Willoughby Public School Newsletter

Dear Willoughby Parents/Carers,

I hope you had a lovely holiday with your children. We have certainly enjoyed their return to school with a great deal of learning taking place for students and staff alike as we model lifelong learning. Staff Development Day included an introduction to the new K-2 Mathematics & English curriculum with implementation occurring in 2023. We will continue to upskill in this area throughout 2022.  

The Kindergarten Disco last Friday was so much fun! The children had been practising and were able to dance to the macarena and YMCA with great skill. Thank you to the parents and Kindergarten teacher team for giving their time to this event. I’m looking forward to attending the Stage 2 Disco in the coming weeks.

It has been a big two weeks for Kindergarten as they also celebrated 100 days of learning at WPS. It's been such a positive start to schooling for them, and seeing their growth is a testament to how hard they are working. 

Congratulations to Mr Goodwin, our Year 3 AP, who is celebrating the birth of his beautiful baby boy, Tyde. Mr Goodwin is on some leave to enjoy this time with his family until the end of Week 3. Miss Regina Chen has been doing an excellent job leading as relieving Assistant Principal during this time.

Welcome Ms Kirsten Stroak, who has been permanently appointed to Willoughby PS. She joins us as part of the Year 4 team and has already been a wonderful asset.

Congratulations to Georgie Morgan, who has received an appointment much closer to her home. We will miss her smiling face at Willoughby PS, however, we understand that driving three and a half hours less daily will certainly benefit her family. 

Year 5 camp sounded like an absolute blast! I am so proud of the students and how they represented our school. Thank you to Mr Hutchison, Mrs Hammond, Ms Tonks, Ms Champion, Mrs Andrews, Mr Michaeil and Ms White for all of the time and effort spent organising and attending camp. They are absolute superstars for giving up time with their own families to support WPS students have a magnificent time increasing their collaborative and critical thinking skills, problem solving, becoming more independent and all the other wonderful things that camp brings with it.

Congratulations also to our Elite Golfers Al, Blake, Harrison and Joe who attended Waringah Golf Club on Monday, 25th July. According to Mr Atkinson they had impeccable manners, great sportsmanship, real talent and a positive attitude. A special congratulations to Al and Blake who won their events and will go on to represent WPS with pride in the Sydney North team at the State Championships in September. 

Please take a look below to celebrate some work that the students have been partaking in. Ask your child what they’ve been learning about in class! At Willoughby, one area we focus on is making the learning visible – that means students understand what they are learning (learning intention), how to achieve it (success criteria) and what they can do next to make they’re learning even better (feedback). This forms a major component of the professional learning that we are undertaking as a staff.

Thank you for your understanding around the changes to Open Day in Education week from face to face to a virtual event. We are currently undertaking a 4 week blitz of layered safety measures to support our student and staff safety with respiratory illnesses including COVID-19. We will continue to monitor the situation to determine how to move forward with future school events like Grandparents day. Stay tuned!    

Stay safe,

Emma Blake (Relieving for Jennifer Simmonds)

Congratulations to our Year 5 students for the way you embraced the activities and challenges of camp. 

I'm not sure if the perfect camp exists, but my experience over the past few days tells me this was it. 

A combination of perfect weather, great activities, beautifully behaved students (& staff, of course) and delicious food made for a really enjoyable camp. 

A giant thank you to all of the staff involved in planning and organising the camp and for the Year 5 teachers and Mrs Andrews who accompanied the students. We really appreciate you giving of your time so that our students can experience opportunities like this.

Below is a quick snippet of some of the fun we had. More to follow over coming weeks as we compile photos and videos to share. 

I'm extremely proud of the way the students represented Willoughby Public School and their safe, respectful and responsible behaviour while away. 

Mr Michaeil :-)

This week in music, students are practising their listening skills by drawing what they hear. In preparation for the Musica Viva performance in Week 9, we have been looking at a range of compositions by oboist Celia Craig and guitarist Caspar Hawksley. They will then come up with their own compositions based on their drawings. Mrs Lyons & Miss Wiber 

This is a fabulous term for the Library and for our amazing students. It’s the term where we celebrate reading and books in a big way. The star of the show is Book Week in Week 6 – the week of 22nd-26th August! Each year there is a theme, which highlights a special part of the reading experience that is worth talking about and celebrating. In 2022 that theme is Dreaming with eyes open – the perfect link between reading and books. A great book allows you to dream your way into that world. It is for this reason that this year we are asking students to come dressed up as their Dream Book Character! A character from a book or book series that you have really enjoyed and that had a setting that you found fascinating, exciting or just wished you could visit for real. Our day for dressing up coincides with our Grandparent’s and Special Person’s Day and Book Fair, which will all happen on Thursday 25th August. We will keep you posted on updates with exact arrangements as the day draws closer, particularly regarding Covid-safe requirements and arrangements. Each Stage also has an exciting author visit to look forward to this term – someone I have specially chosen for them based on their age and interests.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The challenge is still open, and I’d like to congratulate the 75 students from Yr 3-6 who have already completed their reading log online and have qualified for their certificate this year – well before the completion date of Friday 19th August. Something to be very proud of! Our Library staff have been working hard each week with our K-2 students in their lessons, and they too are very near completion of the Challenge and will receive their Certificates next term.

