Dear Parents and Carers,

The Victorian lockdowns have taught us many lessons, we have certainly learnt to be tolerant, adaptable and resilient! Hopefully schools will reopen next Friday the 7th of June! We’re nearly halfway through the year!

If both of you are essential workers or your child is considered vulnerable please go to the school’s website to download a form for your child to attend school next week. I will email you to confirm your child’s attendance. This is a requirement to ensure that we have enough staff onsite to accommodate the needs of the students.

I have also attached on the school’s website an excellent article about the role of parents in their child’s reading and writing. It is written by Dr. Kaye Lowe Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Canberra from The Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA). PETAA are a national, not-for-profit professional association supporting primary school educators in the teaching and learning of English and literacies across the curriculum since 1972. PETAA is actively involved with ongoing research that supports its professional work with teachers and educators. See article HERE

There is so much written in the media about the ‘Reading Wars’ it is actually refreshing to read a balanced research rich article about reading. I could certainly write many research articles about how best to teach students reading after forty years in education and as a parent myself. But my one sentence advice would be to ‘Create a literature enriched environment full of books and reading material that you read with your child every day in a pleasurable and unthreatening manner.’

Congratulations to our Cross Country Team who competed last Tuesday in the district championships. Wattle Park Primary School was the winning school! It was certainly a team effort to ensure that our school placed first. There were noteworthy individual results; Under 12 girls Eva L 1st place, Olivia T 2nd place, Catherine W 3rd place, Under 11 girls Samara S 2nd place, Under 11 boys Henry C 1st place. Our school has a history of excelling in cross country, I’m sure it has something to do with our expansive grounds!

Special thanks to parent Aiesha Gray who has taken on the coordination of parents to look after our chickens during this lockdown. Our ‘chooks’ are at the end of their laying days so we do have plans to restock. Once our new Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Gardener, Nikki, has well and truly settled into her role we will be replacing them.

This week I met with our new canteen manager; Charlotte Stilve, and plans are in place for canteen to reopen hopefully for the last week of this term. Lunch Orders will be via an app called ‘Flexischools’. At this stage the plan is just lunch orders but we will transition to over the counter recess sales in third term. So stay tuned for further information and menu next week.

So, stay safe and well everyone. Any issues during the next week please do not hesitate to give the school a call. We are all on deck and teachers will be working hard to stay connected with their students.

Warm Regards



Gayle