to Fri 2 Sept | Grade 5/6 Alexandra Adventure Camp |
Fri 2 Sept | Fathers' Day Stall - Prep to Grade 4 |
Wed 7 Sept to Fri 9 Sept | Grade 3/4 Lord Somers Camp |
Fri 16 Sept | Last day of Term 3 - early finish 2:30pm |
Mon 3 October | First day of Term 4 |
NAME | GRADE | APPRECIATION FOR: |
Ada | PAC | Your enthusiasm and positive attitude towards learning. You always apply your personal best effort to produce excellent work. Well done! |
Cameron | PAK | Being an enthusiastic learner who applies personal best to all tasks. Well done! |
John | PHS | Applying so much effort your writing and spelling. Excellent work. |
Tilly | PKB | The effort you are putting into building your literacy and numeracy skills. Keep it up super star! |
Lily | PKT | Her bravery and resilience during our swimming program. Well done, Lily! |
Tobey | 1CD | Demonstrating a positive growth mindset during writing by writing a narrative independently and taking time to edit it carefully. |
Angus | 1CW | Being a phoneme detective! Well done! |
Malik | 1LB | Making a continued effort to begin his work independently. Malik has worked hard to build and apply a growth mindset to all tasks, particularly during writing. Fantastic work Malik! |
Aneta | 1HP | Giving your personal best effort when decoding words and making good use of punctuation. |
Theodore | 1LL | Putting so much effort into decoding words when reading. |
Partho | 2BD | Showing a growth mindset and your personal best effort during guided reading sessions. Keep it up! |
Yusuf | 2JI | Applying his personal best effort to use creative word choices in his independent writing task. Terrific job Yusuf. |
Levi | 2LE | The great effort he is putting into class tasks. Well done. |
Coco | 2TN | Working cooperatively with your group to complete the reading task. You also did a terrific job presenting your group work to the class. |
Layla | 3JS | Developing a meaningful response to a text and sharing it with her literature circle group. |
Phoenix | 3MK | Applying your personal best effort during our Literature Circle sessions. |
Jack | 3MP | Contributing more often in mathematical discussions. Keep it up! |
Louis | 3TM | Your positive attitude to learning and always trying your personal best. Well done Louis! |
Jasmine | 4AF | Taking on new challenges with her maths work. Well done Jasmine! |
Skye | 4BC | Consistently listening attentively to others and for regularly contributing to class discussions. Fantastic effort, Skye. Keep it up! |
Alice | 4DW | Her fantastic piece of persuasive writing. It was great to see you use all of your previous learning to create a convincing argument for getting a class pet. Watch this space... |
Oliver S | 4MS | The mutual respect he shows during every group-based learning activity. Wonderful efforts Oliver! |
Harley | 5CG | Putting in immense effort and going above and beyond with his homework! Well done Harley! |
Nicholas | 5SM | The excellent effort you have been applying to your homework this term. |
Lydia | 5TH | For being a respectful and supportive classmate. |
Leo | 6LC | Consistently applying a personal best level of effort across all subjects. You are a wonderful role model to your peers! |
Jack | 6MP | Putting so much effort into your homework. Amazing work, Jack! |
Ema | 6MC | Having a growth mindset in Writing and working hard on your explanation text. Keep up the great work, Ema! |
Meika Do | TheirCare | Her excellent packing up skills. She goes above and beyond to ensure the service is organized and ready for everyone to enjoy! She always has wonderful stories to share and a smile on her face! |
Welcome back to Term 3! The Grade Three team would love to extend a huge appreciation to all our students and their families for the positive start to the term, despite the ongoing challenges and absences we have been facing as a community due to COVID.
Reading:
This term, the Grade Three team is focusing on developing our love for Literature and reading! We have introduced Literature Circles during Reading sessions, which gives students the opportunity to talk about books and what they have read with their peers. These conversations are vital in order for students to build community, develop important speaking and listening skills, deepen their understanding of books and most importantly, recognise that reading is fun!
Spelling:
This term, we are beginning a new focus on spelling. Each week we will include engaging activities for students to learn about phonemes, syllables, spelling patterns and will provide students with various practical strategies that will help them spell unknown words when reading and writing.
