Principal's Pen

Kaya, Hello Neerigen Brook Families and Community Members

Thank you everyone for your efforts this term. There have been several challenges through winter with the wet weather and illness across the school, all impacting on our community. Thank you for your patience and support with regards to staffing challenges and for notifying your child’s teacher or the office when your child has been absent. 

Kindergarten and Pre-Primary Enrolments for 2027

It has been great to see a steady flow of enrolments for Kindergarten being completed for next year. Please be aware that parents of children due to start Kindergarten in 2027 or any new students due to start Pre Primary, an application for enrolment needs to be completed as soon as possible.  Please come and speak to the school officers if you’re unsure whether your child is due to commence Kindergarten next year.

2027 Student Numbers

Thank you to the families who have let us know that you will not be returning to Neerigen Brook Primary School for 2027. This is important to enable us to plan for the class structure for next year.  For our families moving on at the end of this term or the end of the year, we wish you well for the future. If you are likely to be moving on for 2027, please let the office staff or your child’s teacher know. 

NAPLAN 

NAPLAN reports for our Year 3 and 5 students were sent home this term along with an information pamphlet. I have had the pleasure of working through the result one to one with each student. There have been some outstanding individual performances, which we are all very proud of. There has also been strong progress across most learning areas this year which I look forward to sharing the results with you all in the Annual Report. Continued progress over the last three years has been strong in both years 3 and 5 and is a credit to all students and staff who work hard day to day to support progress. Some key celebrations include:

• NBPS students performed above like schools in Year 3 Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation 
• NBPS students performed above like schools in Year 5 Writing and Spelling 
• NBPS Year 3 average writing score increased from 2025 to 2026, whilst like school average writing score in Year 3 decreased 

An area of continued focus will be on grammar and punctation, particularly in Year 4 and 5, working through the results and planning for the future.  

Congratulations to all students who completed the assessment. If you did not receive your child’s report, please enquire at the office.

Attendance 

Coming to school regularly is important for our students to receive the quality education they deserve and supports building strong, connected relationships. It is also the legal responsibility of parents to ensure that their children attend school regularly. Regular attendance is deemed to be 90%. Illness plays a part for all of us and impacts attendance, which is understandable and it is important to keep your child home when they are unwell. Please ensure that you notify your class teacher or the front office staff via Compass, a written note, phone call or in person to ensure that the absences can then be cleared and recorded as authorised. Please see the data below with regards to the percentage of authorised absences per year group. Balance is important. For every day that your child is well, they need to attend school. 

Coming to the end of term, the children will be receiving attendance certificates for those students who have maintained 100%, who maintained regular attendance (90% and above) and for those who have shown a significant improvement in attendance. Well done and thank you to those children and families who continue to work on this.

The attendance raffle is an incentive for the children to work on improving daily attendance. For each day they attend, they receive a raffle ticket. The raffle is then drawn in the last week of school with a number of prizes given out across the year levels. 

If you have any concerns about your child’s attendance or your child is having difficulty attending regularly, please reach out to your child’s teacher or contact the school so that we can see how we can assist. Thank you for continuing to work together to improve attendance. Please see the whole school data below. The data is for Semester 2 which is currently halfway through the collection period. Our goal is to continue to improve on daily attendance for Term 4 to boost the year level attendance rates across the school. Congratulations to our Year 3 and Year 4 students and families who are leading the school with an attendance rate of 88.3%, closely following are our Kindy students with an attendance rate of 87.2%. Well done!

Youth Engagement and Support Role 

This term we have welcomed Ruth Moore in this role. Miss Ruth will be at school on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Her role is one of student and family support, at point of need. This support may be in the classroom, supporting students to attend school or to engage in learning or it could be support to link to services or groups that are working within our school. Support can take many forms. Please reach out to your classroom teacher, front office staff or any of our staff members if you would like to connect with Miss Ruth. Or reach out to her when you see her out and about the school.

Swimming Lessons 

Great to see so many children attending swimming this term. It is always a challenge when the weather is cold, so well done to those who persisted. Congratulations to the students and staff who worked well together to ensure success. 

A HUGE thank you to the many parents who supported in a range of ways at home, the pool and at school to ensure that all children were supported to participate. 

Happy Holidays 

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays, and I look forward to seeing everyone back ready for Term 4. 

Lesley Barrett

Principal