56 STUDENT CYBERSAFETY SESSION WITH SUSAN MCLEAN

Prior to our PARENT ONLY SESSION on Wednesday May 15th at 3.40pm with Susan Mclean, our 56 students will have an hour and a half session with Susan. This is a huge investment from our school to ensure our students know and understand their responsibilities when online.

Please help and support us in working towards keeping our children safe online.

If you haven’t already, please email the school at wandong.ps@education.vic.gov.au to book into our Parent and Staff session on Wednesday May 15th at 3.40pm with Susan Mclean – Australia’s foremost expert in the area of cyber safety.

Happy Mother’s Day

This weekend we get to celebrate all those who take on the role of a mother, in whatever form this takes. On this special day, we would like to express our gratitude and appreciation for everything that mums and mother figures do in our community and beyond. It’s so important at Wandong that we do acknowledge and celebrate the amazing humans we have at our school. Around the world, mothers are leading the way – juggling jobs, working from home, joining classrooms, keeping order and stability in homes and still finding time to be just that little bit more patient with everyone. The love, care, and support you provide are invaluable, and as a school we would like to acknowledge your unwavering dedication, tireless efforts, and endless sacrifices. Thank you for being our partners in education and for entrusting us with the development of your children. Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing mothers out there! We hope you get some time for you and are spoilt this coming Sunday.

Response to Intervention

WPS is fortunate to have a four-tier Literacy Intervention model, which aims to provide early assistance for children who are falling below the expected benchmarks. This model employs a large team of teachers, education support educators and allied health professionals, who regularly work with children of all ages to improve their learning outcomes. As a school, we value early intervention, so that we can set students up for success in the later years of their primary school journey.

This year is our second year that we are thrilled to welcome our Parent Intervention Helpers (PIHs) to our intervention team. This volunteer group of parents attended a training session in Term One to understand how to provide intervention supports for students. This term, our PIHs have begun working in classrooms to support students accessing Tier One Literacy Intervention. This is an invaluable way that we can offer some of our students the little boost they need, to close their learning gaps. Across the school, students accessing Tier Two supports continue to be supported by our amazing Education Support Staff team, Tier Three supports are delivered by our Teacher Tutors and Tier Four supports are supported by our Student Wellbeing and Engagement team. This model is overseen by our Assistant Principal of Curriculum, Ms Stephanie Pollock. We continue to hold these wonderful people in awe as they work tirelessly to support our children.

Curriculum Contributions – PLEASE ACTION

Thank you to all our families who have prioritised their payment of the Curriculum Contributions. 42% of our families have either completed payment or have organised a payment plan. Instruction in all government schools is free, however; consumable items and most activities that are essential for student learning are not covered. The school purchases all these resources for the children at Wandong in order for classrooms have what is needed for their programs from the start of the year. I know many of our teachers often purchase items for students in their classes because, as teachers, we all know that budgets are super tight. The school will always provide alternative financial support options. Please phone the office to have a confidential conversation.

Optional items are activities that are in addition to the standard curriculum. They are not essential, for example, excursions, camp, sporting and music programs. Students access these on a user-pays basis. Curriculum Contributions should be paid as priority over Optional Education Items.

Thank you to our families who are investing in our school by making a tax-deductible donation to our Library and Building Funds. This will go a long way to resourcing our library, ICT and much needed building and grounds work. As we begin looking at possible sporting facilities, including passive and active play turfed spaces, this is more important than ever.

Camp Costs

Wandong is renowned for its camping program. We have forever worked hard to make this whole school event work, even when we were in the depths of Covid. With the price of buses and venues continually increasing costs, this does mean that these events do also increase in cost. We must also acknowledge that our staff actually volunteer their time to attend camp, when in fact they are entitled to 24-hour payment when on duty. Our staff value these events and the opportunity this provides for our children and families. This staffing cost is not factored into the camp total, which in fact would significantly increase costs even more. Please note that camps are completely optional and at no stage are any families or children pressured into attending these events. As we all know, our Curriculum Consumables should be paid as priority, as these support our children with the core curriculum. Please, if you have any questions, please reach out to your child’s teacher, Mr Fearn or a member of leadership.

Uniform

When children are wearing the Wandong uniform, they are representing our school. This includes when they are coming and going from school, on the roads and outside in the community. The behaviour and conduct of our students is often communicated to school staff and it is imperative that children are aware that they must be upholding the same values. Our uniform should be worn with a sense of pride and demonstrating the high expectations we have at our awesome school.