Newsletter
Friday 28th March, 2025
From the Principal
I’m fairly certain that no one sets out at the beginning of their journey working in education to become a school principal. That certainly was not my aim. Having said that, I feel incredibly fortunate to be the principal of our amazing community. I am regularly asked what I love about being a principal and every single time my answer is, the students. The favourite part of my day is when I can check in with our students and see them engaged in their learning. I try to make it a part of my day, every day, to be in the classroom to engage with our learners and see how far they are all progressing. As we round the end of Term One, I am blown away by the growth of each of our learners in the classrooms over the last few months. The explicit teaching through our English block has seen vast improvements for our students in their reading, but it is in students’ writing that I have seen such growth. Anecdotally, I have seen student handwriting, spelling and sentence level writing improve across the board, and it fills me with a sense of absolute pride in our learners. Well done to all our learners who have tried their best in everything they do, and a massive thank-you to our staff who support them in their learning. I look forward to seeing our learners progression next term, and seeing this reflected in their mid-year report. Featured below is a special written piece I spotted in the 4-6KD classroom, written by Hugo, a year 5 student, well done on an amazing job, Hugo!
During the week we held our School Council Annual General Meeting followed by the first School Council meeting with our new school councillors. I congratulate Chelsea Thompson who was elected School Council President for 2025. This year is Chelsea’s third year on the council, and her second as School Council President. At the meeting, the council approved our second curriculum day for 2025, which will be on Monday, 5th May. On this day, which will be student free, school staff will be working with an education consultant with a continued focused on our English Model. Our Outside School Hours Care will be offered on the day, dependent on numbers.
Over the past weeks we have run a few recruitment panels. I’m pleased to announce that we will have two new Education Support Staff members joining our talented team. We welcome Olivia Thompson and Jai Rogers, who will be both working in part-time capacity with us supporting students in our classrooms. We welcome our new Wellbeing Officer, Tayla Reid who will be with the school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week supporting students in one-on-one capacity, facilitating social groups, managing our Stay and Play program, and, importantly, being a member of our Wellbeing Team at Wangala Primary School.
I wish everyone a very happy holiday and Easter break.
Regards,
Steven King
Principal
Student Awards
Congratulations to last fortnights award recipients
Dates to Remember
Monday, 31st March
MARC Van
Friday, 4th April
9.15am Easter Hat Parade/Assembly
10am Open Classrooms
10.30am Morning Tea shared with parents/carers
Last Day for Term 1, 2.15pm Finish
Tuesday, 22nd April
First day of Term 2
Friday, 25th April
ANZAC Day Public Holiday
Monday, 28nd April
MARC Van
Tuesday, 29th April
Grade 3-6 District Cross Country
Monday, 5th May
Curriculum Day – No Students Onsite
Monday, 12th May
Marc Van
Monday 12th, May – Friday, 16th May
Scholastic Book Fair
Wangala Primary School acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land we are on, the Wadawurrung people, and thank them for sharing their long lasting culture with us as we learn and grow together.
School Wide Positive Behaviour
This weeks positive behaviour focus has been, ‘we keep our hands and feet to ourselves’.
At school it is important to be respectful and kind to others. One way we can do this is by keeping our hands and feet to ourselves. When we keep our hands and feet to ourselves, it means we do not touch other people. Sometimes, we may feel excited, frustrated or upset, but it is still important to remember to keep our hands and feet to ourselves to help everyone feel safe and comfortable. Sometimes we might accidentally touch someone or make them feel uncomfortable. If that happens we can say, ‘sorry’, and remember to try harder next time. When we keep our hands and feet to ourselves, everyone feels happy and safe. We show respect to our friends and everyone at Wangala Primary School, to make our school a better place.
Reminders
Fencing: Many of you will have seen our new stretch of fencing spanning across the rear of the school site and joining up with our gymnasium. This new fencing will see greater security during the school day and mean that we can better manage unwanted visitors and those who use the site as a shortcut throughout the day.
