Latest News

From the Principal

Good afternoon wonderful Waddington families,

I am terribly sorry that I have been away from school last week. I am hoping to be back on Thursday after contracting a nasty virus that has unfortunately affected my vision and made it difficult for me to do anything. Ms Chivers has been doing a wonderful job to keep everything going and I know the Waddington staff have been working extra hard as well. We really are lucky to have the most amazing team at Waddington PS. 

Swimming starts today and I wanted to thank everyone for getting their payments in. Mrs Jones and Ms Báche have been busy following everyone up and we hope the students enjoy their lessons. Swimming is a vital part of Australian life and these lessons are essential for students to be able to remain safe in the water. 

On Wednesday, we will be having an assembly to thank our super staff for all of their dedication and hard work. It is World Teacher’s Day on Friday 28^th October, but at Waddington, we will be celebrating ALL staff and doing this on Wednesday (as most of our staff are here that day). If you would like to take the opportunity to thank some of our staff for the wonderful work they do on this day, I know it would be greatly appreciated. I have had the benefit of working at lots of different schools in my 15 years in education, but the Waddington PS staff eclipse them all. I have never met a more kind, collaborative or hard working group of people. Their dedication to the students at Waddington PS is inspiring and I hope you all know how much your children are cared and catered for. 

On Friday, the P&C will be holding their Halloween Disco! It is a much-loved event and all money raised ends up coming back to our school. We would love to see lots of our students there dressed up in their Halloween outfits. Thank you to our P&C and our wonderful staff who are helping to organise this event. 

On Thursday the 10^th of November at 2:30pm we would like to invite you for the official opening of our Queen’s Jubilee Garden. We hope you have enjoyed seeing the transformation next to Room 5 and we are pleased to have a new beautiful space for everyone to enjoy.  A reminder that students all need to attend school everyday to get the most benefit out of coming to school. This also includes students getting to school on time. We now have Run Club every Tuesday and Thursday morning to increase our student’s physical health and give them a great start for the day.

Kind regards,

Jemima Tomlinson 

Principal

From the Administration Team

The term planner is updated regularly and below are some important dates to be aware of for the last few weeks of school.

Please refer to the Term Planner page under the ‘Community’ tab for the most up-to-date events for this term and the planner for Term 4 (but this may be subject to change).

Important Dates

24th October 2022 – In-term Swimming Commences – PP to Year 6

25th October 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

26th October 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

26th October 2022 – Assembly – Teachers Day – Choir/Leaders

27th October 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

28th October 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

28th October 2022 – Teacher’s Day

28th October 2022 – P&C Halloween Disco

31st October 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

1st November 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

1st November 2022 – Interschool Athletics Carnival – Balga PS

2nd November 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

3rd November 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

4th November 2022 – In-term Swimming – PP to Year 6

9th November 2022 – Thank you Morning Tea

9th November 2022 – Opening of Queen’s Jubilee Garden (2.30pm)

2023 Planning

We are commencing the process of looking at classes for 2023. If you are not planning on returning to Waddington next year, please let us know as soon as possible so we have an idea of class numbers/structures for next year.

Room 9 – Busy little bees!

In Room 9 we cannot believe it is Term 4 and there are only 30 days left of school for the Year!!

This term we are exploring the Three Billy Goats Gruff as part of Talk for Writing. In week 2 a bridge appeared that we had to cross to get to class and we predicted what could live underneath it. We have role played the story, taking turns being the 3 billy goats and the mean Ugly troll.  We love retelling and sequencing the story using characters in our small world set up.  Our iMaths investigation shares the same theme, and we have given directions to the Billy goats, ordered them by size and used our problem-solving skills to equally share the spoils of Farmer MacDonald’s veggie patch. 

We have been relishing time outside as the weather changes, from working on our Fundamental movement and counting skills to using our new cubby and playground at break time. We are getting really good at the monkey bars and with the help of our imaginations the cubby has been transformed into a café, house on the moon and even as shelter from escaped dinosaurs! This has become a special place for a lot of us, and links with our Geography exploration of special places and how we look after them. 

