4TH SEPTEMBER 2023, NO.

23

WODONGA PRIMARY
SCHOOL
NEWSLETTER
Principal's Message
Damian Duncan - Principal

Welcome to Week 8,

We hope all of our dad’s and father figures in our community had a great day yesterday. It was great to see so many of
you on Friday morning at our breakfast. Our team of staff Wodonga Primary School are amazing for putting on such a
great event. Thank you to our amazing staff for your efforts and commitment to the engagement of our kids.

Curriculum Day
This Friday (8th of September) is a pupil free day. Teachers will be
participating in professional practice activities on this day. TheirCare is
open for bookings.

School Council
A reminder to our School Councillors, we have our September meeting
this week. Wednesday (6th) at 5:30pm in the Conference room.

Last Day of Term - Early Dismissal

Term break is fast approaching. A reminder that we dismiss on Friday the
15th at 2:30pm.

The Fire Brigade visiting our Foundation students last Thursday

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

Term 3 Year Level Assemblies
Next week we will be celebrating learning at our termly year level assemblies. There will be no whole school assembly
Monday morning. The assemblies will be held in our PLC, please enter via Wilson Street.

FETE
Parent Squad

Only 7 weeks to go to the fete and the WPS parent social club are looking for different community groups to be involved.
Think dance groups to perform on the main stage. Footy clubs running a kicking clinic. Scout groups running an orientation
activity.

This is a wonderful opportunity to promote your club and celebrate what you do.
Please send an expression of interest to our gmail wodongaprimaryfete@gmail.com

Also, if you are keen to get involved, but haven’t had a chance yet, we are meeting this Friday (pupil free day) with kids at
Belvoir Park near the coffee van at 9am. Let the kids play and help us plan!

Everyone is welcome.

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

Library
Wendy & Tracey - Library

VPRC & Pizza Party

Only 4 days left to complete the Victorian Premiers Reading Challenge.
All completed challenge forms must be handed into Tracey by Thursday
7th September for processing.
Students who have completed the challenge are invited to the Pizza Party
celebration in the COLA on Tuesday 12th September commencing at 1pm
onwards. Any students who are unavailable at this time due to Year Level
assemblies can collect their pizza at Recess.

Book Roundup
As announced at assembly today, this week is the final week of borrowing for Term 3.
We have asked students to start looking at home for any books that belong to Wodonga Primary School. Below are
examples of the books we are rounding up, these include; Take home readers, Library books, Classroom library and Class
sets.

WALKATHON & R U OK DAY

Wellbeing Team

Our Annual Walkathon will be held on Thursday the 14th September in conjunction with Are You Ok Day
Students are encouraged to wear yellow on this day.
Fundraising envelopes were sent home last week with your child. Funds raised will go towards a new school sign on the
corner of Brockley & Mitchell Street.
Our Walkathon Lunch order packs will be available to order on this day through eCanteen. Paper order forms have been
sent out with fundraising envelopes as a back up . Lunch orders are due 9am Monday 11th September. No other canteen
orders will be taken this day.

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

Literacy
Melisa McInnes & Alecia Williams -Literarcy

This week students across Australia are celebrating National Indigenous Literacy Day on Wednesday 6th September. At
Wodonga Primary this week, we are taking full advantage of the beautiful weather and enjoying cross age reading with our
older students and younger students by enjoying Indigenous literature together under the COLA. We are also welcoming
Rosie Schultz to perform a Indigenous Storytime in our Library on Tuesday at lunchtime.

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

SPORT
Blake Maxworthy - Sport Coordinator

DISTRICT ATHLETICS REPORT

On Thursday the 31st August, 64 WPS students competed at the Wodonga District Athletics Carnival.
Perfect conditions for athletics set the scene for some incredible performances.
The first of these came early in the day as Kalle Taylor iced the field to finish 1st in a commanding 800m performance. We
had some excellent results in the Hurdles with Porscha Abel, Jack Way and Sammy Bowen all finishing 1st overall in their ag
groups, while Ella Way and Noah Brunec finished 2nd in their age groups. In the 100m sprint, Porscha Abel finished 2nd
overall in the 9/10 Yrs girls, while our Year 6’s had remarkable success with Ella Polkinghorne and Sammy Bowen finishing 1
and 2nd respectively in the 12/13 Yrs girls age group, and Noah Brunec and Nate Fischer finishing 1st and 3rd in the 12/13 Yr
boys.
It was an incredibly successful day out for Ruby Cardwell as she blitzed the field in her 200m event and displayed classy
technique in the Triple Jump to finish 1st in both of her individual events before anchoring the 12/13 Yrs girls relay team to
dominant victory!
In other field events Milla Williams and Malaki Moore threw incredibly to finish 1st in the Discus. Ella Polkinghorne and Kloe
Brown finished 1st and 2nd in the 12/13 Yrs girls Shot Put, while Dom.B and Ryan Felder both won the Shot Put in their age
groups. In the 9/10 Yrs Boys Triple Jump, Asha Polkinghorne and Maverick Harrison finished 1st and 2nd respectively in
incredible performances at their first District Carnival. In the 11 Yrs Boys age group Eli Klepiak finished 2nd in the Triple
Jump, Nate White was 3rd in the Discus, while Jhet Ardern finished 2nd in the 800m and 3rd in the Triple Jump. An
outstanding leap from Harmony Mckenna saw her finish 1st in the 11 Yrs girls Long Jump!
Our last outstanding individual performance of the event came from Charlotte Furaha Livia as she leapt to personal best
heights to win the 12/13 Yrs Girls High Jump.
After all theindividual success during the day our relay teams all tried their very best against some incredibly fast
opposition. Our 9/10 Yrs Girls finishing 2nd behind St Francis while our 12/13 Yrs Girls were far too good, finishing some 30m
in front of 2nd place as they claimed 1st!
All of these competitors will now participate at the Division Athletics Championships on Friday the 6th October at the Les
O’Brien Athletics Precinct in Albury.
Congratulations to all our students for representing Wodonga Primary School so well at the District Athletics. We are very
proud of all your efforts and the sportsmanship you showed each other and the other competitors!

