After what I trust has been a summer break filled with moments to replenish and enjoy time with those you love, it is with anticipation that the Junior School team and I look forward to welcoming you back and commencing another year together. As your daughters step into the year level above, there is likely a mix of excitement, nerves and an earnest desire for learning with their new teachers and classmates. Our staff have been working in their year level teams to prepare for their cohorts, with many also in new learning spaces. We look forward to this year’s opportunity to be a Reception to Year 6 team, with both staff and girls working closely together.

New Spaces

Our wonderful maintenance team have worked hard over the break to prepare a beautiful new outdoor play space for our Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 girls. Situated around the Art Room, the space is shade filled with a playground, sandpit, cubby and seating. With a ‘cottage garden’ feel, there are lots of plants and little shady spots for girls to play and be together. This will be solely for this age group of girls at recess and lunchtime, with two teachers on yard duty at all times.

We are also enormously excited to be opening our much-anticipated new Early Learning Centre at 16 Hawkers Road. Beautifully renovated, both inside and out, with bespoke play areas, light-filled rooms and thoughtfully designed opportunities for learning provocation, we look forward to seeing this space come alive as our smallest Wilderness custodians begin their learning journeys next week.

Drop Off and Pick Up: Important Information

Mornings

A reminder that girls may arrive from 8.00am and must sit in front of the Year 4 room, where they will be supervised by two co-educators. At 8.10am, the yard duty teachers will commence and the girls will be able to play, enter their classrooms and prepare for the day before school begins at 8.10am. It is a good idea for your daughters to arrive by 8.20am to enable time to prepare, unpack and settle in.

Afternoons

Given the increased numbers at the Junior School site this year, the following plan has been devised to stagger pick-up and reduce traffic in the afternoons.

Reception and Year 1: Reception and Year 1 girls will be dismissed from the lawn in front of the Junior School Front Office between 3.15pm – 3.25pm. The girls will wait with their Lesson 7 teachers and can be collected at Gate 40.

Years 2 to 4: Years 2 to 4 girls will be dismissed as usual at 3.25pm through Gate 40 and will be supervised by a yard duty teacher on the footpath on Hawkers Road.

Years 5 and 6: Year 5 and Year 6 girls will be dismissed at 3.25pm through the Main School Gate and will also be supervised by a yard duty teacher on the footpath at the front of the Learning Commons. Yard duty teachers will remain on duty until 3.50pm, after which time your daughters will be taken to OSHC.

Parent Information Evening

On Monday 5 February, we will be holding our Reception to Year 6 Parent Information Evening. Commencing in the School Gym at 6.00pm, we will gather as a Junior School teaching and parent cohort to hear general information before moving off into classrooms. Here, you will have the opportunity to hear from your daughter’s class teacher, where they will share important information about the planned learning experiences this year, classroom routines and structures, class communication and specialist lessons. For those families who are unable to attend, the presentation slides will also be shared on Seesaw in the days following the Information Evening.

Staff Updates

We welcome some new staff to the Junior School this term. Mrs Carolyn Tasker will be joining us as Junior School Personal Assistant and she will be the person working in the Junior School Front Office. Carolyn may be familiar to many of you, as she has moved from the Music Department across to the Junior School this year and is therefore well-versed in all things Wilderness—including knowing our girls well. I am delighted to commence working alongside her this year.

Miss Amber Dewhurst is replacing Mr Nathan Rice while he takes Long Service Leave in Term 1. Amber has been a relief teacher, supporting right across Wilderness School in a broad range of capacities, including attending Junior School camps in 2023. We welcome Amber to the Year 4 team for Term 1.

Ms Alison Short will be taking some time away from her Year 5 class at the beginning of the term to manage some recent significant health issues. Ms Meggie Murdoch, a well-known and long-term member of our relief and short-term contract team at Wilderness, will be stepping in to replace Alison during this time.

We look forward to welcoming our girls back, new and old, next Tuesday 30 January and commencing the 2024 school year together.