Highlights have been learning about bullying, what it is and how we can react from the bully zero incursion, Pyjama day and a talk from our sustainability captains.  Wearing our pjs to school had us excited, and having popcorn provided by our fabulous P & C association was a treat!   

We are looking forward to sharing our songs at the Christmas concert as well as our 2 weeks of swimming!  

GraceLife Church- Morning Tea

On Friday 21st September Waddington staff were awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from GraceLife Church in recognition of our valuable contributions provided to families in our school community. Staff were also treated to a wonderful morning tea. Thank you to GraceLife Chruch for this acknowledgement and those delicious treats!

From the Principal

Dear Waddington families, 

Welcome to Week 9!

We have got an exciting last 2 weeks of term ahead of us. Next week, we will be having the School Assessment Team from the Department of Education coming in to visit our beautiful school. We are looking forward to showing them around Waddington PS and telling them all of the wonderful things we have been doing. We will be having some students meet with them, as well as some of our board members. 

Our staff have been busy working on our new vision and business plan for 2023 – 2026 and we would love your opinion on how we are doing at Waddington. Your views will help us shape our focus for the next 3 years. We would really appreciate as much feedback as we can, so we are asking parents to please take this short survey at  https://www.schoolsurvey.edu.au/s/Upc8VKzY

In the lead up to the holidays, and possibly over the holidays, our undercover area and basketball court will be getting some much needed upgrades. We are extremely excited about these and cannot wait to have them happen. Our students and staff deserve to have modern facilities to use and it is part of our commitment to providing the best environment for your children. 

We have some more staffing news. Ms Del Hemmingway, our fabulous Auslan teacher will be officially retiring at the end of this term. Ms Hemmingway came back from retirement two years ago, which was a huge help to the school. Ms Hemmingway now needs to look after her health, and has decided to retire permanently this time. Our staff, students and school community are extremely fond of Ms Hemmingway and we are very sad to see her leave. We all wish her well. 

With Ms Hemmingway’s retirement, we have been in discussions with Balga SHS and their head of Aboriginal Education, Donelle Slater. We have discussed as a staff the way forward for Waddington PS, and as you know we have had a strong focus on bringing in Noongar language for our students over the past couple of years. We have been fortunate to have been offered by Balga SHS to be a part of their Aboriginal Education program and have their Noongar teachers deliver Noongar at our school in 2023. This will be our Language Other Than English (LOTE). We are aware our students enjoy Auslan, and it has been a wonderful part of our school for many years. We have discussed this change extensively as a staff, and with our School Board and we are all in agreeance that this is a positive opportunity for our students and school. If you would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to come in and see me. 

On Wednesday at our assembly, 12 Buckets will be coming to introduce themselves to the school community. We are very excited that 12 Buckets will be joining our school next year and offering mentoring to our students! 12 Buckets are a not-for-profit organisation that aim to provide support and one-to-one programs to students who may be experiencing difficult times, or just in need of some confidence. You can find out more about them here https://12buckets.org/

In Term 4, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:10am we will be offering Run Club for students. Each lap will earn students a WaddyWow raffle ticket! Students can do a couple of laps and then go to breakfast club! It is open to all students in the school and part of our focus on improving the physical health of our students and getting them ready for learning at the beginning of the day. 

Lastly, there are some FREE art therapy workshops available for students and their parents over the next school holidays through Natalie, our counsellor from Pharmacy 777 in Nollamara. Places are limited so if you are interested, please click on the link below:

Kind regards,

Jemima Tomlinson 

Principal

From the Administration Team

The term planner is updated regularly and below are some important dates to be aware of for the last few weeks of school.

Just a reminder that Term 4 commences on Tuesday 11th October 2022 for both students and staff.

Please refer to the Term Planner page under the ‘Community’ tab for the most up-to-date events for this term and the planner for Term 4 (but this may be subject to change).

Important Dates

12th September 2022 – Veggie Week!

