Weetangera Primary School eNewsletter

From Julie

Dear Families

I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking Yehuwdiy Dillon. Yehuwdiy has been a member of the Weetangera PS Board for the past 7 years and in 2025 he has decided to step away from this role. For the past 6 years he has been the Board Chair, a role that he undertook with diligence and attention to duty. Yehuwdiy was a voice for the families and an excellent support to myself in my role too. An enormous thank you from all of us for your work Yehuwdiy.

This then leads me to informing you of who comprises the 2025 WPS Board; the following parents and teachers are the elected members of the board for 2025:

Alison Shackleford – Parent and P&C representative
Vivian Bevan – Parent representative
Jen Dawson – Parent representative
Anastasia O’Donnell – Teaching staff representative
Bec Spoors – Teaching staff representative
Patricia Duffy – Assistant Returning Officer & Secretary of Board

Cross Country is coming! Our students have been becoming familiar with the course, ranging from the 500m course for kindergarten through to the 3000m course for our 12 year old senior students. Please come along on Tuesday, 8 April from 9.15am and cheer on our runners. Fingers crossed for a beautiful Autumn Day.

As we come to the end of Term 1 I reflect upon how the students of WPS have settled into their role as learners and leaders, friends and champions of each other and the joyful participants in the life of the school each and every day. Of course, we have days where ‘the wheels fall off’ for some of our students. When this occurs, we go back to the principles that underpin our Positive Behaviours for Learning and remind our students of the guiding principles.

Students are recognised for their supportive behaviour that aligns with the PBL values and often receive a PBL token to add to the collection points. The student school leaders tally up the tokens received for each of the houses and at the end of the term, Friday 4 April, each house has an event that celebrates the number of tallies across the school for the students in each house. Ask your child/ren about today’s celebrations for their sporting house, it was certainly a lot of fun.

Thank you to the P&C who are conducting the SPACE DISCO on the evening of Friday, 4 April. It is a small band of parents that conduct this event, if you can give some time on Friday evening please do as all additional support is welcomed. It ensures a successful evening for your children. Think about coming along and lending your support.

Thought for the week:

Have a relaxing weekend, wind your clocks back as daylight savings finishes this weekend.

Regards

Julie

Julie.cooper@ed.act.edu.au

School Board

SCHOOL BOARDS: Seeking applications for the Appointed Member role on ACT School Boards

Expressions of interest (EOI) are being called for Appointed Members on school boards across the ACT. An Appointed Member is generally an individual from outside the immediate school community who can offer an independent perspective to board discussion and decision-making. Appointments are made for up to two years, with the possibility of re-appointment. Further information can be found on the NEW School boards - ACT Government page.

EOIs will be open until COB Friday 9 May 2025.

The expression of interest form is attached below.

School_Board_expression_of_interest.docx

What's Happening in Preschool

This term in preschool we have been focusing on the Global Concept of Belonging. We have planned many experiences that have been focused around learning the routines at preschool, creating connections with our new educators and with each other and learning how we can feel safe and supported at preschool.

We have shared many beautiful stories with the children including Owl Babies by Martin Waddell and The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn which facilitated discussion about how it feels to leave our safe people and explore new places. We also talked about some strategies that may make it easier to say goodbye to our family’s in our new space.

We have begun a lovely sharing experience called the “All About Me” box that has the children bringing in some special items to share with their classmates, their favourite book, a snuggly toy that helps them get to sleep, photos of the special people in their lives. The children are able to share their items in front of the class while their classmates can ask questions or share there similar interests, it is such a great way to help facilitate connections between new friends!

Preschool Team

What's Happening in the Tree Frogs

It’s hard to believe that the Tree Frogs have nearly completed their very first whole term of school! Over the past 9 weeks, they have embraced every new challenge with curiosity and enthusiasm. One of their biggest achievements has been taking their first steps into the world of reading!

Through daily participation in whole-class, small-group, and independent activities, the Tree Frogs have been building strong foundations in literacy. They have been busy learning letters and their corresponding sounds, using this knowledge to write simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, and reading simple sentences that include both CVC words and high frequency words.