MASCOT CHALLENGE
Our Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 students are now ½ way through this year’s Mascot Challenge! Classes have been
embracing the challenge with many getting outdoors in the lovely weather to complete the daily challenges. Students
hand-eye coordination and object control skills are really benefiting from the program and teachers are feeling really
positive about the continued growth within our students over the final 2 weeks of the challenge.

BOYS TO THE BUSH ENGAGEMENT DAY

On Wednesday the 11th of October our Year 6 Students have the opportunity to participate in the Boys to the Bush
Community Engagement Day. This day aims to build Community awareness, resilience and general skills and capabilities
within our students. A Compass Event is available with more information for our Year 6 community. It is a free event that
requires ‘consent’ only. Please assist the Year 6 team with the organisation of this and respond to this Compass event in
a timely manner.

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

Maths
Maureen Murray - Mathematics

WPS Maths Newsletter Challenge #15

Estimation is an invaluable skill in Maths. This might be estimating how big, long or heavy something is (in metric units
or compared to something else). Asking children to do this - make it a game - helps build spatial reasoning and
understanding of units of measurement.
It is also important when solving number problems. Having an idea of the approximate answer to a problem is a great
guide to knowing if the answer we get when we “solve” the problem is likely to be correct. For example; if I want to
work out 38 + 29 I know estimate that it will be close to 40 + 30, so about 70. If I solve the problem and get close to 80 I
know that I have made a computational error somewhere.
Encourage your children to estimate answers first and then check them out by doing the calculation.

Weekly Maths Challenge:

W.P.S challenges its students to use understanding of place value and addition and subtraction strategies to create
number sentences.
Follow the link or scan the QR code to enter the challenge!
https://forms.gle/gnNLjQ6pQDbEbya76

Example:
This is a different but similar problem.
__4 + __ = __2
Some possible answers
34 + 8 = 42
64 + 8 = 72
. There are more possible solutions

Purpose: To recognise that number patterns that can be used to make sense of addition and subtraction.

What you need:

pencil and paper

Instructions:
I did an addition problem correctly, but my printer ran out of ink.
I remember it looked like __4 + __ = __0
What might be the digits that did not print?
Give as many sets of answers as you can.
How will you know if you have found all the possible answers?

I did a subtraction question correctly, but my printer ran out of ink AGAIN!
I remember it looked like 3__ - 2__ = __2
What might be the digits that did not print?
Give as many answers as you can.

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

ART
Kirsty Wakefield - ART

The amazing ‘Young at heART’ exhibition is fast approaching!

This exhibition by Wodonga and District Government Schools showcases the extraordinary talent of the youth of our
region. This visual arts display has been brought together by the Wodonga District Arts Festival Committee.
Artworks created by students from Foundation to Year 12 will be on display at Gateway Gallery representing 15 Schools
and 500+ students! A selection of our students will represent our school with their artworks being exhibited.
The exhibition is open Tues to Sat 10am – 4.00pm from 3rd – 28th October and will be officially opened on Saturday 7th
October at 12.30pm. We would love to see our families, friends and wider community members embrace this opportunity
to celebrate the talents of our local youth.

To assist with the cost involved, it would be greatly appreciated if visitors could make a gold coin donation. The donation
box will be located at the gallery entrance. We hope you enjoy the exhibition.

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

 Assembly Celebrations

This weeks Happy Card Recipients, well done to everyone who received a Happy Card this week

Lily won our Maths Challenge Prize

Well done to Bridgette who took home this weeks Environmental

Hero award
Hailie and Eleanor our at home reading winners of the week!

Engage Learning - Expand Minds

EVENT NOTIFICATIONS
Stay in touch with Events / Activities – using Compass as your information base
Consent /
Event / Activity Event Date Who Information on Compass Payment Due
Date

Indigenous Literacy Day Sep 6 Whole School N/A

PUPIL FREE DAY Sep 8 Whole School No School – Theircare is open N/A
R U OK Day/WALKATHON Sep 14 Whole School Envelopes sent home to students N/A
Meet The Author – Andrea Sep 14 HU6 only Consent required on Compass 11/09
Rowe
Quantum Victoria STEM Sep 14 Select Grade 5 students Consent required on Compass 08/09
Excursion only
End of Term 3 Sep 15 All students School Concludes at 2.30pm N/A
Boys to the Bush Oct 11 Year 6 Students only Consent required on Compass 06/10