Thank you to everyone who was able to come along to last week’s Acquaintance Night. It was a great opportunity for teachers and families to connect and discuss the year ahead. Later on this term parent-teacher interviews will be scheduled, however, all families are encouraged to contact your child's teacher at any time throughout the year to discuss any aspects relating to their learning or progress at school.
Following Acquaintance Night, the Annual General Meeting and the first Governing Council meeting of the year were held. An overview of the Governing Council, including office bearers, has been provided in this week’s newsletter.
School Improvement Priorities
Over the past few years the school has worked towards achieving a range of strategic targets in relation to student learning in reading, writing and mathematics. Central to these targets are a focus on all children being stretched in their learning, every student making positive growth for each year of schooling and the capacity building of staff to provide a high quality and challenging learning program. These improvement priorities are documented in the Site Improvement Plan which is available on our website. Also available on our website is the 2020 Annual Report which provides information about our progress towards these priorities. This year is the third year of the strategic plan and a summary of our school’s key actions for 2021 in literacy and numeracy have been provided in this week’s newsletter by our assistant principals, Aileen Clancy (Mathematics) and Vicky Jones (Literacy). Alongside our work in these areas, student wellbeing is also a whole school priority; students who are engaged with their learning and connected to school are more likely to experience success. Dr Donna Nitschke has provided a summary of the work she is currently leading at the school.
External School Review
Next week the school will be participating in an External School Review. As mentioned in our previous newsletter, and, related to the information above regarding our school improvement priorities, the purpose of the review is to evaluate our school’s performance and support us to raise achievement.
During the external school review, some students, parents/carers, governing council members and staff will be asked to provide information to the review panel in a number of ways. These include:
group discussions (with students, staff and parents/carers)
meetings (governing council, staff meeting)
visits into classrooms.
If you do not consent to your child meeting with the review team as a part of the student group discussions (which will involve some students from year 3-7), please contact the school.
We anticipate that the review will highlight a number of positive practices that are happening across the school whilst also identify areas of growth which will become future areas of focus. A summary of the review will be made available to the community later in the term.
Student ICT Devices
Over the past week the roll out of new devices to classes has occurred. For our students in years 5-7, this now means we have a 1:1 ratio of devices to students which is an excellent outcome. We look forward to the devices being a great resource for students and their learning.
2021 NAPLAN
The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) assesses literacy and numeracy skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life. Students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 participate in the annual NAPLAN tests in reading, writing, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. The assessment provides parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests. NAPLAN is just one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process – it does not replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance.
Our students in years 3, 5 and 7 will be participating in NAPLAN Online this year. The NAPLAN Online test window is 11 to 21 May 2021 (weeks 3 to 4, term 2). Please note, for families of year 5 students, the flexibility of the testing window will allow year 5 students to complete this assessment prior to them departing for their camp.
Prior to the actual test, all schools will participate in a national coordinated practice test (CPT) at 11.00am on Thursday 25 March. The practice test runs for 45 minutes and student performance is not assessed. The purpose of this test is to ensure the technical capacity of the school is satisfactory and to familiarise students with the testing platform.
Please be aware of the privacy collection notice and parent information brochure that have been made available via skoolbag. If you have any queries regarding NAPLAN please contact your child’s class teacher or a member of the leadership team.
OSHC News
Our school has been granted approval to establish a vacation care service which is a great outcome. The ground work required to establish a holiday program is quite extensive, therefore a decision has been made to aim for our service to be set up in readiness for the term 2 holidays, starting 5 July. Feedback provided last year by the school community indicated that the provision of a vacation care option for our families was a priority so we are looking forward to this being a valued service into the future.
Student Leaders
At last week’s assembly we presented the 2021 sports leaders with their badges. This year’s leadership cohort was a large group as it included year 6 and 7 students. We look forward to this group of students being strong role models for our school community throughout the year, both in and out of the class. A list of our sports leaders is provided below.
|
| Yr 7 Girls | Yr 7 Boys | Yr 6 Girls | Yr 6 Boys |
| Herons
| Lara H (C) Maddie W (V/C) | Ollie H (C) Luka B (V/C) | Dimi G (C) Summer E (V/C) | Charlie G (C) Harry K (V/C) |
| Sandpipers
| Catherine S (C) Holly S (V/C) | Tyson W (C) Cameron K (V/C) | Scarlett A (C) Sarah S (V/C) | Xavier P (C) Ash T (V/C) |
| Pelicans
| Irini C (C) Ava S (V/C) | Josiah B (C) Matthew B (V/C) | Lara M (C) Mia C (V/C) | Tate W (C) Lennox B (V/C) |
| Seagulls
| Georgie F (C) Olivia B (V/C) | Ashton L (C) Alex C (V/C) | Leila H (C) Zaria G (V/C) Siena G (V/C) | Gabriel M (C)
|
Along with our sports leaders, this year’s student executive was announced at our assembly. Our four student executive leaders are a key part of building strong, proactive student voice within our school community. They help the Wellbeing Leader, Dr Donna, develop and manage special projects and suggestions which come from students and staff. The student executive act as a sounding board for new projects that student may propose, such as a Table Tennis. These students are also our “go-to” students when we need reliable, creative student leaders to represent our school and the opinions of our student body.
In 2021, there are two leaders from each of our graduating classes. (In the future, the four student leaders will come from the Year 6 class only.) We are proud to announce our 2021 leaders as:
Year 7: Madison Watson and Alex Collins
Year 6: Maya Beggs and Jacob Oates
Play Group Update
Play Group will be re-commencing this Friday (19 February) and is available to families who either have an older sibling attending our school or are in our school zone and will be enrolling. A key goal of play group is to assist future students transitioning into the school environment. Playgroup is co-ordinated by Trudy Tunbridge who also works at the school in a SSO/classroom support role.
