Welcome to the Week 7 Newsletter!

As we continue our journey together through the school year, we are thrilled to share the exciting developments, achievements, and upcoming events with all our wonderful families. This fortnight's edition of the newsletter shares a special page on Reconciliation Week and also has a great Spotlight on Learning piece from Room 3 and how they engaged, connected with and recognised Reconciliation Week in their class.

New reporting format - Academic Reporting

This semester, we have moved to a new report format with our migration to the Department's new Education Management System (EMS). This new software has a module called Academic Reporting that we have now moved across to also as part of the process. This will see us go paperless with reports for the very first time! Parents will instead receive student reports as an electronic PDF directly to your email. Our reports will take a slightly new look and format to align with the Department's processes and guidelines within Academic Reporting, however will be in line with Department policy and very similar in nature.

We understand that going paperless is a new process for families and would still like to offer a hardcopy version to families who require this.

Our teachers have been undertaking a lot of new learning with this new software and process and we are excited to be moving to this new system.

Reports will come out to families at the usual time, Wednesday 3rd, July, 2024 (Week 10).

Mid-year Dibels Reading Assessments

Next week, all of our students will be completing assessments on their reading progress through the Mid-year Dibels assessments. This is powerful diagnostic information that provides our teachers and staff with information as to how your child/ren are progressing and tracking with their reading improvement. This information helps us to make informed decisions about the supports and processes we put in place in the second half of the year to support the learning of all students at our school.

As always, please do not see these assessments as a daunting task and treat this as 'business as usual' for your child/ren so we are able to get an authentic picture of their reading progress and understanding.

Movie Night Fundraiser

Our Movie Night Fundraiser is not far away (next Friday evening!) and we are very excited that this will be able to take place in our gym this year on the new big screen! This will be an exciting launch of the new TV to our students and the community.

Tickets are still available from the Front Office so please don't miss out!

The heaters will be on, and the Gym will be cosy and warm! Students are also encouraged to bring along a pillow, blanket and/or beanbag to make themselves nice and comfy during the movie!

Year 5/6 Camp to Camp Illawonga on the Murray (Wednesday 26th June - Friday 28th June)

At the end of Week 9, our Year 5/6 students and teachers (as well as myself this year for the first time!) are attending camp. We are all very excited about the trip and looking forward to the experience! We are attending Camp Illawonga on the Murray River near Swan Reach. This will be a wonderful experience for all students and create memories that will last with them for a lifetime. Below is a little sneak-peak at Camp Illawonga, their website and the sorts of activities we will be taking part in. Be sure to have a look!

New basketball backboards

In other exciting news, our three school basketball backboards on the asphalt are all being replaced with brand-new fresh ones! These are getting a little tatty and damaged and are due for a freshen-up!

We will also be doing a spruce up of the poles and bringing them back to new! This will serve our many avid basketballer players who love playing at breaktimes, before and after school with great new boards!

Mural update

We are also excited to announce that we have accepted the scope of work for our school mural and this work will commence soon!

This is very exciting news, and we can't wait to get this work underway with the amazing support of Emmarita, our artist and mural designer!

There are many very exciting things happening at Marion PS currently. We look forward to these great events and new upgrades!

Please enjoy the final few weeks of Term 2.

Regards,

Guy Walmsley

Principal

Fruit snack reminder