All 3-6 students who wish to earn their certificate for 2022 should work to complete their reading of all 20 books, and have them recorded online by midnight Friday 19th August, to qualify. Any student who needs assistance or wants to record these at any time at school can do so in class, or before school or at lunchtimes on one of our Chromebooks in the Library.

Thank You!

Thank you to the many students who have made a special effort to make sure they returned their Library books from the holidays promptly so others could borrow them. This really helps keep everybody happy and the Library collection continually moving between as many students as possible throughout the year. If your child hasn’t finished a book by the due date, then they are always allowed to renew the book until it is finished – they just need to let us know. In the unfortunate event that a book becomes lost or damaged, also please just let us know. The book can then be paid for, or another copy bought by you so that again – that book can quickly be available again to be lent out to others.

Mrs Debbie de Silva

Teacher Librarian

What a term of netball it’s been! As we enter a three week break from competition, we want to congratulate and thank all of our players, coaches, umpires, umpire mentors, and team managers for your commitment to making 2022 a fantastic season so far.

We’re observing all Netball and NetSetGo teams improving their skills, with many teams in contention for the upcoming finals series and some teams regraded to higher divisions based on their performances in the first half of the draw. Congratulations to our WPS12 (Orange) and WPS19 (Silver) NetSetGo teams which recently moved divisions.

Congratulations also to all of our umpires who have improved their skills as they’ve supported our teams over the last 10 weeks of competition. We’re seeing enormous development and growth in the umpires participating in our Year 6 Umpire Mentoring Program with some recently receiving their first umpiring ‘level’, including Tilly N and Holly B. With more ‘levelling’ opportunities in Rounds 10 to 15, we hope to get more of our new umpires to this stage. Some of our ex-WPS students and regular umpires have also been rewarded for their hard work, including Lena M, Rosie M, Kiki G and Millie V who’ve all received JL3 awards; Matilda C who’s received her JL2; and Aqua F who’s been awarded her National C badge.

This term we’ve enjoyed two fun and successful fundraising rounds organised by the Northern Suburbs Netball Association (NSNA) - Pink Round for Breast Cancer Research and Crazy Socks Day for The Kids’ Cancer Project. A big thanks to all our teams which participated and donated to these great causes.

Over these school holidays, the school Astrocourt will be re-marked and the new NetSetGo bracket and hoop welded onto the undercover pole of the Cola. Thank you to the committee members who have arranged and will oversee this work; and to Mr Michaeil and Mr Hancock who continue to assist the Committee to make these improvements to facilities used by Club members.

When games resume on the first Friday/Saturday/Sunday after the holidays (22/23/24 July), we enter the final weeks of competition. It will be Round 11 for the Netball Competition and Round 10 for NetSetGo. Training will resume for all teams from Monday 18 July.

Some of our teams will play 14 rounds this season, plus up to three weeks of finals, with others playing 15 rounds and up to two weeks of finals. NetSetGo do not have finals, instead enjoying a Gala morning scheduled for August 14.

Netball finals times have now been posted by NSNA. For semi-finals, they’ll be no change to timeslot for any grades. Friday finals and grands finals are scheduled for either 5pm or 6pm, with Saturday finals and grand finals scheduled for 8am. NetSetGo Gala timings will be published on PlayHQ closer to the date.

Finally, a few important reminders:

·         Remember, there’s no netball without umpires – Your umpire is someone’s child, parent, and/or friend and by showing up and doing their best, they’re ensuring games can be played. Please keep calm and be respectful, always.

·         Fixtures & results - You can access all team fixtures here on PlayHQ by selecting the NetSetGo or Netball competition, then your team.

·         No dogs allowed - Please remain aware that dogs are NOT allowed at the netball courts on game days and owners will be asked to leave by officials.

·         Next Committee meeting - Our Term 3 Committee Meeting is scheduled for 7pm on Monday 1 August. Please mark it in your diary and look out for further details which will be circulated at the beginning of Term 3. At this meeting we will be outlining the need for new 2023 volunteers to run the Club for the players.

We wish all our members an enjoyable break over the school holidays, during which we hope you’ll get some time to relax and refresh.