Leadership Report

Dear families, we are quickly heading towards the end of the year and as a school community we have lots to celebrate.

Teachers have been working hard over the course of the year to improve on students literacy skills and in specific their reading skills. Students reading levels are assessed against ‘PM benchmarks’ which is a standardised reading and comprehension assessment piece. At the start of the year 26% of students were placed on a reading level. Teachers assessed a second time, at the start of Term 4. The results indicated that 43% of students are now placed on a PM benchmark reading level. This indicated that there has been an increase of 17% of students on a reading level. Additionally, students who have not yet been placed on a reading level are now reading or identifying either sight words or alphabet letters.

All of our students are now placed on the literacy continua which has seen a significant increase of students on the literacy continua from last year. Teachers have had various Professional Learning, coaching and peer observations opportunities to learn from each another and continue to evaluate, reflect and build on their current practices. We continue to focus on Reading as a very important life skill and will be investigating ‘The Simple View of Reading’ and in specific the decoding of words. Amy, our Head of Curriculum, has delivered a few workshops to families to build their understanding and capability to help their child foster a love for reading. Yesterday we had our first reading workshop with parents. We discussed the different ways of reading, how we could increase a love of reading and what we can do as a school to support our parents and community. 

We will be holding another workshop tomorrow at 8.50 and all parents/carers are welcome.

Teachers are also working hard on finalising assessments and reports to ensure these are ready to be shared and celebrated with families. Over the course of the year we have seen a decrease in major student behaviours which is a result of students being more engaged in their learning through Project Based Learning. On this note; families would have received information regarding our learning celebration opportunities through Culminating Events. Your child’s teacher would have informed you of the dates but these invites can also be found on the ‘Upcoming events‘ tab. If you are not sure, please contact our office. We would like as many families as possible to walk through our gates. Please pencil the dates in and celebrate the amazing work that our students alongside our staff have been doing. 

Thank you to the fantastic work our Senior Secondary staff and students have accomplished through their sustainability project. Their Culminating Event has been very successful through the selling of produce from our gardens and products they have made. It was a highlight to talk to families and share the entrepreneurial efforts of our students. Based on the success of the Sustainability Market we may need to invest more time, money and effort in the refurbishment of our Green House. I welcome community members that would like to be a partner in this journey to contact me.

We’re sure most of you have noticed the changes to the front of the school in preparation for the handover of the new carpark later this week. Everything is progressing as it should and our new carpark should be finished on Friday, ready for parents to use on Monday. Please note the left lane is a drive through drop off and pick up (no stopping) and the right lane is for cars to park. From next week, the builders will commence the construction for the new General Learning Area (GLA) and are aiming to have the concrete slab down prior to Christmas this year.

We appreciate your patience as we go through this transition and we are working with the builders to have it as smooth as possible. We look forward to what is scheduled to happen in the near future.

Have a fabulous week everybody, enjoy the lovely sunshine and thank you for your continuous support.

Kind regards,

Dehlia, Sam, Amy & Alana