Dear Parents and Carers
Welcome to this edition of our newsletter, the final one for Term 2! It has been a fantastic term with rich opportunities for our students. As I write this many of our Year 12s are enjoying the Outdoor Education Camp in Monkey Mia and Shark Bay – lucky kids!
Across our school the staff have worked hard teaching, marking examinations and assessments, writing reports and meeting with families in supporting the educational needs of our students. We have a super teaching and support staff and I wish to acknowledge them for their hard work. I know our families appreciate our staff as I hear plenty of positive feedback about our staff. Please be aware that we have a no emails after 6pm Monday to Friday and none over the weekends to allow them to disconnect and enjoy their own families. I want to thank you for supporting our staff and their wellbeing.
At the end of this term we say farewell to Mrs Helen Jolly who has retired at the end of her Long Service Leave. I wish to thank her for her incredible service to the school for over 30 years. Mrs Gillian Cooling is also retiring at the end of this term after 29 years. Again, I wish to express our gratitude to Gillian for her long service and dedication to our school. Mrs Katrina Wade and Ms Wendy Mattson also finish at the end of Term 2 after over 10 years of service at our school. I wish to thank both teachers for their service to our school and wish them both well in their future endeavours. Mrs Marianne Boccuzzi has finished her contract at the end of Term 2 and I wish to thank her for covering long service leave. Staff on Long Service Leave or extended leave are as follows: Mr Paul Terry, Mrs Marlise Vaughan on maternity leave, Mrs Judy Green and Mr Ben Dunbar. I wish them a well deserved break and look forward to seeing them back with us in 2025.
In my last edition I shared some of the improvements and achievements across the school. In this newsletter I want to share the amazing work that we have underway in teaching and learning. Our staff collaborate from Kindergarten to Year 12 through our Teaching and Learning Academic working groups. In these groups we continuously review what and how we teach to ensure that we look for areas we can improve, where staff need further professional learning and areas that we can reduce staff workload. We have refined some of our teaching and learning in Primary and have extensively invested in training our staff in research based literacy programs and wellbeing programs. We are a leading school with our teaching and learning approach in literacy, numeracy as well as wellbeing and nature play. In Secondary we have completed the renovation to our Marine Biology Centre. This is very exciting and feedback from students and staff has been very pleasing. Students are loving what they are learning and our broad range of subjects has been a big hit with students and staff.
This year we commenced the Friends of FIAS Parent Group to help us plan some community events. This group is about friend raising so we can help bring our community together more. Stay tuned to hear more information about community events that we have got planned once the weather improves. We have secured a fantastic resource for parents which will be launched in due course. SchoolTV provides parents with many resources that can help families in the challenging role of raising children. As parents of Frederick Irwin Anglican School you will be able to access these resources easily. Stay tuned for more information and a demo video. In 2025, we have Dr Justin Coulson returning with some more helpful tips and support for students, parents and for our staff. Please put 23 July 2025 on your calendar.
In closing, I want to thank our students for their hard work this term. Thank you for showing pride in our school and getting involved in the many opportunities across the school. All that we offer and provide is for the benefit of our students and nothing gives me more joy than to see our students loving what they are doing. I am incredibly proud of them and hope they have a great holiday to recharge and set new goals for Term 3. Thank you families for supporting our school and your children. Enjoy some time with your children and I look forward to seeing you at the start of Term 3.
God bless
Tracey Gray
Principal