As of Monday next week, we will begin to lock the pedestrian gate alongside the gymnasium to restrict access. This will be locked from 9.10am every morning and reopened at 3.00pm every afternoon. What this will mean for anyone who accesses the site from this entry point is that, if you arrive late with your child, you must enter through the front entrance and sign them in at the office, as per our normal arrangements.
This new fencing is the first in several smaller fencing projects planned to eventually have our school site fully secured during the school day.
Last day of term schedule:
9:15 AM – Easter Hat Parade & Assembly
Easter Hat Parade followed by a short assembly and class/special awards.
10:00 AM – Open Classrooms
Families can explore student work, including inquiry topics and writing pieces
10:30 AM – Morning Tea with Families
A shared morning tea with parents and carers—ideally a picnic outside, weather permitting.
2:15 PM – Early Finish
School finishes at 2:15pm
Outside of Hours Case (OSHC) will run from 2.15pm on this date
District Cross Country: The District Cross Country is coming up in Week 2 of Term 2, on Tuesday, April 29th. Selected students will have the opportunity to compete against other schools in this exciting event. To ensure participation, permission forms and payment for the bus need to be finalised by Tuesday, April 22, these will be available on Compass soon.
A detailed note will be sent home with the children chosen to participate this on Monday. Students will travel by bus, departing just after 12pm and returning by the end of the school day. Over the holidays, we encourage those students that have been selected to participate, to practise running to prepare for the competition. Any questions please feel free to contact me. Andrea Hueston
STEAM
Over the past fortnight, students have explored the scientific process through hands-on experiments! In the Magic Milk Experiment, they observed how soap breaks surface tension, creating colorful swirls in milk. In the Skittles Experiment, they learned about water solubility, watching vibrant colors spread to form mesmerizing patterns. Students have been actively engaged in these experiments, fostering creativity and further developing their problem-solving skills.
4-6KD Money Talk
On Tuesday 25th March, Jake from Talk Money came to visit 4-6KD to present a financial literacy workshop.
‘We had to do a role play to learn about how to earn and spend money.’ RORY
‘I liked that we learnt about money and that we got to ask lots of questions.’ CHOESANG
‘My favourite part was doing the role play.’ LENNY
2/3K Term 1 Wrap Up
It’s been a busy term in the 2 / 3 K classroom. We have explored three different books as a class in reading. In Mathematics we have learnt about place value, time, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. The students have enjoyed spending time creating some fun narratives during the literacy block.
Here’s what the students in 2/ 3 K had to say about this term.
This term I loved learning about bees making a bee poster and creating a bee story – Flora
I loved doing the skittle experiment in STEAM because it was very exciting to watch. It was a very cool experiment. At the end we got to eat two skittles – Jonathan
I enjoyed doing my bee story as I got so many ideas from the book we read How to Bee – Noah
I loved learning about bees because now I know lots of facts about bees. I enjoyed making a bee poster – Kaylah
This term I enjoyed learning about fruits, and doing the fruit poster because fruit is delicious. Fruit has many mysteries that lots of people don’t know, like in Japan they know how to grow square watermelons – Eloise
I loved learning about bees because we got to do lots of fun things like making posters about them – Sebastian B
I loved doing my bee poster because I worked really hard on it, in particular my drawing, and my writing – Darcie
I enjoyed making the fruit poster we did this term because we go to pick the fruit and collect information about it – Gabriel
This term I enjoyed doing the skittles experiment where we watched them change color – Zali.
This term I loved learning about division and bees – Marley
My most favorite part of school this term was learning from my awesome beautiful smart teacher Kelly – Sally
This term I enjoyed learning about bees because now I know that they are really hard workers! I loved music, and art because we go to art work and sing songs – Sedra
I loved the cooking I did in the Kitchen garden and also being able to eat it – William
This term I really enjoyed learning about cooking different things in the kitchen garden because I like trying different foods – Emme
I really enjoyed writing a story about bees as it was fun and I like bees – Van
I loved cooking and pulling out weeks in the kitchen garden. I really enjoyed most things in the kitchen garden program. I especially enjoyed the cooking in the kitchen – Elyas
Reconciliation Action Plan
Our Positive Behaviour Matrix