14th September 2022 – Assembly 9am – Room 9

19th September 2022 – Book Week – all week

22nd September 2022 – Public Holiday – National Day of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth II

23rd September 2022 – Book Week Dress up Parade

23rd September 2022 – Last day of Term 3 for Students and Staff

10th October 2022 – Staff Development Day (Students do not attend)

11th October 2022 – Term 4 Commences for Students

24th October 2022 – Interm Swimming Commences – PP to Year 6

Interm Swimming Payment Reminder

With Interm swimming commencing in week 3 of term 4 just reminding families to please ensure payments for the lessons are received by no later than Wednesday 20th October 2022. The cost is $64 per student for the 10 lessons. We still have 2 weeks left of term 3 and if families would like to organise payment plans to assist with this expense, please come into the front office to organise.

Athletics Carnival – Congratulations Meeka!

On Monday 5th September and Wednesday 7th September Waddington students had their Jumps and Throws and Athletics Faction Carnival. We were so lucky with the weather and only had a slight drizzle of rain on Wednesday mid morning before some sun came out for the remainder of the day.

Congratulations to all the winners and also to Meeka faction as the overall winners on the day. It was very close and came down to the wire with Kala on 644 points and Meeka on 648 points. The last time Meeka took out the Faction Carnival was 2018, well done Meeka!

Thank you to Mr Greer who organised both carnivals. So much time and efforts goes into organising these events and it’s especially tricky this time of year with the weather. I’m sure you’ll all agree it was a wonderful day! Thank you to everyone who assisted on both days.

The P&C had a successful day raising approximately $600 from their sausage sizzle. Thanks to our wonderful community for their support in helping raise these funds for our school.

Room 5 – Our school leaders

This year is flying by and Room 5 has had a jam-packed term. In the classroom we are reading the novel, Skellig by David Almond, continuing to build our ability to solve maths problems mentally and learning about some famous Aboriginal people in HASS.

The exciting visitors keep coming with: our amazing Science Week activities put together by Miss Hoff highlighted by the Bee Incursion. The engaging Book Week performance which had us all up and moving. The crucial First Aid Incursion which taught us how to help an unconscious person and what to do in an emergency. While Constable Care visit taught us about friendship and how to manage bullying.

Earlier this term we held our Student Councillors and Sports Captain elections for the second half of the year and the new students in these roles have settled in very nicely. They are busy preparing workshops to teach other students, starting with Thomas’ last week. I cannot wait to see what the rest of our leaders deliver.

The Sports Carnival is a huge event for the whole school and was such an exciting day, but it is a great opportunity for our class to build their leadership capacity. It was fantastic to see the students step up in the weeks leading to the carnival to help teach the younger students. On the day, the teachers in the bays noticed the great attitude Room 5 set, by encouraging their team and supporting others. We are now looking forward to our Interschool Carnival next term where we hope to continue to this attitude, showing all of the others schools the ‘Waddington Way’ and strive for success.

Community Notices

Pharmacy 777 Nollamara

Please see below some information about a Wellbeing Walk and Morning Tea organised by Pharmacy 777 in Nollamara on 10th October 2022.

Stirling Leisure Centres – Herb Graham Mirrabooka

Please click on the link below for information about school holiday programs run at the Herb Graham Mirrabooka centre for these coming holidays.

https://www.stirling.wa.gov.au/recreation/pages/school-holiday-programs

Kingsway September / October School Holiday Programs

Please see the timetable below for upcoming school holiday programs running at Kingsway Indoor Stadium.

Balga SHS Art Week

Balga Senior High School invites Waddington families and staff to attend our 2022 Arts Week event on campus on Thursday, 15 September.

Starting at 5 pm, we will showcase the extraordinary talent of our students through an exhibition of media and visual arts, plus live music and drama performances.

During the Visual Arts Exhibition opening between 5.00pm and 5.45pm, there will be light snacks served by hospitality students and self-service tea and coffee.

This is a FREE event, and all are welcome.

Kingsway Indoor Stadium – Junior Futsal Competition Term 4 2022

Please see the flyer below for information about the Junior Futsal Competition running at Kingsway Indoor Stadium next term

Athena Calisthenics Club

Please see below some details for the above club seeking registrations for Term 4 2022.