Transition – Led by Bec Welsford
The Transition Action Team is tasked with developing student-centred inclusive transition processes for students moving between year levels at Footscray Primary School. This includes developing the structures and processes for Step-up Day when students meet their 2021 teachers and classes. A whole school buddy system is being developed and documented and will run at the same time each fortnight with explicit social and emotional learning in the alternative weeks.
Induction – Led by Emily Roberts
The Induction Action Team is tasked with co-developing an intensive induction process that guides new staff through a supportive and sequenced induction over the course of their first year at Footscray Primary School. This will include basics like a school tour and HR matters through to coaching in active supervision of the yard, wellbeing check-ins and regular check ins with leadership. The team will also develop an induction process for new students joining our school community. The programs need to accommodate new staff and students who join us at the beginning of a new year and also those who join at other points throughout the school year.
Start-up Program – Led by Julia Woods, Felicity Maxwell & Andrew Gray
The Start-Up Action Team is tasked with developing a start-up program for each year level to be enacted in Term 1, 2021. Learning sequences for Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Wellbeing/Learning Environment will each have approximately 10 lessons planned. The program guides teachers through the development of school-wide consistent practices for creating safe and engaging learning environments, routines and structures that build independence and shared responsibility of the learning space, high impact teaching practices and pedagogy, and ongoing informal assessment of learning. The lessons can be supplemented by the 2021 teaching teams and timed to suit the cohort across the first four weeks. Elements of the PYP will be present across all learning sequences.
School Council Public Reporting Meeting – November 25 – 7:15pm – Webex
We have our final school council meeting for the year next Wednesday evening.
Following on from the meeting, we will hold our annual public reporting meeting where we report on the proceedings of council since the date of the previous public meeting, and present the endorsed 2019 Annual Report (available here - https://www.footscrayps.vic.edu.au/uploaded_files/media/annua_report_2019.pdf). The Webex details are below and also found in the compass post.
WebEx Details
https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=me0b982c664a3018a8714252ec6c460a0
Wednesday, Nov 25, 2020 7:15 pm
Meeting number: 165 208 7743 Password: meeting
Join by video system
Dial 1652087743@eduvic.webex.com
You can also dial 210.4.202.4 and enter your meeting number.
Join by phone
+61-3-8593-9167 Australia Toll (Melbourne)
Access code: 165 208 7743
It is hard to take on the captaincy in a year when children have only been on school grounds for a limited time. We were able to present Nina, Owen, Alex and Maeve with their official School Captain badges a short while ago and last week we added their photographs to the foyer. Our Captains have proudly represented our school in a meeting with the Minister for Education, James Merlino, and now two meetings with our local MP, Katie Hall. Thank you Alex, Maeve, Owen and Nina for your continued dedication to our school and your leadership positions.
Melanoma is the most common cancer in young Australians aged 13 to 24 years. School staff have a duty of care and obligation to ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to minimise the risks to student health and safety arising from exposure to UV. You can support us by reinforcing this message at home.
Appropriate hat styles which protect the face, back of the neck, eyes and ears include:
We have observed a growing trend amongst students to tuck in the fabric of the legionnaire hat to convert it into a baseball cap. Whilst I do admire their creativity and resourcefulness, it doesn’t do the job of protecting those adorable little ears! We appreciate your support with this matter.
Universal Children’s Day is celebrated annually on 20th November. The goal of Universal Children’s day is to improve child welfare worldwide, promote and celebrate children’s rights and promote togetherness and awareness amongst all children.
At Footscray Primary School, we are promoting student voice and agency on Universal Children’s Day. Students have ‘taken over’ their learning by negotiating with their peers and teachers to design the curriculum for the day. Students were given some parameters, such as having to include one hour of literacy and one hour of numeracy, however, they could choose the focus for each of these hours. For the other learning periods, students chose their own curriculum focus based on their negotiations with their peers. Some classes are having extra numeracy, some are focusing on inquiry investigations, some have scheduled extra art or PE.
As part of their negotiations, students elected to have Friday as a casual dress day. All students have the choice of wearing casual clothes or their uniform, and there is no donation required. Classes that have PE, or have negotiated extra sports session will need to wear runners so they can fully participate, and students may not wear thongs for health and safety reasons.
We have shared student ideas and priorities with several playground design companies, and they are currently designing and quoting the play area. The most popular design elements chosen by our students are:
Once the design is selected and we have costings for the whole design, we will identify the first stage to be built, using the money already fundraised by the school community. We hope to begin building as soon as possible.
Francine has been volunteering her time every Monday and some weekends to continue work on the mural created with the collective designs of our students. It is so eye-catching already! Clare provided us with framed copies of The Uluru Statement in English, Vietnamese and Bengali and these have been placed in our Indigenous corner. We have a large collection of Vietnamese texts in our library and we are in the process of purchasing Italian books to join the bilingual section. Along with Vietnamese and Italian, Jess is helping us to source books in the many languages represented in our community so all children will have an opportunity to access literature in a language that is familiar to them.
Class | Student name |
Foundation A | Johnny L & Sarah H |
Foundation B | Elise W & Elijah J |
1A | Mina C & Harriet D |
1B | Joanie I |
1C | Marcus G |
2A | Luke B |
2B | Etta & Duy |
2C | Josie W |
34A | Ben S |
34B | Ava J |
34C | Paloma S |
34D | Cristian D |
34E | Zeno C |
5A | Calab T |
5B | Kase P |
6A | Harly |
6B | Maeve O |
6C | Alex S |
PE | FB Karen H |
Art | Tesfaalem T |
Class | Student Name |
Foundation B | Valentina & Shammo |
1A | Jude & Theo |
1B | Luken & Charlie |
1C | Lily & Ava |
2A | Abigail M |
2B | Sia & Namsel |
2C | Lasal |
34B | Will D |
34D | Mahad |
34E | Megan L |
5A | Violet Z |
5B | Kim L |
6A | Yuna |
6B | Kinley & Diego |
6C | Mina |
PE | Elnatal T |
Art | Ruby B |