Weetangera Primary School eNewsletter

From Julie

Dear Families

Welcome to Term 4, 2024.

Week 1 began with a pupil free day. These days were initiated as a result of the Australian Education Union’s recent Enterprise Agreement process with the end result that the first day of each term is a day set aside for planning and preparation. How did the staff at WPS spend their day? The day was organised enabling the following tasks and actions to be completed:

Welcome Back and General Reminders first up to capture the ‘big ticket’ items that occur in Term 4; End of year reports, Year 6 graduation, preparation for 2025 classes etc
The second area of focus was to finalise the preparation for the Student-Centred Improvement Review that occurred on Wednesday 16 – Friday 18 October.
Each year level completed the curriculum mapping task that informs report writing and
Mindful Assessment planning for the Global Concept of VOICE was built into the tasks on Monday.

During the process of the Student-Centred Improvement Review each member of staff was interviewed by the review team and using the information and data collected the reviewers have built a picture of the modes of operating in evidence across our school. The draft findings of the review team were very pleasing and this information will inform our next steps when the 2025 – 2028 Strategic plan is written this term.

As we speak Week 2 is underway and I would like to thank the P&C for their time on the weekend when they had a most successful Democracy Sausage Sizzle. And Monday saw the P&C team front up again for the LAPATHON. You will see the scrunched up pieces of paper coming home that represent the number of laps your children managed today and thank you in advance for your support of their efforts.

All terms are busy and filled with activities outside of the usual ‘classroom learning’. The following are the activities already planned for Term 4.

25/10 – Boorowa Sporting Event
28/10 – 1/11 Bookfair – Come and make your holiday reading purchases
28/10 – Museum of Australian Democracy Excursion Year 4
29/10 – P&C Meeting
31/10 – Bandana Day
7/11 – Year 6 Market Day
11 – 15// Year 2 Aqua Safe Program
17/11 – The Fete 😊
19/11 – Year 1 – Questacon
22/11 – Jump Rope for Heart
10/12 – P&C Meeting
12/12 – Year 6 Graduation Assembly
13/12 – Small Group Excursions
13/12 – Reports Home
16/12 Year 6 Fun Day Excursion and Dinner
17/12 – Tuesday – School finishes for 2024

A term of learning, excitement, excursions, finishing up and moving on to high school and meeting with our newest recruits, the 2025 preschool students.

I was fortunate enough to speak with two award-winning photographers last week. We discussed their approach to photography, their choice of subject matter and the competition in which they recently were awarded a first and second place. This Australia wide competition is held annually, and it is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you Hannah and Emily, two of our students. Their awards and award-winning photographs for their entries in the Australian National Botanic Gardens Photo Competition are below. Congratulations on an awesome effort.

Thought for the week:

Have an excellent week.

Regards

Julie

Julie.cooper@ed.act.edu.au

Parent Portal App

School_newsletter_content_T3_Launch_Week_1.pdf

Parent Portal at Weetangera

Parent Portal is now available. It is a secure online platform used to share student information between you and your child’s teachers.

Some reminders about Parent Portal:

If you already have a Parent Portal account, use this Parent Portal access link to start using the great features.
You can’t access Parent Portal directly through the ACT Digital Account website, you need to use the link above.
When you are logged into Parent Portal, we recommend saving the browser as a favourite or to the homepage on your mobile phone for quick access in the future.
The website can only be viewed using a web browser on your computer, mobile phone or tablet. An app is not available at this time.
If you still need to register, you will need an access key and a Parent Portal registration link via email to link your existing account to your child’s records. If you haven’t received this, please contact the school’s front office team for assistance.

Head to our website for all the details:

https://www.weetangeraps.act.edu.au/For_Parents/parent_portal

Jump Rope for Heart

Jump Rope for Heart kicks off this term at Weetangera Primary School!

Jump Rope for Heart is the Heart Foundation’s primary school skipping challenge that helps kids move more, have fun, and raise funds for life-saving research and programs.

