The Newlands Times

Annual 


Implementation Plan 

2024

Each year, the school identifies its priorities and sets goals and targets that aim to improve the learning and well-being of the school community. These goals form our Annual Implementation Plan and inform the focus for the school year. 

To view the full AIP please visit our website or read on for a summary. 

Goal: To develop students who are literate and numerate.

Targets:

  • In NAPLAN, reduce the percentage of Year 3 students in developing for Writing from 18% in 2023 to 10%.
  • In NAPLAN, increase the percentage of Year 3 students in Exceeding for Numeracy from 23% in 2023 to 30%.
  • In NAPLAN, increase the percentage of Year 5 students in Exceeding for Writing from 10% in 2023 to 15%.
  • In NAPLAN, increase the percentage of Year 5 students working in Exceeding from 3% to 23% in Mathematics.
  • In our Staff Opinion Survey, 'Staff seek feedback' to improve practice will increase to 80% in 2024. 
  • In our Staff Opinion Survey, having time to share pedagogical content knowledge' will increase to 70% percent.

Key Improvement Strategy: Embed systematic assessment practices to direct and improve student learning.

Outcomes: 

  1. Use of Rubrics
    We aim to continue to develop our use of rubrics to inform whole class teaching and identify individual student needs. We also aim to strengthen students' use of the rubrics for self-assessment and goal setting. 
  2. Consistent Data Collection: 
    We use a central point where all student data is collected and stored. We will continue to use this platform by ensuring student data is uploaded regularly to support robust conversations about student learning and teaching practice. Additionally, we aim to use this data to support our ability to measure the growth of our students in Spanish and the success of our Spanish Bilingual program from a whole-school perspective. 
  3. Initiate Spanish Language Assessments (Cervantes) with selected students. 
    This year,  we aim to have selected students undertake a formal Spanish language assessment, which allows us to compare the results to Newlands PS school assessments and expectations. 

Key Improvement Strategy:Strengthen teacher capacity to develop and implement high-quality programs of learning.

  1. Strengthen Literacy and Numeracy Instructional Practices
    This year we aim to develop our implementation of the four proficiencies in Mathematics - understanding, fluency, problem-solving, and reasoning. To support this, we will have a dedicated curriculum day in term three dedicated, which will include whole-staff professional learning by consultant, Peter Sullivan. In Literacy, we will be continuing to build our understanding of and consistency of Literacy practices across the school.  
  2. Effective use of team teaching in the learning spaces
    Our learning spaces are designed for collaboration and team-teaching and aim to incorporate team-teaching strategies within our teaching program. 
  3. Action Reserach Teams
    Through inquiry cycles, teachers engage in professional learning as a team and use data to identify professional learning needs, undertake research, and apply their new learnings to our teaching programs. This inquiry cycle will also incorporate reflection as a key component to monitor the impact of the new learning. 

Key Improvement Strategy:Strengthen the school’s Instructional Leadership approach to learning.

  1. Peer Observations
    We have investigated significant resources this year to implement peer observations. Based on an identified goal, teachers observe the practice of another teacher in the school and both provide and receive feedback. This aims to build consistency of practice and share pedagogical knowledge. 
  2. Build the Capacity of Team Leaders
    Leadership is a value we hold strongly and aim to ensure it is distributed across the school. To support this, we strive to build confident and capable team leaders. Through weekly leadership meetings, Team Leaders and leadership engage in discussions that focus on whole school improvement. 

Goal: To embed a whole-school approach to health, engagement, and wellbeing. 

  •  Decrease in students reporting low 'resilience' from 38% to 80% in our Student Attitudes to School Survey.
  • Increase in 'Confidence' and 'Resilience' from 68% to 80% in our in our Student Attitudes to School Survey.
  • Students being absent from school for over 20 days in a calendar year will have decreased from 36% to 25%.

Key Improvement Strategy: Articulate and embed whole school wellbeing practices and approaches.

  1. Creation of a Wellbeing Team of teachers. 
    This year, we have a teacher representative from each cohort as a member of our well-being team. Led by Sonya, this team engages in fortnightly discussions about the current well-being needs of our students and aims to undertake and deliver well-being professional learning to staff. The team will also identify processes and practices we can strengthen as a school. 
  2. Support teachers to strengthen and develop their students' resilience.
    A key well-being focus this year will be to undertake professional learning to improve our capacity to build our students' resilience. We will be working with Respectful Relationships and drawing on other resources to build our knowledge. We aim to implement our learning into the weekly well-being sessions in our class timetables. 
  3. Improve parent capacity to develop and support their child's resilience.
    To complement our focus on resilience building in school, we also aim to build our families' understanding of strategies that can be applied to build resilience in children. 

Key Improvement Strategy: Develop whole school-targeted intervention practices and protocols that promote attendance

  1. Review and update the current attendance policy.
    We aim to ensure that we have stronger processes to follow up on students' absences, including identifying absence trends, consecutive days, and cumulative days of absence. We aim to identify when student absences are trending to 15% of days absent and work with families and students to improve attendance. We aim to review our processes and ensure they are communicated and understood by our school community.