The last two weeks have been full of celebration at Wattle Grove. We have celebrated both staff and students at several events and competitions, and we can say we are very proud leaders.
Chipping Norton Network Awards
Last Friday, three of our fabulous staff members, Miss Solo, Miss Clarke and Mrs Hankin, received a recognition award for their work at Wattle Grove. Miss Solo received the executive award, Miss Clarke the class teacher award and Mrs Hankin, the administrative support award. I am sure you would all agree these three ladies are worthy recipients.
Secretary Awards
Last Tuesday night, I sat proudly at the Sydney Town Hall with Mrs Porteous, as Mrs Burton received a 2023 Secretary's Award for Excellent Service in recognition of her work as a School Learning Support Office, Intensive Learning Program tutor and Facebook Manager. This is a prestigious award, which is very deserving. Well done Mrs Burton , the whole school community congratulate you and thank you for your outstanding work.
Shining Stars
Last Friday night, Mrs Valensise and I had the pleasure of attending the Shining Stars Showcase to watch our very own Monty. Monty was part of the signing choir who performed two beautiful songs, Here Comes the Sun and Colour Me in Sunshine. It was such a great night. We would like to acknowledge the work of Justine Griffith, Specialist Teacher – Hearing, who has not only supported Monty’s participation in Shining Stars but was instrumental in the organisation of the entire showcase.
PSSA
The PSSA winter season has come to an end, and we would like to recognise the fabulous effort, skill and sportsmanship of all the teams and the leadership of the coaches. The coaches and students give up their lunchtime to practise and play, which is admired. We had fantastic results, see further on. In saying this, it is not about the win, but the opportunity for our students to play competitive sport and have fun at the same time!
Debating at its best!
Last week the Wattle Grove debating team hosted Revesby PS. The topic was 'Recycling is a waste of time' and we were the affirmative team. The team learnt a lot of great facts about the recycling process. The Wattle Grove team were super prepared with their arguments and facts and presented these with a high level of skill and confidence, coming away with the win! Congratulations to the team and a huge thank you to Ms Harris for her leadership of the team! They have their final debate in week 10, good luck team Wattle Grove.
SASS Week
This week we celebrated our extraordinary SASS staff. Our office staff work extremely hard to ensure the smooth running of our school, from parent communication to Work Health and Safety procedures. Our School Learning Support Officers and Defence School Mentor, Mrs Dorr, guide many students in classrooms on a daily basis in areas of curriculum and wellbeing. Glenn Harvey, our General Assistant, works hard to ensure we have beautiful grounds, and our buildings are in perfect working order! We are extremely lucky at Wattle Grove to have such experienced and dedicated SASS staff, I don’t know what we would do without them!
Father’s Day Stall
I would like to give a big shout out to the P&C, for organising our yearly Father’s Day Stall. A huge thank you also goes to all our parent volunteers who came in on the day to help out. It was a great success! The children were very excited to show me the gifts they had chosen for the special men in their lives. I hope all our dads, granddads, pas, pops, uncles, carers and friends had a great day last Sunday!
Kindergarten Enrolments 2024 (Repeated Item)
If you have a child starting Kindergarten in 2024, could you please ensure your online enrolment application has been completed and submitted to the school and that all supporting documents have been received. This supports our school planning for 2024. We look forward to seeing our 2024 Kinder students at Orientation in Term 4.
Staff professional Learning
This week Mrs Boyes, Miss Cascio and Mrs Cook delved deeper into Number Talks taking the staff through a self reflection process. Teachers recorded themselves conducting a Number Talk with their class and listened back to identify the strengths and areas they could further improve on. Number Talks are a research based approach to deepening students' Number Sense by being able to talk through their strategies to solve a number problem. We are seeing great progress across the whole school as a result of this High Impact Professional Learning that has been delivered by these three expert teachers over the course of the year.
Aboriginal Education
A strategic focus for the Department in 2023 is Aboriginal Education and how as a school we can deepen cultural understanding. We would like to thank Mrs Robinson who has collaboratively planned some rich experiences for Our Aboriginal students in Years 3-6 over this past week. Stage 2 students visited the Opera House with some of our local schools in our network to meet some visiting students from Coonamble. This is a follow up from Miss Cameron's and Mrs Cook's Coonamble visit early in the year. Our Stage 3 students experienced a day of learning at the Georges River Environmental Education Centre (GREEC) to deepen their knowledge and connection to their culture and country. Thank you, Mrs Robinson and all our students who attended and displayed exemplary behaviour, curiosity and kindness to students from across the network.
R U OK?
14 September is 'R U Okay' Day. This is a national day for us to check in on those around us. There are four simple steps to reaching out.
Have a great fortnight everyone!
Nicole Cameron
Principal
Vicky Valensise
Deputy Principal
Last week I zoomed into K Blue to look at their fabulous writing. The students were so excited to share their work with me. Every student read me their writing and I was blown away with their demonstration of learnt skills. Well done K Blue!