The classroom has been buzzing with excitement as students engage in fun interactive learning experiences, playing sound and word games, hunting for letters and CVC words in books and around the environment, proudly sharing their reading progress with classmates and teachers.

It has been incredible to see their confidence grow as they recognise words, blend sounds, and begin to see themselves as readers. I am so proud of their progress and can’t wait to see where their reading journey takes them next! Be sure to check out some of the CVC words they’ve been reading and spelling!

Hayley Dix

What's Happening in the Toucans

Exploring Maps and Stories in Our Classroom
This term, our class has been on an exciting journey of discovery, exploring maps in many
creative ways! We have been learning about mapping skills, using positional language to
describe locations, and even creating our own story maps to guide our storytelling
adventures.
Through our geography lessons, we explored different types of maps and used birds-eye
views to represent places. We combined this with our visual arts learning by creating
stunning aerial-view artworks inspired by the landscapes and colours of Australia. These
artworks showcase winding rivers, vast deserts, and lush bushland, all seen from above!
Taking our mapping skills even further, we designed story maps to help plan and write our
own narratives. These maps guided our characters through imaginative settings, filled with
exciting twists and turns. The students have enjoyed bringing their stories to life, using their
maps as a visual tool to organise their ideas.

Shelly Murdoch

The Cyclones have had busy start to the year! We have enjoyed working on a range of tasks this term including:

Studying Jackie French books based on natural disasters in Australia including ‘Flood’ and ‘Earthquake’
Reading Groups- students have been reading a range of non-fiction texts then completing follow-up comprehension tasks
Using number cards to help our speed and accuracy in mental computation
Our weekly online maths quiz to reinforce our skills in number
Learning about our Global Concept ‘Harmony’ with a key question being ‘How do Earth's changes affect the way people interact with the land?’
Creating a storyboard for Science based on various places around the world that have had earthquakes
Running training in the lead up to our cross-country carnival next week
Photography and drama rotations each week

Students were asked to write about the highlight of the year so far and some of our responses are below:

Swimming Carnival

We had our swimming carnival in week two at Dickson Pool. The students all travelled there by bus. I didn't get wet once, this was because I just didn’t want to. There were several water related activities, such as: playing in the kiddie pool, playing in the water playground, Volleyball and much more! At the start of the carnival there was an initiation race where you got a certain coloured wristband dependant on how well you did.
Saxon H

Swimming Carnival

The swimming carnival was really fun. When we got to Dickson Pool you had to find your house group on the stairs. Then we had to do the swim test and the teachers told us if we got a red band, blue band or green band and if you got a blue or green band you could do the races. The races were 100m freestyle, 50m freestyle, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, 50m butterfly and the 20m freestyle. If you got the red band you did activities out of the water like volleyball and another ball game. We also got to go into the water park. If you went to a blue band the activities you did were noodle races, 5 vs 6 ping pong and just racing together and they also got free time. At the end everyone got dressed and packed up to go on the bus back to school.
Nila O

Jackie French: Book Study

This term we have been learning about Jackie French. At the start of the year we read ‘Flood’ by Jackie French. For our class name we used the book Flood, That's how we got ‘The Cyclones.’ While reading Flood, we created a word wall of adjectives (descriptive words) from the book for use while writing stories and bookwork (e.g. stories, recounts, information reports, poems, persuasive etc.) I enjoyed reading ‘Flood’ as it was informative and even though the book is only fifteen pages long, after all the research after reading the book I could have added another at least 20 pages. I also liked the images as they told the story more than the words did. Now we are learning about earthquakes, because our book is ‘Earthquake’ by Jackie French. Prior to the book we have been doing research about earthquakes. I have learned about the Newcastle Earthquake, where tectonic plates are located around the world, the Richter Scale and the Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown in 2011. For example, The Newcastle Earthquake in 1989 being a 5.6 Magnitude Earthquake on the Richter scale, damaging over 35,000 homes, 147 schools and 3,000 commercial buildings/offices, Damages costing over 4 billion Australian dollars.
I have found Jackie French is super detailed in her drawings, her words are supporting the pictures. The pictures have helped me learn about the different outcomes of a natural disaster and how much stress people go through. Even when they have to pay or they don't have insurance. This is why I have enjoyed our learning about different natural disasters and our learning being based off her books (e.g. Harmony Lessons, Earthquake Research and the Jackie French Literacy Lessons)
Logan M

