Principal's Report

Principal’s Report -14th May 2021

The winter chill is starting to bite but, right at the moment, I’m looking at blue skies from my warm office. Outside my door, I can hear year 6 students in the library, borrowing books. I am sometimes asked if having the library right outside my door is a distraction but it’s quite the opposite. It’s a school after all and I enjoy the sound of children in the midst of discussions. They’re never loud and disrespectful. It’s just the sound of quiet conversations. At the moment, some of them, I can hear, are talking about a couple of really exciting things going on in our library. I’ll tell you about those later in this report.

Year 6 Camp

Seeing the year 6 students outside my office reminds me of the fabulous week I had with them recently on our inaugural City Camp. We took 95 year 6 students to Melbourne for 5 days and it was a wonderful experience. It’s the first time I’ve been on a city camp but the feedback from the students has been that it was highly successful! Previously, our camps have all had an outdoor education focus so we were looking for something different for our year 6 students. The city camp provided this. They were a marvellous group of young people to take away and I received many positive comments from members of the public about our students, the way they travelled, the way they interacted, the way they spoke and the way they participated. I was so very proud of all of them! I know already that secondary schools love getting Lyndhurst students and this camp has shown why. They are interested, interested and enthusiastic young people who have a love of learning, know how to interact respectfully and are always so inclusive! Thank you to the year 6 team, especially Paul Hennessy, who took on the all-important organising role, for their hard work and dedication in ensuring a wonderful week for our students. Thanks also to Katrina Mills and Emma Hodgson who came along with us to assist with supervision. I had a ball and, after resounding “yes” from our 2021 students, we will be planning a similar experience for our class of 2022.

DET Statewide Principal Conference

I am very proud to tell you all that our school has been asked to present at the Department of Education and Training, Statewide Principal Conference in June. This is well-deserved recognition of the amazing work our teachers do each and every day with the support of our wonderful community. The topic of our presentation is how student voice can be used to engage students in meaningful learning, with a focus on how play-based and inquiry learning support this.

Quails and Caterpillars

As I mentioned earlier, there are exciting things happening in the school library but they’re not what you might expect. In the last week we have watched several caterpillars eat and grow until they eventually attached themselves to twigs and created themselves a chrysalis in which they continue to develop, over the next few days, into beautiful Monarch butterflies. The children and staff have been excitedly gathering around the netted enclosure to watch the metamorphosis. In another area, in a small incubator, we have been watching quail eggs and just last evening, the eggs hatched into tiny quail chicks! They are so cute! It’s been a learning experience for all of us and the children have all been fascinated as they have visited the library.

High Ability Practice Leaders

You may not know that Haidee Rowell, one of our year 4 teachers, is acting in the role of High Ability Practice Leader. That means, she is responsible for supporting our high ability learners to extend themselves and stretch their learning. She also supports our teachers to become better equipped to work with high ability students to ensure they remain engaged in their learning. Recently, we also hosted a meeting of High Ability Practice Leaders from a number of local schools and they are all looking forward to collaborating on providing exciting opportunities for these students.

Mothers Day

I hope all the mums and people who are just like mums, had a wonderful Mothers Day. Thank you again to our fantastic PFA for all of the hard work, time and organisation that goes into the Mothers Day stall. It’s such a treat for children to be able to buy a little secret gift for Mothers Day!

Eid al-Fitr

I know that a large section of our community has celebrated Eid as the fasting period of Ramadan has come to an end. I know that this is an important event for so many people and I hope that you have enjoyed some special family time together!

NAPLAN

As many of you know, NAPLAN testing has been completed this week. For those that don’t know, NAPLAN is the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy. It happens every year, across Australia for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Between the independent schools, politicians and the media, one could be led to believe that it is the most important test of a student’s life! This is far from the truth and far from the way in which this test should be approached by students. NAPLAN is a questionably reliable “point in time” indication of a student’s performance on a particular, impacted by a large range factors. Of course, we encourage our students to do their best but, given that we do not receive the results until August, they are pretty much useless as a tool for curriculum planning and just as useless as a diagnostic tool for student learning. Our students continue to perform very well in the NAPLAN tests and we are proud of that. However, we have a range of other assessment strategies in place that give a much clearer indication of a student’s ability and progress.

New Covered Way

I know many of you will have noticed the new covered way extending from the year 5/6 classrooms to the gymnasium. The School Council has had this project on the books for quite some time and we are very pleased that we have been able to have it completed this year. The steel support structure is completed and we are just awaiting the fitting of sun-proof and rain-proof fabric to complete the works. I am sure our year 5 and 6 teachers and students will really enjoy the weather protection this provides.

Greg Lacey

Principal