David's Message

Dear Sunny Heights Community,

Thank you to all our parents who attended Parent Teacher Interviews. It was lovely to be able to see so many of you there, and to share in the next steps for your child's learning. We were able to gain some beautiful books for our library thanks to the incredible support of our families, and we look forward to these moving into circulation in the coming weeks. 

Term 3 is always a really big one for us, and we have information in this newsletter about Science Week coming up in a few weeks time. We can't wait to delve a little deeper into our growing love of science, and how we can gain more insight into how our world works! As many of you know, I studied science at university, focused on plants and animals (Botany and Zoology), so this is a very special week for me. I also know Miss Hill is incredibly excited to share her passion for STEM with the wider school community!

Last week we held a curriculum day, which is always a special time for us as a staff to go deeper with our learning. During this day, we partnered with Eynesbury Primary School and went into greater depth on Formative Assessment with Professor Dylan Wiliam. Formative Assessment means how we can really find out what our students know, and how we can use this to really shape their learning to maximise progress. We finished the day tired and with our brains full of ways to super charge our teaching and learning. I know all our staff loved the experience and are looking forward to embedding these practices for our students. 

Some of you might have noticed that I was absent for the first few days of term. This was due to some time in Cairns for my Birthday on the 10th July. My Aussie 'adopted family' all live up there, and it is where Ben and I lived when we first moved to Australia in 2010. I was lucky enough to spend my birthday 10m under water, diving on the Great Barrier Reef. I also got to visit my pet pig-nosed turtle, currently living with a close friend up in Kuranda!

A big thank you to Jaci Lowry, our School Council President, who made me a Leaf blower cake to welcome me back, on behalf of our parents. It was very tasty and certainly reminded everyone of my favourite hobby in the morning at school, clearing our pathways of leaves!!

I hope you all had an amazing break as well, and are as excited about the term ahead as we are!

Best wishes,

David and the Sunny Heights Team