From the Principal

Dear NPS Families

It’s a long one from me this week!

Wow, it's hard to believe that students only have 11 more school days until the end of the year!  

Please ensure you keep an eye on our calendared events and emails, messages etc coming home so that children are both emotionally and physically ready for any event they have.  

It is extremely important that all students are particularly well prepared for their Pool Day. All students need to have swim tops that cover their shoulders for these days.  A plastic bag and a spare set of underwear and socks is also a good idea. 

As part of our sun safe policy, sunscreen will be available on the day and will be applied by staff to any child who doesn't have any or looks like it's time for re-application. If you have a particular sunscreen that your child needs to use, then please ensure they have this with them....for younger students, please also inform their teacher. 

Staffing 2024...

Our teaching staff for 2024 is almost complete, however, over the past two weeks we have needed to make some changes due to some of our staff being successful with leadership positions at other schools. 

Mrs Nita Cummings will leave us to join the team at Ravenswood PS as an Advanced Skills Teacher.  

Mrs Grace Evorall has been successful in winning the position of Assistant Principal  at Glen Dhu PS.  Grace currently holds an acting position at Norwood PS, as we do not meet the requirements for a second substantive Assistant Principal.  

For both Grace and Nita, this news comes with both excitement and sadness as they have endeared themselves strongly to the NPS community through their high-level dedication to their roles.  

After many years at NPS Megan Poke has made the decision to move on and has secured a teaching role at Perth PS. Hayley Marshall is now at the stage of moving to permanency in 2024 and is joining the Mowbray Heights PS team. Miss Julia Rainbow is jet setting off to work within the UK system. 

Kate Andrew and Carolyn Bailey will move into retirement in 2024.  We may, however, see Carolyn here for small amounts of time. 

For all staffing moving on, we hope that your time at Norwood PS has been extremely rewarding and has brought with it many additions to your knowledge and skills that you are able to take with you. We thank you all for your dedication and work to the Norwood School Community. 

Welcome to our teaching team beginning 2024...

Mrs Ellie Harvey (1-2) Mr Cam Dakin & Mrs Kimberley Wilmhurst (3-4) Mrs Elizabeth Thrush (5-6) Miss Lauren Spencer (Intern Program with Emily Faulkner)

2024 Classes

Next Friday, 15th December @ 10:20am all Prep-5 students will have a transition time to their 2024 classes.  Current Kinder families have been informed about their tranistion time to Prep.  New teachers to NPS will be joining us for this event. 

Staff have worked incredibly hard to place students in classes that they feel will be educationally suitable. Thank you to parents who sent in information that helped this process. Requests to have your children with, or not have them with, other students have been taken into consideration, however, with the volume of students to place not all of these requests are able to happen. As a staff we are very aware of any serious clashes with a few students and make the necessary accommodations. 

Some children will come home excited, happy or okay with their placement, others may be upset or a bit worried.  If your child is the latter please take some time to talk with them about how change can be hard and provide them with some positive possibilities for the year to come. 

Placing students in classes in a school this size is a huge task and begins early term 4 as it involves lots of meeting time and discussions etc. to get it right. With this in mind, please be aware that no changes will be made to your child/rens class placement.  

All students will bring home their report with their class placement on Friday 15th December. Please contact the school if you need to talk with anyone about your child's report.

A full list of class structure and teaching staff will be in our last newsletter for the year. 

Thank you!

I would also like to take this opportunity to send a sincere thank you on behalf of the Norwood PS staff and students to our dedicated School Association team and to all those who have helped out with the School Association events and fundraisers.

Our school benefits greatly from all the hard work, from what is currently quite a small group for the size of our school. Alongside of all the work, we also have lots of fun and laugh a lot.  Please consider raising your hand to help out with the School Association where you can in 2024. 

Kind regards,