Birrigai Camp

When we got on the bus on the way to camp. I felt nervous and was already missing my family. The ride was tiring. My legs were cramped from sitting down for 45 mins. The ride was not too long overall because I talked to my friends which passed the time a lot. When I got off the bus I felt free! Once we got off we had to have a Birrigai meeting. We popped our bags off to the side. We all got cute Birrigai bags, also water and Birrigai water and Birrigai biscuits (It’s actually Anzac biscuits). The girls and the boys got split into their cabins. The girls had four cabins so we were divided into four groups.
My main friends in my cabin were Zita, Senudi, Norah, Victoria and Annebelle. They were all in my activity group. The food wasn’t too bad for a place with no nearby shops. My favourite activity was the high swing because it pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me braver and I would definitely do it again and recommend it.
The scariest activity was the crate climb because we had to climb up crates which I had the biggest feeling that it would drop and me and my partner (Annebelle) would fall. Sadly, the builders accidentally dropped one of the crates and Annebelle and I had to stand on one crate and we finally pushed each other off, we had harness so we didn’t die, we went on nine crates in total.
The first night I couldn’t literally close my eyes for a second, not because I missed my family but because the air conditioner was on high all night so it was freezing, I only set up one blanket because it was summer and at my house it’s burning so I didn't expect anything and I was too tired to set up my other blankets. The second night I got more blankets, so I was hot and also the aircon wasn’t on, I still had a good sleep and didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning.
The worst part of camp was the groups and the hike. There was Group A and B which were together for eating time and group C and D were together also, but that wasn’t the bad part they made group C and D wake up early while the other groups were eating breakfast (I was in group C) and we would feel starving because we could smell the food from our cabin and they took so long to eat some breakfast and we would only have roughly around twenty minutes. They should have woken up group C and D one hour before breakfast but they woke us up two hours before breakfast so half the time we were just bored waiting till we could eat breakfast. Overall I think they should make breakfast earlier for group C and D. The hike: The hike was way too long and they would make us do it at 11:00 am which is boiling at that time, they should do it early in the morning. They packed 2 litres of water for roughly 25 students and lots of people only got a drop of water and the water carriers would fill their drink bottles up to the top even though they weren’t going to drink it all. The hike was 3 hrs long and I was dying of thirst half of it and it felt like 10 000 degrees and they were making us walk. Overall, I think they should have made the hike start earlier and pack more water and make rules for the water carriers not to fill up their drink bottle to the top if they don’t need that much water.
Going back to school on the bus was not bad at all but I felt bus sick because I bent over while talking to my friends in front of me. The bus ride was very fun, and I was so happy to see my family. Overall, I give this camp experience a 7/10!!!
Ariam A

Birrigai Camp

When we got off the bus we put our bags into the room and we got split into two groups. One group got to eat lunch (not fair), and the other group got to play. After the morning meeting we got to go and chose our bunk beds and then we were split into two groups. The groups were D and C. I was in group C with my friends Annabelle, Victoria, Ariam, Senudi and Zita and after that we had lunch. I hated the three hour walk. It was 10 000 degrees after the three hour walk! I liked the crate because it was scary and after that I had fun!
Norah N

Birrigai Camp

The bus drive to Birrigai was long just like an adult giraffe. We explored and toured the camp like adventures.
The Birrigai Anzac cookies reminded me of the people who fought for our country. The giant swing made me step out of my comfort zone and try something I never knew I could do. The three hour and half bush walk was fascinating and admiring but endless. The Birrigai movie theatre had big steps with a furry carpet on top. It felt weird seeing so many other different faces in my cabin.
Zita J

