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Dear Parents and Carers, We are at the end of Week 4 and the term is passing quickly as usual. We have had many visitors into the school and they have all commented on how well

the students are engaged in their learning and what interesting and purposeful learning is happening across the school. There was lots of skipping physical activity and fun today with ‘Jump Rope for Heart’ and a big thanks to the physical education staff for organising. This is the reporting term and teachers will be beginning midyear assessments during the next few weeks so as to be well prepared for report writing on May 26th I thank them for this important work. This week we have had 20 students from Hong Kong visit the school and spend three days in the early years classrooms. This was organised through Rustic Pathways and these students have been great teacher assistants and the program has provided some authentic cross cultural learning of both the visitors and our students. Thanks to Megan Retallick for organising. We have also celebrated Volunteer Week this week. The ‘Give Happy, Live Happy’ theme certainly resonates with the many volunteers who work in the school and we really appreciate their amazing contribution. A coffee voucher for Café 11 is available to any volunteer so please collect from the office and enjoy the best coffee in the west. We had a very successful Mother’s Day stall last Tuesday at WPS and Wednesday at BRC. Thank you to our amazing group of fundraisers. Their efforts are truly appreciated. The

Mother’s Day High Tea in the beautifully decorated hall and with fine food attracted a huge crowd. Thanks to Therese Bourke, Joan Kurtis and the SRC for excellent event organisation. As everybody would know the pickup and drop off time for buses at Warringa Park School is an extremely busy time. Currently we have 18 contract buses transporting 335 students to and from school. We do ask that vehicles (parents, carers, taxi drivers, contractors) to do not enter the school grounds between 8:45am and 9:10am in the morning and 2:45pm and 3:10pm in the afternoon. It was great to have so many parents participate in the Post School Options bus tour this week which visited service providers. Next week the bus tour will be focus on local employment and TAFE’s so I encourage you to book a seat if your child is in the last years of schooling. I will be taking some Long Service Leave as of the 25th May until the end of term and Dehlia Dawson will be in charge of the school in my absence. Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mums across the school. I hope Sunday is a relaxing day filled with joyful family time.

Marie Hayes, Principal

From the Assistant Principal Education Week will be celebrated at Warringa Park School in the week commencing the 22nd of May. The overall goal of Education Week is to positively profile the strengths and achievements of education. The Healthy Mind, Healthy Body theme

aligns to the Education State target of “Happy, Healthy and Resilient Kids”, which recognises that the healthy development of our students helps to drive the future prosperity of Victoria. Building personal resilience benefits students both within school and through the rest of their lives. By focusing on building high resilience, students are equipped with skills and strategies to tackle current and future challenges. Physical activity is vital for increased health and fitness, developing coordination and motor skills, and has a positive effect on general wellbeing including mental health and social development. This year is especially exciting as the theme of ‘Healthy Mind, Healthy Body’ will give us yet another opportunity to immerse students and engage parents in the fantastic world of learning. The school is inviting the parent and wider school community to visit the school, participate in classroom programs and showcase the learning achievements that are taking place. It’s a great opportunity to not only visit the school but become an active participant in some purposeful learning for a short time. During Education Week, we like to acknowledge the excellent work of our staff who are so committed to our students as learners. We are looking forward to catching up with you during the week. Please keep your eyes open for more details from your child's learning centre in the upcoming week as to how you can join us to celebrate education week! Dehlia Dawson, Assistant Principal

Principal’s Newsletter 12th May 2017

26th May & 12th June no students at school

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Wellbeing News This fortnight has been busy across the school with some wonderful celebrations. Our Mother’s Day afternoon tea was a great celebration with lots of our wonderful mothers coming to join us for a yummy afternoon tea. There were some beautiful poems read out to celebrate mums and the SRC did a great job supporting the event.

Jump Rope for Heart was a great success today and again the SRC did some great support work for the event. What a wonderful whole school event and thank you to our Sport team for organising. Well done to all students for their participation and fundraising.

As part of our schools involvement in the Respectful Relationships Initiative, we had a whole school introduction by our Department of Education Mentors. This presentation was extremely thought provoking and engaging and as a staff we are excited and motivated to being this work which will support our students in the area of relationships and gender equality and will support our whole school and community in the area of Family Violence. Such important work and we are delighted to be a lead school in this program.

As part of this program next week we have a parent information session on Puberty, Sexual Health, Relationships – for young people with an Intellectual Disability. This will be on Tuesday next week at 6pm. Please see flyer further down in newsletter.

I hope you have a restful weekend.

Caitriona Harkin

Assistant Principal, Wellbeing

Jump Rope for Heart

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Mother’s Day Celebrations

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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 ap-proval. 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 contact Recep-

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?

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Visitors from Hong Kong

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Are you interested in volunteering in the

garden at Warringa? If you are keen to assist students to learn about edible plants we would love your help. Call the

office to register.

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Warringa updates! Dates for the diary: Term 2: Tuesday 18th April—30th June 2017 16 May: Service Provider Bus tour 2 9am—3pm 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, Early dismissal last day at 2:30pm Term 4: 9th October to 22nd December 2017 Early dismissal last day at 1pm

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: Early Years 25th May, 22nd June, 27th July, 24th August , 14th September, 19th October, 16th November Middle Years 1st June, 3rd August, 7th September, 12th October

2017 Curriculum Days: 26th May 6th November

Variety - the Children's Charity

Variety has a grant round opening on 1 May 2017 to assist children who are sick, disadvantaged or have special

needs.

Variety - the Children's Charity helps children and their families with financial support for things like wheelchairs,

specialist equipment and medical supplies, when they can't afford them, and when government assistance isn't

available. For further information contact grants@varietyvic.org.au or 8698 3900 or visit the website

variety.org.au

Parents/carers…do you have a health care or pension card?

Do you have a Prep or Year 7 aged student? Please contact the office as soon as possible as you may be eligible for free school shoes

and a heavily discounted uniform pack. Contact the office on 9749 5774 or email us on warringa.park.sch@edumail.vic.gov.au