PRINCIPAL'S NEWS

Welcome to Murputja Staff Bulletin Number 8

Site Improvement Plan Progress

It is hard to believe that the term is very quickly coming to a close with approximately 2.5 weeks until the end of term. It certainly has been an unpredictable term, but one which has seen an enormous amount of progress towards our Site Improvement Agenda. During this week's staff meeting time will committed to collaboratively reviewing the progress we have made towards our 100 Day Action Plan which is aligned to our Site Improvement Plan. I am very confident that we are well and truly 'on track' with the vast majority of our planned actions. This discussion will allow us to monitor how we are travelling in regards to our planned actions and will also enable us to make any necessary adjustments to our planned actions.

Attached below is our 100 Day Action Plan. Staff will be asked to consider how we are proceeding with our actions and whether there are additional actions which we would like to plan for term 3.  

Murputja Anangu School Vision Statement

Work continues on the development of our Murputja Anangu School Vision Statement.  A significant amount of time can be poured into the development of a school's Vision Statement. Often these documents can end up being a bland and generic statement which in reality mean very little in terms of long-term site improvement. 

I am pleased to say however, that our vision statement spells out a practical path forward and  clearly describes how we intend to improve student learning outcomes. It is important that our vision statement is more than a statement that simply sits on the wall never to be referred to again. It is important that as a school community, we now align our site improvement agenda, our professional development plans and collective actions to our vision for the future. Moving forward we need to regularly reflect to ensure that we are making progress towards its attainment and make the necessary adjustments to our plans to ensure we remain on course to attain our vision. 

Obviously it has been difficult in finalising this draft as we have been unable to actively engage the Governing Council in its development yet. We do however have a great starting point and draft which we can now present to Governing Council as soon as practical. Their input into refining the vision will then be critical.

PDP Plans

I would like to thank staff for their active involvement in the recent PDP discussions. I realise that for many of you PDP discussions have not occurred for a significant period of time. It was also very pleasing to see the high degree of alignment between individual PDP goals and the revised Site Improvement Plan priorities, particularly in the area of Reading. Moving forward, it is important that staff make regular small steps towards meeting their PDP goals. At the whole site level, this is the 100 Day Plan which outlines the small steps towards improvement. 

I am currently in the process of documenting a collation of everyone's PDP goals and agreed actions in our improvement priority area of reading. It is important that we regularly take the opportunity to review our PDP goals and actions and ensure that we are taking regular steps towards improvement as agreed in our PDP plan. 

Walk Throughs and Feedback

As you are aware, I love spending as much time as possible in the classrooms and as an instructional leader a vital component of my role is working alongside teachers in the classroom observing, supporting and providing feedback. I have structured my timetable to enable me to spend as much time as I can in the classrooms either observing or supporting with instruction and reading intervention. 

Walk-throughs are an observation and feedback process which I will perform on a regular basis to monitor the teaching and learning occurring in classrooms. My intention is to provide written feedback to teachers on a weekly basis with the feedback largely focussed on your planning and teaching in the SIP priority areas of reading and numeracy.

Staff Norms Development

Norms are informal understandings that govern the behaviours of any given group. They are a pervasive element of  social interactions which help people to get along, work together effectively, share common experiences and minimise conflict in order to achieve their ‘Collective Purpose’.

During this week's staff meeting we will begin the process of documenting 'agreed staff norms'. 

Whilst it may seem a little pointless developing agreed staff norms when we all get along and work together so well, it is important that we invest the time so that we ensure that we continue to work in this manner. Working at Murputja is a great experience because we work together so well and so successfully. Documenting agreed norms ensures that these behaviours are identified and embedded into our culture  as the make-up of our group evolves over time. During the course of the conversation we will essentially consider the following key question...

'What behaviours do we consider non-negotiable to our collective success as a school community?'

Classroom Timetables

It is important that, as professionals, we actively plan for and document intentional teaching and learning. A structured and carefully considered timetable which provides the 1600 minutes of mandated instruction is an important component of this planning. At this week's staff meeting we will collaboratively review and revise our classroom timetables to ensure consistency and to ensure our time is focused on supporting students with literacy and numeracy. 

The main outcomes that I hope to achieve include:

1. the establishment of a whole-school daily literacy block with the implementation of an 'all hands-on-deck' time each morning during the literacy block
2. the provision of one-on-one reading intervention to students (in addition to the daily literacy block)
3. opportunities for teachers to work together to collaboratively plan for student learning

Collaborative Planning T3

It was very pleasing to see that staff agreed to developed a whole-school themed unit on the broad theme of 'Temperature'. This will enable the whole-school to come together throughout the 5 week course of the theme to share exciting learning opportunities.  This is an exciting opportunity for us to provide cross-age tutoring whilst also increasing both student and community engagement. 

The restructure of the timetables has also created opportunities for staff to plan and teach together at times throughout the week. 

End of Term Expectations

As we are very quickly approaching the end of term, I would like to take the opportunity to firstly thank everyone for what has been an incredibly successful term. Whilst we have continued to face the challenges of 'sorry business' impacting our work, collectively we have maintained our focus and achieved an enormous amount. We should all feel incredibly satisfied with our work. 

Heading into the final week and a half, it is important that we utilise the remaining time available to us to ensure that we are prepared for a successful start to term 3.

As discussed at last week's staff meeting:

Prior to departing at the end of T2: 

Have classrooms prepared and setup in readiness for Term 3 ie.

• Tables and benchtops thoroughly cleaned
• Floors vacuumed/mopped (including under/behind furniture where practical)
• Whiteboards/TV screens thoroughly cleaned
• Furniture setup ready for day 1
• Stationery sets sorted/restocked
• Bins emptied
• Clutter eliminated
• Random bits’n’pieces binned
• Class library updated with new reading material
• Classroom displays updated to indicate ‘the learning ahead’ ie Temperature, 
• A Whole-School cross curricular thematic unit plan developed for weeks 1-5

Prior to the start of Term 3

• Teaching programme for weeks 1-5 in literacy/ numeracy (with daily lesson learning intentions and success criteria from the AC)
• Teaching programme for weeks 6-10 in literacy/numeracy (with daily lesson learning intentions and success criteria from the AC)

Classroom Displays

What do your classroom displays say about the learning and teaching going on in your classroom? 

As discussed at staff meeting last week, during my regular 'walk throughs' in your classroom, I look at the classroom displays to get a sense of the learning which is occurring in the classroom. I ask you to look at the learning displays in your classroom and ask 

'What do your classroom displays say about the learning and teaching going on in your classroom?'

I would expect that anyone visiting your classroom should be able to look at your classroom displays and be able to clearly see the learning that is occurring and the specific skills and understandings that are being taught.  This is a very key component of becoming a proficient teacher and something that I ask all teachers to invest time and energy into on an ongoing basis. Even if you only have one or two students, the intended learning should be clearly evident, with student samples regularly updated and added to. 

As a leader I am modelling this with the development of the reading intervention room as a space for me to display the learning that we are undertaking as a school. This will be further expanded next term as our new teacher preparation space is created in our current store room. 

Prior to the end of term, I ask that you please invest significant time in creating multiple (2-3) visually engaging classroom displays which highlight term 3's intended learning.

Cadbury Award Winner

Congratulations to Shelly, our inaugural winner of the staff 'Cadbury Award' at last week's staff meeting. Shelly was nominated for his support of the panel selection process and also for his willingness to 'help out' in any way necessary. Volunteering to change the bus tyre is just one example of Shelly going 'above and beyond'. Thanks Shelly!!