I also zoomed into the SRC meeting this week. The students were busy working on posters to promote our school’s Positive Behaviour for Learning core values. They also discussed ways in which the school could support one of our Year Four students, Tyson, who is participating in ‘Tour De Kids’, a fundraiser for the Starlight Foundation. Our SRC students are working super hard for our school.
| 5 Merit Awards | Mitchell K Green , Zachary K Yellow, Addison K Blue, Asher K Blue, Audrey K Green, Walter K Green |
| 10 Merit Awards | Hudson 1 Aqua, Isla 1 Sky, Declan 2 Olive, Cody 1 Sky. Serg 1 Aqua, Lily 1 Navy |
| 15 Merit Awards | Hamodi 2 Mint, Kseniya 1 Sky, Asher 2 Olive, Mia 2 Mint, Zara 2 Lime, Lila 2 Mint, Claire 2 Olive |
| K Green - Emilio, Damon, Noah D, Noah, Jackson, Charlotte |
| K Blue - Louis, Kevin, Ruby, Joelle, Kobe |
| K Yellow - Lincoln, Keary, Manaia, Tyler |
| 1 Aqua - Elijah, Dallas, Gracie, Savanna, Rua |
| 1 Navy - Hendrix, Anna, Chloe, Ava, Santi, Ashlee |
| 1 Sky - Liam, Charlotte, Kai, Anthony, Daniel, Isla |
| 2 Mint - Francesca, Reegan, Manasvi, Izzy, Milly, Ellira |
| 2 Lime - Alexandra, Bailey, Flynn, Jack, Zoe |
| 2 Olive - Katie, Blake, Lylah, Georiga H, Jordan, Helena |
| 3 Amber - Kaira, Isabella, Savvina, Ella, Jais, Sophia |
| 3 Gold - Quinn, Henry C, Zara, Emily, Nalika, Vasilis |
| 3 Canary: |
| Week 6: Emilia, Hudson, Amaya, Anouk, Harry, Kayla |
| Week 8: Cristian, Olivia, Eliana, Hollie, Tyler, Brielle |
| 4 Crimson - Everly, Carter, Declan, Antony, Sienna, Hunter |
| 4 Scarlet - Clarizze, Kaitlyn, Ashton, Kiahna, Jacob, John |
| 4 Berry - Ryan, Samuel, Joshua, Panayioti, Aakifah, Indiana |
| 5 Indigo - Bella, Kaelan, Tahlia Hoye, Maddison, Micah, Xander |
| 5 Lilac - Ivy, Isabel, Eden, Mikayla, Ajisth, Aadi |
| 5 Lavender - Lenny, Cameron, Mason, Zack, Lucy, Erica |
| 6 Pink - Mackenzy, James, Jordan, Jack, Audrey, Gelsie |
| 6 Magenta - Marcus, Kaitlyn, Jon, Annabel, Ayman, Nella, Asiyah |
| 6 Flamingo - Miriam, Abby, Liam, Patrick, Aria V, Zac |
| K Green | Maia, Indiana, Jackson, Leo, Willow |
| K Yellow | Isaac, Charlotte, Alaska, Ledger |
| 1 Aqua | Savanna, James, Hugo |
| 1 Navy | Hudson, Alexander, Zoey, Hendrix, Mason, Ashlee, Santiago, Chloe, Sophie, Olivia, Lily |
| 1 Sky | Daniel, Kai, Liam, Lucy, Max, Grace |
| 2 Lime | Lizzy |
| 2 Mint | Ellira, Hayley, Rebekah, Salesi, Lincoln, Cullen |
| 2 Olive | Myles, Claire, Blake, Piper, Lucas, Georgia, Ayden, Mila, Riley |
Welcome to week 8, I hope you all had a nice weekend celebrating Father’s Day.
Notes have gone home, communicating the need for families to let the school know if your child will be leaving our school at the end of 2023. This information provides the school with valuable information to best support student transition and school planning for 2024. If you did not receive a note you can collect one from the office or I can email one out to you.
The students and I recently participated in an activity where we had a ball of string and each child would hold onto a piece and say their name, age, what their Mum/dad/carer does and what they like to do in their spare time. They would then throw the wool to another student. At the end of the activity we realised that we were all connected and had learnt something new about each other.
| Mrs Kiri Dorr Defence School Mentor | |||||
Back in May I entered our school into the Anzac Day School Awards for 2023. We didn't win but our school received a Certificate Of Excellence for our submission from the Minister for Veterans Affairs. The Certificate Of Excellence is for helping our students in commemorating the service and sacrifice of Australian service men and women at our school. I personally got a Certificate Of Appreciation for my hard work in putting together the submission. I arranged all the activities in the presentation for our students to help commemorate the service and sacrifice of our service men and women.
Kiri Dorr (DSM)
WGPS Wattle Grove PS was full of excitement last Tuesday when we had a visit from a koala who made our wetlands his new home. Stage 3 have been working hard to regenerate the wetlands to protect our endangered Cumberland Plain Land Snail and make it more inhabitable for all our native animals. Stage 3 had a naming competition and 5 Lilac won with our newest visitor now named “Khoa”. Khoa is now on the move trying to make his way back to the bush with the help of Wires and Sydney Wildlife Rescue. A very special moment indeed for our school. Safe travels Khoa.
Mrs Farah
