Principal's Report
Dear Families,
I sincerely hope all our families are continuing to do well. As we end week 3 of term 2 we have so much to celebrate! It seems that, as a school community, we are going from strength to strength.
Our students continue to settle back into learning despite the challenges we are faced with, in terms of illnesses and staffing shortages when hiring Casual Relief Teachers. Our staff are doing a brilliant job in being flexible to ensure that high quality learning and teaching and above all, genuine care is provided for our precious students.
Front Foyer to welcome students, families, and visitors
We have painted our front foyer entrance area and created visuals of our learners/students showing them in action throughout the day engaging in various programs. The photos and displays show happy, engaged students connected to our school and staff. Nicky Gallus, our chaplain, worked to make our vision of connected students, come to brilliant life. Felicity Dobson and her husband Ben Smith painted the foyer area over the Easter holidays. They too, did a brilliant job. Next time you visit us please take some time to take in our happy, confident, intelligent, and curious children at work and play.
Oval Works
Happy days are here now!! The joy and smiles on our children’s faces yesterday was something truly special to see as we watched the excavation of our oval begin. I am hoping that the works finish by the end of Term 2 in readiness for a clean start for Term 3 and so that our year 6 students can get the full six months benefits of its use. I have communicated to the builders that our wish is for the timeline to be met so that our students can get the full benefits, especially after such disruption with covid and working remotely, for the large part of last two years.
PERMAH
This week our staff unpacked their individual and our collective organisational survey results within the PERMAH framework.
What is PERMAH?
Professor Martin Seligman, one of the world’s leading researchers in positive psychology and human flourishing found that wellbeing is cultivated by the presence in our lives of Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. This framework is often referred to as PERMA.
Other researchers believe that the cultivation of our Health by eating well, moving regularly and sleeping deeply is one of the hygiene factors of wellbeing. Therefore, Professor Martin Seligman’s original PERMA became known as PERMAH Wellbeing Tool.
Our staff are engaging in the PERMAH Wellbeing tool as a means to support and improve the wellbeing of our staff so that we are in the best position to serve our students.
The PERMA Model represents the five core elements of happiness and well-being. PERMA basically stands for Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishments. American psychologist and educator Martin Seligman designed the PERMA Model. Other researchers have added in the Health component making it PERMAH.
In our efforts to strengthen our school climate and build capacity and connection amongst our staff and organisation as a whole we are learning about PERMAH and engaging in surveys and creating individual wellbeing plans. We will reflect on our data and look toward creating a plan to support the wellbeing of us as an organisation.
Prep 2023 School Tours and Information Sessions
We have conducted our first prep tour, a morning tour on Tuesday 3rd May. It was well attended with 15 parents/carers in attendance.
I have communicated with our office staff to advertise 1:1 tour with me outside of the set dates for parents/carers who are unable to attend the set tour dates.
In addition, I will schedule two tour dates of our school for this year’s prep students, parents/carers in Term 3. This is in response to the lockdown and parents/carers enrolling at that time not having the opportunity to experience a tour and information session. Once I set the dates I will communicate to our community.
The dates remaining are as follows:
19/5 – 6:30pm – Thursday (Evening Session)
24/5 – 9:30am - Tuesday (Morning session)
9/6 – 6:30pm – Thursday (Evening Session)
Please remind your family and friends about our tours and our wonderful school.
ANNUAL REPORT TO OUR SCHOOL COMMUNITY
A friendly reminder that every year the Annual Report to the School Community provides principals and school councils with an opportunity to share the year’s achievements and progress with the school community. This includes reflecting on the school’s performance and explaining the positive impact of school improvement efforts on student outcomes.
Our school’s Annual Report to the Community will occur on Monday 16th May at 6pm. I will hold it on our school grounds in our staff room and also provide a Webex link to those who wish to join online. https://eduvic.webex.com/meet/cvitkovic.katarina.k - my webex link
I look forward to sharing the work of the school for the 2022 school year.
Curriculum Day Monday 23rd May
A friendly reminder that our Curriculum Day is scheduled to take place on Monday 23rd of May. The day is a student free day, with students not required at school. The focus of this Curriculum Day will be our upcoming School Review which is scheduled to take place in Term 3. Extend will operate on this day as per normal.
We will use the Curriculum Day to begin our staff reflections on our past 4-year Strategic Plan and its data, as well as identifying the highlights. In the coming week I will send out more information regarding the School Review and ways we will seek input from our parent/carer community.
COVID UPDATE FOR TERM 2
Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs): At this stage I have not heard that the use of RATs twice per week will continue after week 4. Thank-you to all our families who have continued to test frequently, identifying positive cases early and helping to reduce the transmission of COVID_19. At this stage we will not be sending out any further Rapid Antigen Tests home however we still have some spare tests at school. If you require a test, please see the front office.
NAPLAN
I am so proud of our Year 3 and Year 5 students as they began to sit the NAPLAN tests. This week our students sat the Reading and the Writing tests with Catch up tests occurring for students who were absent on the scheduled dates tests occurred.
I spoke with our students before each test to wish them well and to reassure them that these tests are more about us, as a school and our programs, then it is about how well an individual student does on this test.
In my conversations I saw mature and focussed students who were ready to do their very best. Thank-you to our teachers who supervised the tests and to our parents/carers for your continued support and reassurance of our students so that they felt relaxed. We wish all our students in Year 3 and 5 the very best for next week as they prepare to sit the Language Conventions on Monday and the Numeracy NAPLAN test on Tuesday.
WELCOME TO BABY ALBI
Melissa Pentecost and David Pentecost are celebrating the safe arrival of their first baby boy Alby. Mother and baby are safe and well and very happy. We congratulate the family of three and wish them every happiness with their new darling baby boy, Alby.
I wish all our community a safe and happy week-end.
Warmest Regards,
Kathy Cvitkovic
Principal (Acting)
‘Building the foundations for success and happiness’.