Primary Leader's Report

March has been full of activities in the Primary school.

NAPLAN

The year 03 and 05 students have just completed their NAPLAN testing for 2023. This was brought forward to March instead of the traditional dates in May this year.

I would like to commend our student for their positive and focused approach to their testing sessions and look forward to seeing their results when they return. These will help to inform teachers of how these students are tracking in their learning in English and Mathematics and the data we collect will give us information on where to next for them.

Twilight Sports Night

Last Thursday was the first of our inaugural Twilight Sports Events here at Macleod. We were delighted to have a good attendance at this event. Those families who came along enjoyed a fun and active evening. The students participated enthusiastically in the events, and it was wonderful to see their smiling faces as they cheered each other on.

They competed for their houses in the sprints and tunnel ball events followed by a range of tabloid activities including: an egg and spoon course, hoop shooting, corn hole, dodgeball and around the world bucket ball. The highlight, according to many who attended, was the staff versus parents, tunnel ball competition with the staff coming out clear winners.

The PaFM group put on a fabulous barbecue offering sausages, hamburgers and hash browns for sale. We are grateful to them for supporting this event for our school. We hope that this event will become an event to look forward to and come together as a community every year.

Life Education

We had a visit from Healthy Harold this month with the Life Education Program. The program is now classroom based due to the move away from the vans which students would previously visit for their session with the teacher. The classes each attended a session with the chosen focus with the Life Education educator.

These sessions consisted of:

Prep program - My Body Matters - This module focused on things children can do to keep themselves healthy.

Year 01/02 Program - Ready, Steady, Go! - This fun, engaging module provided opportunities for students to discover:

benefits of physical activity
safety strategies in different environments
how our body reacts in new situations
what our body needs to be healthy including a nutritious diet, water and sleep

Year 03 - 05 Program - BCyberwise - This module focused on cybersafety, cyber ethics and building positive relationships with friends online and offline. The students explore a range of issues such as password security, risks of sharing personal information, how to communicate respectfully both online and offline, and strategies to handle bullying including cyberbullying.

Year 6 - Program Relate, Respect, Connect - This module explored building positive, safe and respectful relationships.

Presented via a series of fictitious vlogs that resonate with young people moving through upper primary school and beyond this module focuses on:

understanding how to respect ourselves and others
identifying characteristics of positive relationships
strategies to help maintain positive online and offline relationships
strategies to respond to unsafe or disrespectful situations online and offline
the importance of relationships to our own and others wellbeing

I would like to thank our community for your support this term and hope that this year will be a productive and happy one for us all. We have more exciting events to come next term including Gymnastics, Interschool Sport and Camp. I hope that you all get to rest over the break and return for term 2 ready to go.

Karen Butterworth

Primary Leader