Birrigai Camp

A few weeks ago at Birrigai camp my favourite activity was the giant swing. I got chosen to go first and at first I was scared and when I pulled the knot, I thought I was dropping straight to the ground and while I was swinging. I thought it was fun and wanted to go again but I couldn’t go again. After the giant swing, we had lunch.
Elijah M

Drama

Drama is fun and it makes lots of people get out of their comfort zone and it was fun having a go at acting with my friends. We acted out a small scene but we could not move. Victoria, Zita, Ariam and I displayed a race. Two of us were holding an air rope and the other two were running to win the race but then the teacher said freeze and we froze and the other kids started guessing. I liked stepping out of my comfort zone and having fun with my friends. I think my new favourite subject is drama! At the end of the day we play a fun game called zip zap zop or silent ball. The next week we did the same thing but we added movement time so it was much easier. This time me and my friends did a kid getting a blood test. Zita was a chair and Victoria was the kid and I was the nurse.
Other kids had lots of creative ideas as well. At the end of the day kids had a blast in drama and had a go.
Senudi

Band

Earlier in the year everyone in Year Five had to do a listening test to see if they could get into the Weetangera Primary School band. In the test we had to listen to a note then say if it was higher, same or lower pitch than the previous note. A few days later we were told by Miss Mas that we were chosen to be in the Year Five band.
Next week we got to try out for our instruments and I tried out for percussion. It was hard and stressful, but I kept on trying and I got the percussion part, after everyone else had to try out for their instruments. The next day we got to test our instruments. Soon we got our sheets of music and we got to play our first rhythms, a couple of weeks passed by and we started playing songs.
Jensen I

Maths

Recently in maths, we have been learning about using the split strategy in double digit times double digit numbers. E.g. 54 x 32= 1728. To find the product (the answer) with the split strategy you split the numbers in the columns then add them together. e.g. 54 x 32 30 x 4=120, 2 x 4=8, 30 x 50=1500, 50 x 2=100, 120+8+1500+100=1728. It's that easy and Mr McRae made it easy by explaining it well. I personally don’t use this strategy though. We have also been learning about skip counting. Skip counting is quite easy; it is like just adding a number to itself repetitively. E.g. 16 x 4, 16, 32, 48, 64. It's quite a slow strategy in bigger longer numbers though, just preferred for small numbers. Now for my personal favourite part of maths, Mr McRae's maths mental computations. The reason why I love his mental computations is because I love his amazing maths memes that are famous in year 5/6! I also love that he makes the last few questions harder than the rest.
Hunter D

Mr McRae’s Amazing Maths Memes, Idioms and Puns

In the 5/6EM Cyclones every morning we come into our classroom to see a ‘funny’ meme on our interactive whiteboard. During the lessons various puns and idioms pop up in our class discussions which usually leads to a few minutes of discussing the idiom or pun. Some days the puns and/or memes and idioms are pretty good and our class is satisfied but other days it is just silence and confused faces! In our weekly mentals test there is always a response, I always press ‘LOL’ and go on with my work. In conclusion I am happy to be in Mr McRae’s class and am excited/scared for the year ahead. If I could say anything I would say puns, memes and idioms are ‘not my cup of tea.’
Tahlia H

PE and Maths

I like P.E because I like being active and I like exercise. I like the games we do as a class, whether it's inside or outside. Recently we have been playing silent ball in the classroom where we throw a ball around and as we keep going through the game more tennis balls are added and Mr McRae makes it harder in some way.
A lot of the time when we are playing in the classroom, we have been playing these mini-maths games. One of them is where everyone is in a line around the edges of the classroom, Mr McRae picks a number and we skip count on that number. And every third person that goes says “Buzz!”, then they keep going. As the game keeps going, the people who get the numbers wrong or forget to say “buzz.” are eliminated. I find that fun because it challenges my brain and it warms it up for the rest of the day.
Now, let's talk about what kind of P.E we do outside. One of the first P.E sessions we did outside was this game where we partner up with someone, then everyone lines up on a line and you are on one side, your partner is on the other. Every group of two throws to each other and they step further and further away every time they catch it. If someone drops the ball, they are eliminated and they sit down. Another thing we do outside for P: E is cross country practice. Recently, we have been doing it every day because the cross country is coming soon.
Ben C

