School Review and 2024

Dear Families

This year we underwent a School Review during Term 1 and 2. A big thanks to the students and parents that were part of the feedback to our school reviewer. The school has also been working on changes to the hours for face-to-face teaching and the DE 25 hours policy for attendance.

For close to a decade the school has organised the teaching and learning of the school week to be close to 24 ½ hours per week as there is an earlier finish scheduled each day and a shorter day for Wednesdays. This does not meet the DE’s policy for 25 hours per week and we have used the change to teacher workload as an opportunity to rectify this.

Connect Program

While undertaking the School Review, one of the areas that we looked at was the Parent Opinion Survey and the Student Survey around students’ Connectedness to school. One of the key programs that we run at the school is the Connect program and we were informed through the surveys that our Connect program is meeting many needs of the Respectful Relationships work that we do, but not always creating the connection that is needed with our teachers. From our review we looked at the 11 minute Daily Connect session and have made the recommendation that we change this to 2 x 30 minute sessions a week. Our School Management Team believe that this will give the staff and students the opportunity to make greater connections in this time and deliver the Respectful Relationships curriculum in targeted session times.

Enrichment Program

With the change from the Daily Connect sessions to the two 30 minute sessions per week, the Long Connect session can now be re-allocated. The Leadership Team and staff have been discussing the best way to use this additional period and we are currently developing an Enrichment Program that will sit alongside our extra-curricular opportunities, our Connect program and our additional skills program. This will be a great opportunity for our students to participate in some additional opportunities that they may have previously been cautious about or offer intervention and extension activities for all students. We look forward to sharing the planning for this program with our students and families which will give our students further agency in their learning.

School Attendance Time and Bell times

By the inclusion of 58 minute periods and the Connect program, the bell times will need to change and we are aware that it will take a little while for our students to get used to the new structure including the timing of lunch and the end of day.

In the table above you will see the changes to our school program.

We will still look to maintain our split finish times for at least the first 6 months while building program continues. This will mean that some students will finish at 3:25pm, while others will finish at 3:35pm on Tuesday and Thursdays.

We are aware that the change to the bell times and school finish time will require adjustment for some of our families and hope that giving early notice of the proposed change will allow families to organise after school schedules for next year.

We are excited about the opportunities and programs that these changes will bring for our students and will track the student data, in particular their ‘connectedness to school’.

If you would like to provide feedback, I have created a Microsoft Form here that will allow you to leave a comment for our team that is working on the various programs and timetable. We look forward to providing further details about our Enrichment Program as it is further developed.