The Kingswood Newsletter

Assistant Principal 

Tracy Skiba

 

Assistant Principal 

My name is Mrs Tracy Skiba and I am honoured to be your Assistant Principal. With almost twenty years of experience as an educator, it is a pleasure to join the Kingswood Primary School team. I am looking forward to assisting Mr Cox and Mr Halpin in making this a great school year and supporting your children to shine and love learning in the years to come.

 

For the past three years I was the Curriculum and Wellbeing Assistant Principal at Toorak Primary School. During this time I also completed Literacy Master Training through the Bastow Institute which gave me the opportunity to train new leaders of English Curriculum throughout the Stonnington and Glen Eira schools network. I will continue this role in the Kingston network this year.

 

Prior to that I was English Leading Teacher, Literacy Coach and Intervention Co-ordinator at Albert Park Primary School.  I also undertook Teacher-Led research through RMIT in effective writing approaches and wrote a whole school approach to the teaching and assessment of all aspects of English.

 

 

Prior to 2010 I taught across all year levels at Milleara Primary School in Keilor Heights. It was during this time that I trained as a Western Region School Based Literacy Coach and developed personalised student learning goals with staff.

 

I received my Bachelor of Education and Communications at Murdoch University in Western Australia, my home town, and yes, I am a Fremantle Dockers supporter. Please don't hold this against me! I also taught there for two years before making the move to Melbourne in 2002. I live with my husband and our happy cocker spaniel and if you spot me on one of our many walks around the bayside area please say hello.

 

I look forward to making your acquaintance as well as getting to know your lovely children over the coming weeks. I am here to support you in any way that I can and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

skiba.tracy.ts@edumail.vic.gov.au 

 

Staff Professional Development- Misty Adoniou “Reading and Writing- Beyond the basics & recapturing the magic”

The Kingswood staff hit the ground running with a fabulous professional development day led by Misty Adoniou. Misty is an Associate Professor in Language, Literacy and TESOL at the University of Canberra. She has received numerous teaching awards, including an OLT National Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning and the 2014 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence.

We were joined by the teaching staff from Kingsley Park Primary School in developing a deep understanding of Scaffolding Literacy. Scaffolding Literacy describes an alternative approach to literacy teaching in primary schools based on the principles of explicit teaching of how authors use words to convey meaning. This draws mainly from using high quality literature to lift writing standards rather than using plain, generic and low level texts to develop student writing and build vocabulary. We walked away ready to seek our fabulous librarian, Mrs Hill’s literature knowledge to plan for future engaging writing lessons.

Prep 2019 Interviews and Interim Reports

A warm welcome to all our new families and to our lovely 2019 Prep cohort. There were very few tears on Friday morning and our parents and carers did a great job holding it together as they joined the Principal Class and Parent Club representatives for morning tea.

The Wednesday Literacy interviews are well underway and this data will be used for our Prep Interim reports. These reports will be available for parents to view on Monday, March 4th from 3:30pm via Compass.

Parent Information Evenings

Please join us next week (February 11th-15th February) for the Parent Information evenings. Dates and locations are listed in the table below. We will also be streaming via Facebook Live if you are unable to attend.

 

 

Monday Feb 11th

  • 5-6pm - Year 2

Tuesday Feb 12th

  • 5-6pm - Year 6
  • 6:15-7:15pm - Year 5

Wednesday Feb 13th

  • 5-6pm - Prep
  • 6:15-7:15pm - Year 1

Thursday Feb 14th

  • 5-6pm - Year 4
  • 6:15-7:15pm - Year 3