Dear RMS families,
Welcome to the new school year. We have had a busy start to the year and I would especially like to welcome our new families who have recently joined RMS.
When I look back on 2022 I have to smile, do you realise we went from 280 students in January 2022 to 336 currently? That means the hard work of setting up Port Kennedy to allow for expansion of enrolments has allowed 56 more students to access a Montessori education, whilst still importantly keeping all our campuses small. I would like to thank you for your ongoing support of the school and a special thank you to all our staff who work so hard to make our school the best possible place it can be.
This growth I am delighted to say has allowed us to reopen the Penguins class and we have commenced two new Senior School Advisories in the Barna Marlak Sub School. Our two new advisories are Bindi Bindi (Butterfly) and Karda (Goanna). We have several new staff members joining us along with some changes in staff roles/classes/advisories. I am delighted to announce that Franzi Brauschke is the new Penguins teacher. We welcome to staff Eunice Hicks who is teaching music at our Rockingham Primary School site and Sayantika Chakraborty as the Kara Education Assistant. Joining us in the Adolescent Program are Nikki O’Neill and Danna Checksfield as the Bamba/Marmong Advisors, Dani Pritchard who has joined Gurmayll as the Koobalongs Advisor, Marie O’Dwyer has joined Kirsty Williams who has returned from maternity leave to be the Kwenda Advisors and Marie is also the Port Kennedy Primary School Music teacher. Steffany Jovanovic is covering Andrew’s Long Service Leave to be the new Bindi Bindi Advisor. Antony Pritchard is combining his role as Barna Marlak Program Coordinator and will be the new Karda Advisor, and Jade Cowderoy has combined her role as Manyins Advisor with the Maambakoort Program Coordinator. We also have Louise Lawrence moving to the AP to join with Dianne as the Maambakoort Education Assistant.
Wow so much going on! Welcome to all our new staff members and our returning Kirsty.
Pania has commenced as the Indonesian teacher for all our Primary School classes as Renata has relocated to Melbourne and we sadly farewell Sandy from her Janda EA role, as she returns to study full time this year however we warmly welcome Lizeth to cover this role. After a fabulous twelve years with the school, Dee Dance from our administration team has decided on a change of work place. We wish Dee every happiness and success on her new pathway and thank her for her dedication and commitment to the school over so many years. Dee will be greatly missed by all.
Our second pillar within the Rockingham Montessori School Strategic Plan is Understanding of Montessori Education – point 2. Ensure staff are appropriately qualified and receive extensive induction with ongoing professional learning to facilitate achievement of common Montessori understanding. The ongoing success of our Montessori school requires committed and Montessori-trained staff. I want to say a huge thank you and congratulations to Franzi, Carla and Sam for completing their third three-week face-to-face component of their AMI 3-6 Diploma (not long to finishing now ladies!) and also to Leo, Jade, Jenny, Nikki and Martin for completing their first four-week face to face block of their AMI 12-18 Diploma over the summer break. Whilst this is a huge commitment to be away from families over the holiday period, I think every one of these staff members will say it was absolutely time well spent given they have not had to travel interstate or internationally to undertake this training. We are so lucky to have this training take place for the very first time in Western Australia and we are still pushing hard for RMS to be able to host the AMI 6-12 Diploma this year. We will need eight participants from WA to ensure we can run this course from our state so please let your friends know to keep an eye on the SMTC (Sydney Montessori Training Centre) website and send an email of interest to SMTC to book their place for this training.
We look forward to seeing all families at our Parent Education sessions this week as this is a great time to meet other families from your child’s class/advisory and also hear about all the exciting opportunities your child will experience this year. We also encourage families to attend our Snack and Chat afternoons which rotate between our Rockingham and Port Kennedy campuses each Friday afternoon from 3pm. This week we would love to have families join us at Port Kennedy.