Breaking News! Belconnen Swimming

I got there at 9:30am one hour before my first race which was at 10:30am. I watched Jensen race in his 50m freestyle and he came first in his heat and 8th in all the heats combined. At 10:30 I did my 100m freestyle race and I came 6th overall. Then I had to wait three hours for my next race. In the meantime, Steven, Kevin and I went to the 25m pool to have a practice swim. Finally, my second and last race came around, it was the 50m backstroke and I came 3rd! So I got a ribbon and made it to ACT! I was very happy and excited because it was my first Belconnen ribbon. It was also my second time making it to ACT and first time in swimming.
Lewis R

Erwin McRae

What's Happening in the Flames

5_6CH_Newsletter_Term_1.pdf

Corinne Hannan

Library News

Holiday Reading with SORA

To borrow e-books and audio books visit https://soraapp.com or download the free Sora app for android or IOS.

To access click on Find My School and select ACT Education and Training Directorate, then sign in using your school credentials. (student ID and password)

Students can also access SORA through the digital backpack.

Once logged in students can access 100s of e-books and audiobooks on almost any device.

Happy reading!

Stephen James

Weetangera Primary School Library

PBL News

2025 Uniform Price List

Weetangera_2025_Price_list_new_uniforms.pdf

Workin' Gear Schools is the new uniform supplier for Weetangera Primary School. New uniforms with the new SPW logo can be ordered using the link above. Students are still able to wear uniforms with the old WPS logo. There are still limited sizes available for sale at the front office. Please contact the school after 22 January to organise a time to purchase these.

Parent Portal at Weetangera

News Flash! Our school calendar is now available through the parent portal. Please keep an eye out for upcoming events.

Parent Portal is a secure online platform to share information between parents and carers and their student’s teachers. It’s available via a web browser and a mobile app.

Parent Portal has been rolled out across all ACT public schools and allows parents to:

notify the school when their child is sick or to explain an absence
book parent-teacher interviews (coming soon to WPS)
receive academic reports
receive the school newsletter
make payments
access the school calendar and their child’s student timetable (coming soon to WPS)
update their contact details.

One of the many benefits of the Parent Portal is that it is used by all ACT public schools from preschool through to year 12, so there will be no need to use a different system as children change schools during their public-school journey.

If you have children attending other public schools, you don’t need to sign up to the system twice.

Parent Portal is linked to the Student Administration System (SAS) used by the ACT Education Directorate for administering student data at ACT public schools.

How to register for Parent Portal

Sign up for an ACT Digital Account if you do not already have one. This is an important step in securely verifying the identity of parents and carers. It will not be possible to set up an account without undertaking this step. Detailed instructions including identification documents required to verify your account are listed on the Education Directorate's website in the Frequently Asked Questions.
You will be sent an access key (code) and a Parent Portal registration link specific to Weetangera Primary School via email to enable you to link your ACT Digital Account to your child’s records.

Sentral for Parents app

The Sentral for Parents app is the mobile app version of Parent Portal. You can access Parent Portal through the Sentral for Parents app, or using a web browser on your computer, mobile phone or tablet.

You can download the Sentral for Parents app for free from the App Store or Google Play Store.

Communication at Weetangera

Communication_at_WPS_QRG.pdf

P&C Update

Democracy Sausage Day - 3 May 2025

Every election day more than 1,400 people vote at Weetangera Primary, and many of them, their children (and sometimes their dogs!) like to have a little treat afterwards. Weetangera Primary P&C is organising a BBQ and bake sale on election day to serve our local hungry voters.

We’re looking for helpers to set up and pack up, turn a snag or 1,000, and to sell sausage sandwiches, drinks and cakes. All funds raised will go back towards school upgrades.

Can’t help on the day but want to help out? We will also be looking for donations of yummy treats to sell at our bakery sale, so get your bake on! Items can be dropped to the stall from 7am on election day.

Link to the volunteer signup page