At Willoughby Public School we aim to cultivate socially-aware learners who are critical and creative thinkers, within a safe, respectful and responsible learning community.
Dear Willoughby Parents/Carers,
It's been another busy fortnight at Willoughby Public School.
Band Camp took place last weekend after cancellations over recent years due to Covid. Thanks to the P&C Band Committee for organising and for the band conductors, tutors and parent volunteers for helping to make the magic happen. Special thanks to WPS staff Ms Stroak, Ms Wiber and Mr Atkinson for accompanying the students. A short highlights video is linked below.
Last Tuesday evening staff engaged in a twilight professional learning session around Visible Learning. Executive staff will attend a follow up in coming weeks. It is wonderful to see the impact Visible Learning is having across the school as students become more invested in, and aware of, their learning.
Wednesday saw a burst water main and significant rectification works carried out at the front of the school. We appreciate the community's flexibility in using alternate entry and exit points while this work was carried out.
A huge thank you to Woolworths at Northbridge who kindly donated (and delivered) supplies of bottled dinking water for students and staff. We really appreciate the help and assistance they provided!
We continue to navigate Covid and are working hard to minimise the spread through enhanced cleaning and limiting larger groups mixing indoors. As such, our weekly assemblies will continue to be held virtually until the end of Week 7. Masks are still strongly encouraged, particularly in indoor settings.
Our Bookweek and Grandparents Day event will be going ahead this year on Thursday 25 August. We are making a couple of changes to ensure it can take place in a Covid-safe way and more information and details will be sent out early next week as these plans are finalised.
Thank you to all involved in the Education Week virtual event. It was great to see so many occupations and careers represented across the student population. Special thanks to Emily Wong for putting together the virtual event showcase, photos and videos. Links are below.
Teachers and students are preparing to head off for Year 6 (and 2/6R class) Camp next week. Thank you to the teachers involved in the preparation and organisation of camp - it is a big job. Thank you also to the families who will be conducting pre-camp rapid antigen tests to help us all stay healthy and safe while away. We're looking forward to an exciting few days at Broken Bay!
In partnership with our school P&C, we’re excited to have recently joined the URSTRONG Schools community. URSTRONG is all about empowering kids with friendship skills while providing the adults in their lives, both parents and teachers, with a common language to support them. Kids learn what’s normal in a friendship, the difference between healthy and unhealthy friendships and how to stand up for themselves with kid-friendly concepts. As a URSTRONG School we now have access to a variety of resources, lesson plans, videos and URSTRONG’s Friendology 101 friendship curriculum which tie in with our whole school PBEL and student wellbeing focus.
The next P&C Meeting will be held straight after the Father's Day Breakfast event on Friday 2 September. We hope this alternate time allows more WPS Parents/Carers the opportunity to attend.
I have returned from my holiday and would like to thank Emma Blake and the executive team for their leadership in my absence. I'm looking forward to having a dance at the Stage 2 Disco tonight.
Kind regards,
Jennifer Simmonds
