Wooragee Primary School

A foggy old Friday in late June did nothing to dampen the spirits of our students today…

In the garden, there was harvesting and weeding and discussions about the next seeds to sow alongside the making and installation of eco-friendly slug traps to sort out those pesky pests!

In the kitchen, it was the long-awaited first round of Ready, Steady, Cook, where students brought in an ingredient or two to put together to create something incredible for our shared lunch. Now, winter food doesn’t always look the prettiest, but it was delicious.

We ended up sitting down to (locally grown!) lamb ragu, a creamy vegetable curry (thank you, Keens!), vegetable frittatas, nachos, garden salad, honey herby carrots, and sushi (finally!), with a sweet treat of banana and chocolate or pineapple and coconut (fried) rice paper rolls with custard at the end.

It was a day full of creativity, laughter, red cheeks, and raindrops on heads, as we get closer to the end of the winteriest (is this a word?) term. Thank you as always to our families for the support, in every way it comes. We appreciate you!

In the 2/3 class, we have been practising multiplying by 5. One way is to work out multiplying by 10 and then halving and the other way is skip counting by 5s. There is an error on the whiteboard and that’s when we did the skip counting using fingers to keep a record. It’s really so exciting seeing our mathematicians at work, consolidating older skills and learning new ones simultaneously!

Earlier in the year, we grew beautiful 🌻 and they brought lovely 🐝 to our school grounds. Today, during our garden lesson, we turned some of the next cycle of 🌻 seeds into 🦜 feeders. We can’t wait to hang these around our yard!

Happy long weekend, everyone! 💙💛

🌻 F O U N D A T I O N 2 0 2 7🌻

Calling all kiddos who love being outside, getting muddy, growing stuff in the sunshine, hearing rain on the roof, learning about books and bugs and butterflies and bush, to our wonderful school!

If this sounds like your little one, get in touch to arrange a school tour. We know you’ll fall in love with this place! (Our wellbeing dog, Nellie, certainly agrees!)

We walked out late this afternoon, after a productive, affirming staff meeting, to see a double rainbow, and remembered afresh just how magical Wooragee is, and how fortunate we are every day to be there in that space with these students and colleagues!

🖤💛❤️

Twelve years ago, the Australian Prime Minister took a significant step towards reconciliation, and this week, we have been taking part in rich discussions in our classrooms as part of National Sorry Day and National Reconciliation Week, which celebrates the 1967 referendum and the High Court Mabo decision. The theme this year for Reconciliation Week? ALL IN - a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day.

Our senior class listened to Kevin Rudd’s speech last week, and in particular, discussed the following words:

“…today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations - this blemished chapter in our national history.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.”

Our classes and teachers have spoken about the enormous impact of a heartfelt acknowledgement of pain and a sincere apology, and about the onward march towards reconciliation, peace, and healing. Our students have been respectful and thoughtful, and we are so pleased to know that these young people will be part of a future in Australia where everyone is ‘all in’.

Collaboration at its finest as these fabulous bunch of humans set about making a cubby (and with the biggest branch they could possible find too!)

Finding the definitions for words containing the Greek root, ‘scop’, (think microscope, telescope, gyroscope), is made much easier with the furry snuggle that is Nellie by one’s side!

Two students pushing themselves beyond their comfort zones in Maths today! It was great to see them tackling challenging problems together, sharing ideas, and supporting each other through the process!

Well, it’s Education Week this week, and it means a whole lot of things, but one thing that stuck out to us was the idea that this is the perfect time to celebrate long-standing colleagues. And coming the week after we celebrated our beautiful education support staff, it seemed fitting to dedicate a (long!) standalone post to our very wonderful, very capable, very funny, very everything Bec.

Of course, we made her answer some questions, so we’ll get to those first, and then we can tell you what she’s really like! Bec has been at Wooragee PS in a paid capacity since 2016, after being the after-school sports person from 2014, and having her children attend the school from 2010. She sold her shop of eight years and was assisting in reading recovery in the afternoons (volunteering her time), when the principal asked her to apply for a position here, and the rest is history. The school was a fantastic environment, she said, and the staff were passionate about helping students succeed in their learning (and still are!).

Bec says, “Wooragee Primary School has a great community surrounding us. We pride ourselves on being community focused, our environment is amazing to work in, and we are passionate about helping our students to achieve to the best of their abilities. I also value how inclusive we are as a school.” Her favourite thing about WPS is, “…our amazing students, staff, and school community, seeing everyone take pride, respect, and value in our little school.”

Rugby League, and sport in general, light Bec up. She loves seeing her three children succeed in life and give everything a go to the best of their abilities, and the same goes for the students.

Now… Bec has worn (and continues to wear) approximately 1624 hats in her time at our school. She’s never afraid to say, oh I’ll just do it, no, no, you go, I’ll just be here at 5:30am to make sure it’s done. And well, it does get done. She is goal-oriented and before you’ve even finished the sentence, she’s on it. (Or, she says emphatically, NO!)

Bec is somehow so many things all at once: education support staff, business manager, bus driver, medication-sorter, trip planner, office-chatterer, colour-printing-hater, doctor/nurse, kid-comforter, accent-adopter, and so many more. She’s a kitchen extraordinaire, a plumbing WHIZZ, and can fix almost anything - or knows the person to call if she can’t.

It is obvious to everyone who knows Bec that her heart is the biggest, softest pile of love - the safest place to land - despite all her attempts to be tough. What a privilege it is to be in her orbit!