Register your child online, so they can receive the full benefits of the program and participate in online fundraising, simply follow the link below to get started. www.jumprope.org.au/parents

Students will be skipping throughout the term in PE lessons/during lunch breaks etc, during this time you can share their online fundraising page with family and friends to help raise money for this great cause.

We will hold our school Jump Off Day on Friday 22^nd November. This will mark the end of the program and is a chance for everyone to come together to skip and show off their newly learned skills

Thank you for supporting the Jump Rope for Heart program!

Scholastic Book Fair

Book_week_poster.pdf

Library News

Scholastic Book Club Issue 7 catalogues have arrived and all orders are due by Friday 1/11/2024. Spare order forms are available from the library and front office or at ISSUE PREVIEW | Scholastic Australia

Happy reading!

Stephen James

Canteen News

WPSCanteen_W1T4_Newsletter_20241017_174117_0000.pdf

WPS_spring_menu_20241018_063601_0000.pdf

P&C Update

Lapathon:

Have your children asked grandma, pop, their favourite aunty and funny uncle to sponsor them for lapathon yet? If not there’s still time – but not much because it is on Monday 21 October. And don't forget the theme is 'favourite character'.

Whether they agree a fixed dollar amount or amount per lap run, every donation goes straight towards our fundraising goals. Check the note in your emails for more information, and be sure to send your child with their running shoes on and dressed as their favourite character.

We’d love to see our parents stay to watch a morning of fun lap running/walking/skipping. The oldest groups start from 9:15 and the whole school will be out by around 10am, with lapathon complete around 11am.

Election Day

Thank you to everyone who volunteered and helped with the BBQ.

Next Meeting:

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday 29 October and will be held online. Please email weetangera.pc.secretary@gmail.com if you would like to come along.

Fete News

Have you seen our shiny new signboard out the front of the school? There’s just 30 days to go and the pace of planning is increasing fast.

Wristband and colour run sales now open!

It’s now just four weeks to go until the big day, and fete wristband and colour run entries are on sale NOW via Flexischools!

For just $10, you can buy a wristband that buys you: 1 toy, 1 book, 1 sausage sandwich, 1 drink and 1 lollipop at the fete. You can buy wristbands for current students, past and future students, friends and cousins – even the grown ups!

The colour run is a fabulous way to celebrate the end of the fete. For $7.50 students can run our course and be decorated with 5 bright colours of powder. The colour run is for current Weetangera students only.

Can you help us fill 207 volunteer slots?

Running the fete is a mammoth effort. We have put together a roster of all the volunteer slots that we need filled during the fete, as well as earlier in the day and the day before. Volunteer slots are just one hour each – sign up for one hour or sign up for the whole day, but please consider how you can help, as to cover this many hours we really need at least one hour of help from every family across the whole school.

To see the types of roles we need filled and to put your name down to help, visit https://signup.zone/weetangera-fete

Need a spring clean? Save your used items for the fete!

If you have been planning to sort through the toy box or bookshelf, we’d love for you to keep the fete in mind. On fete weekend we will be looking for donations of quality used items for the toy, book and white elephant (or bric-a-brac) stalls. We have limited storage space so please start sorting through your items ready to bring in on fete weekend:

Friday 15 November 3-5pm

Saturday 16 November 8am-12 noon

Sunday 17 November 8-10am

Please note we can’t accept any electrical items for the white elephant stall, or any items with button batteries. If you’re at all unsure whether you can donate an item please email weetangeraprimaryfete@gmail.com.

Keep on packing those pick-a-jars

We are still hoping to have over 1,000 jars for fete day, which means two per student. We are about 20% of the way to our goal but still need many more jars. Filled and wrapped jars can be dropped off in the front office or your child’s classroom. The year group that brings in the most jars will be rewarded with a giant jar of goodies for the students to share.

Stay up to date with the fete

As fete day gets close we will have lots of updates to share about the help we will need with the fete. To keep up to date: