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Dear Parents and Carers, The term has been very busy and full of great learning experiences. I’m delighted with the work students have been achieving and I encourage you to take every opportunity to use the Seesaw app to view and comment on what is happening in classrooms. We were very pleased to see so many parents come along to the Student Support Group meetings and we know that when we work together students achieve their goals. The Whole School Assembly today was a wonderful celebration and as usual a great way to finish the term. The Annual General Meeting of the School Council was held on Monday 20th March. The Annual Report was presented and is available on the school website for your information. The student achievement data showed significant growth in student learning across all the campuses. We were delighted to welcome our new school councillors at this meeting and the school is extremely lucky to have such a supportive school community. Rebecca Cross was re-elected as School Council President and I thank her for her dedication to the school. I would like to acknowledge the work of the Fundraising Committee. The funds that they provide are very much appreciated by the school community. I do thank all the parents and members of the school community who have supported their Easter raffle which raised over $1000. Five amazing Easter hampers were offered as prizes and the winners have been announced Yesterday we celebrated Harmony Day which was a fabulous way to end the term. The harmony message was that everybody belongs and at our very culturally diverse school we embrace and celebrate our differences and at WPS everybody belongs. Yesterday we

explored and celebrated our indigenous heritage with aboriginal art, storytelling and dance. Thank you to the SRC and the BRC students who were integral to the smooth running of the day and to all the

staff especially to Andrew Knox and the specialist team for their planning and organisation. Last Friday the whole school participated in the ‘National Day Against Bullying and Violence’ by making a star as part of the ‘One million Stars to End Violence project’. Our 500 stars will be sent to Brisbane as part of an installation for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff for an excellent terms work and for always going above and beyond when it comes to our students. This week we had a group of staff and students enjoying the challenge of the 100km Alpine Bike ride on the Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail. What champion bike riders they are. This is the last day of term 1. School will recommence on Tuesday April 18th. I would like to wish everybody a very happy Easter and a safe a relaxing holiday period. I look forward to term 2 and working with the school community to ensure our students have the very best learning opportunities Marie Hayes, Principal

From the Assistant Principal…. On Thursday we celebrated Harmony Day at Warringa Park School. The message of Harmony Day is everybody belongs and this is certainly something that we promote at our school. We have students and staff from over 70 different nationalities and they all call Australia home. The staff and students celebrated our cultural diversity and learning more about each other and our wide world. The Specialists team lead by Andrew Knox, Therese Bourke and the SRC has planned an excellent day of celebration. Orange is the harmony colour so students came to school in national costumes or wore something orange and joined in the fun. A sea of orange participated in an aria of activities based on ‘being and Aboriginal for a day’. Students took part in cultural dancing, jumping castle, cultural face painting and Henna tattoos, drumming circle, cultural dress up, multicultural sports and the list goes on. If all these activities facilitated a feeling of harmony Activities hosted by the

Multimedia centre team reflected our Inquiry focus of the term: ‘The power of yet’ in having a growth mindset. Thank you to all the staff and students, across all of our campuses, who came together to build harmony across Warringa Park School. Not to mention the excellent videos students made to celebrate harmony day.

Principal’s Newsletter 31st March 2017

Last day Term 1 today. Early dismissal at 2:30pm

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Thank you to all the excellent ePortfolios the students made over the course of the term. Most of the students’ ePortfolios can be located in the application: Seesaw. Their work demonstrates the high level of learning delivered by our dedicated staff. I am so proud of what has been achieved in such a short term. Well done to everybody! I hope you have a lovely Easter Break. Dehlia Dawson Assistant Principal

Harmony Day

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Wellbeing news… What an excellent start to the year we have had and it is great to reflect on the work that has been done over the term. Highlights for

the Wellbeing team have been the formation of our School Representative Council. These students will develop their leadership skills throughout the year and work closely with the Wellbeing team

to provide students across the school with a forum to express their views and be heard.

We also have leadership electives running in Multimedia and BRC and our VCAL Leadership Program went on a two day Leadership

Camp at Queenscliff this term. We are delighted to have Reliance Real Estate supporting our VCAL Leadership Team and the development of leadership programs across the school. This is an

exciting partnership and on top of supporting school programs members of the Reliance Real Estate Team have attended Leadership programs.

Harmony day was a huge success and students across all

campuses celebrated the wonderful diversity that is our school community. The SRC did an excellent job supporting the specialist

team in the running of Harmony Day. This term we had two well attended NDIS information sessions. As this will be rolling out in our area late next year it is a great opportunity to begin to learn about the process and what will be involved for you and your family. There will be further workshops run at school over

the next six months. Information regarding these sessions will appear in the school newsletter. I hope you have an enjoyable break and we are very much looking forward to working with you in term 2.

Child Safe Standards Victoria has introduced compulsory minimum standards for organisations and schools that provide services for children to help protect children from abuse.

The Child Safe Standards form part of the Victorian Government’s response to the Betrayal of Trust Inquiry (the 2013 Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations). Education, awareness raising and helping organisations and schools to create and maintain child safe environments will be the initial focus of the Child Safe Standards. Warringa Park School has completed an audit in 2016 related to meeting Child Safe Standards and is compliant.

The school values the importance of putting the child at the focus of education, safety and wellbeing. Recently our school was named as a Lead School for the Respectful Relationships initiative. The Respectful Relationships initiative is in response to the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence. The Respectful Relationships initiative allows our school to collaborate with the Respectful Relationship Team and other schools for a period of at least 18 months to build and sustain school cultures of respect and gender equality, both as learning places and as workplaces that aim to achieve long-term change in the community. The Victorian Government is investing $21.8 million over two years to support the delivery of a whole school approach to the prevention of family violence. The Respectful Relationships Project team will assist with supporting our school to implement a whole school approach to the prevention of family violence and to deliver the P-12 Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships curriculum.

Child Safety Is Everyone’s Responsibility Talk to your children asking them: When do you feel safe? What makes you feel safe? What would you do if you don’t feel safe?

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Compass – Parent Portal Over the next couple of weeks, we will have a short how to guide on how to use the Compass Information Portal. If you do not yet have a username / password for Compass, please contact the school or via our internal helpdesk http://helpdesk.warringapark.vic.edu.au

Adding a Note or Approval

If your child is absent you can now notify the school via Compass along with the reason why they are absent. To do this, log into Compass https://warringapark-vic.compass.education Log in and click Profile, Attendance, Unexplained.

To add a note or approval, they can select one or more of the absences listed, then select the "Explain with Note/Approval" button.

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Adding a Note/Approval for a future absence You can also add approval for absences in the future To do this from the Profile/Attendance page, they can click on the 'Add Attendance Note/Approval' link listed underneath the name of you student.

This will take you to the Attendance screen, with a pop-up window to enter details of the note or approval. You can then select the applicable date range - in the future if required. Please ensure that the dates are correct. If you make any mistakes, you will need to con-tact Reception to get this sorted out.

Help If you need any assistance, please either advise the reception office via phone, IT via our internal helpdesk http://helpdesk.warringapark.vic.edu.au or feel free to come in and we will attempt to help you further. Due to privacy information, we will only give out passwords if we can verify your details.

Principal’s Award Winners Term 1 2017

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Warringa updates! Dates for the diary: Term 1: 31st January-31st March 2017 31 March: last day assembly and 2:30pm early dismissal

Term 2: Tuesday 18th April—30th June 2017 25 Apr: ANZAC day public holiday 9 May: Mother’s Day stall—main campus 9:30-2pm 10 May: Mother’s Day stall—BRC 10-12 noon 11 May: Mother’s Day afternoon tea 12 May: Jump Rope for Heart 22 May: School Council meets 26 May: Curriculum Day—no students at school 12 June: Queen’s Birthday public holiday 20 June: School photos: CRC, BR, VCAL 22 June: School photos: WPS campus 23 June: Reports home 26 June: School Council meets 30 June: Assembly & 2:30pm early dismissal

Term 3: 17th July to 22nd September 2017

Going on Camp?

If your student is going on a school camp (how exciting!) please ensure the following: 1. Let your bus chaperone know the

dates when your student will NOT be going on the bus so that the bus doesn’t wait for a student that is away on camp and

2. Check with the chaperone if your student’s camp baggage can go on the bus as many of our buses are NOT ABLE to accommodate the additional baggage that students need to take to camp. You will probably have to arrange to both drop off and pick up your student from school. This is an important safety issue for the buses.

Parent Tours 2017: These are the dates for school tours from 9:30-11am 20th April 25th May 22nd June 27th July 24th August 14th Sept 19th Oct 16th November

2017 Curriculum Days: 30th January 17th February 26th May 6th November

Easter Egg Raffle Results: 1st Prize - Katrina

2nd Prize - Antoinetta Muliett

3rd Prize - Kirsty Ryan

4th Prize - Faith Valentine

5th Prize - Luke Dougherty

Thanks to everyone who supported the raffle. The

raffle made $1031 for the school which is fabu-

lous !! The Fundraising Team wishes everyone a

Happy and Safe Easter and school holidays.