Writing:
We will continue focusing on the 6+1 Traits of Writing and how to use these qualities to create a range of effective and engaging pieces of writing. Students started Term 3 by focusing on sentence fluency. They are learning about the musical quality of fluent sentences and how to write using varying rhythms and sentence length, ensuring the reader is interested and engaged. Students are choosing which text type they wish to write in order to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of sentence fluency. Many have chosen to concentrate on narratives, information reports or recounts.
Mathematics:
In Mathematics, students in Grade Three will learn about a range of topics, such as multiplication and division, collecting data and creating digital graphs, fractions and decimals, problem solving and coding.
Inquiry:
For Inquiry this term, students are already engrossed in our Biological Science topic all about the importance of increasing and maintaining biodiversity. Students will develop their understanding of living and non-living things, how living things are connected to each other, the role living things play in their environment and the importance of diversity in our ecosystems. As a part of this unit, students will design a habitat that aims to increase biodiversity in the local environment.
Homework:
Students in Grade Three are required to complete homework tasks each week. These include:
Reminders:
Camps and Excursions:
The Grade 3/4 Camp is fast approaching and will be held at the Lord Somers Camp on the Mornington Peninsula. The camp will run from Wednesday the 7th of September until Friday the 9th of September. Please keep an eye out on Compass for more camp information that will be released closer to the time of the event. If you have not already paid AND given consent for camp, please do so as soon as possible via Compass or the School Front Office. All families attending camp are encouraged to attend the camp information session via webex next Wednesday, 10th August at 7.00 pm. The link has been sent via Compass.
Tissues:
We would greatly appreciate donations of tissue boxes for your child’s classroom due to the higher demand in winter months, as these are not provided by the school.
The Grade 3 Team
Medha, Jane, Michael and Tess
Congratulations to all those students who have completed the challenge so far this year.
A reminder to all those students who are taking part in the Reading Challenge this year that the Premiers’ Reading Challenge ends Monday 29th August. Please make sure you enter all your books online and mark them as finished by the end of that day.
If you have any problems please come and see me in the library.
Jodi
Library
Hi parents, guardians, staff, and friends!
We continue to welcome all children and families to TheirCare this term and we are very excited to be getting more children each morning and afternoon and meeting more of the wonderful people in this beautiful FWPS community!
This week is sea animal week! We have started creating sea creatures out of paper and playing octopus and other animal games in the gym!
We would like to say a huge good luck and thank you to Luke who has been an incredible coordinator over the past few years here at Footscray West Primary! He has taken a new position as area manager, so he will be leaving the service. However, he will still be popping in to say hello regularly but will primarily be away at other services.
Congratulations Luke on your new role and we know you will do an incredible job!
This week’s Star of the Week for TheirCare is Meika Do for her excellent packing up skills. She goes above and beyond to ensure the service is organized and ready for everyone to enjoy! She always has wonderful stories to share and a smile on her face!
We have begun to focus more of our attention towards supporting the ASRC through donations of food and activities for the rest of this term. If any families have any spare canned goods they would like to donate, our donation basket is under the sign in desk in the Emu corner.
Our lost property basket has continued to grow, especially our collection of water bottles! So, if anyone has been missing a jumper or bottle, it may be with us here in the Emu corner.
For all families if you have any questions about TheirCare and would like to come and have a chat please come visit us in Emu Corner in the morning or afternoon, alternatively you can contact us on the details provided and we will help you as best we can.
TheirCare Team:
Louise, Daniel & Connie
Contact Details:
Service Phone: 0487004072
Service Email: footscraywest@theircare.com.au
Head Office: 1300 072 410
A community message from West Footscray Neighbourhood House
West Footscray Neighbourhood House are proud to announce a new partnership that will provide a free psychologist service to our community, on Mondays and Thursdays commencing on 22nd August.
The Community Collective Victoria/Support Pathways initiative is a no gap, confidential psychology service that is delivered by Provisional Psychologists in various locations across Victoria. Community psychology sessions are funded by NDIS referrals, and all Provisional Psychologists are required to be registered with AHPRA and have qualified supervisors.
Their services are available for all ages and include:
- Therapy, including CBT and CPT
- Cognitive assessments, including ADOS, WIAT, WIAS and WISC
- Psychometric screening and assessment (including ASD, ADHD, anxiety and depression
Telehealth services are also available on request.
For more information or to receive a referral form, please contact us via admin@wfnh.com.au.