Principal's Report 

Dear Parents, 

Welcome back for another term. I trust the holiday period was a relaxing and enjoyable time in your household? The weather was even kind to us all which was a blessing. 

Last week at Mackellar Primary School started with a bang! We were very fortunate to have our maths consultant Kathy Palmer facilitate a wonderful curriculum day for our teachers deepening their already very strong understanding of how best to teach mathematics. The day was a very empowering one, and one that followed some great work Kathy had already been doing at our school this year.  

The rest of the week, we were fortunate to work with our English consultant Stephen Graham doing exactly the same thing in English.  Some of your children may have come home telling you that Mr Graham taught their class on a particular day last week. Stephen and Kathy will be regular visitors to our school for sometime to come, so if your children haven't met them as yet they soon will. 

Last week, the students in grade 5 also had their first session with the team from 'Project Rockit' where students started to develop an understanding of what bullying is. They started to demonstrate their ability to identify various (cyber) bullying situations and developed an insight into the emotional impacts bulling has for peers who are routinely excluded, bullied or discriminated against. Over the course of three more sessions, the students will generate strategies to challenge (cyber) bullying and support those targeted. If you have a child in grade 5, I would strongly suggest follow-up conversations with your child to gauge their understanding and reinforce these messages.

As we move into term three, we are already planning for 2022.  Our first step in welcoming our preps for 2022 will be our Book Week celebrations. During Book Week, we will be inviting all of our enrolled 2022 preps to school for a morning of literature and celebration. We will be reading with next year's preps, they can come dressed as their favourite book character and participate in some Book Week activities and leave with a gift from the school.  This will be a lovely start to our transition program to ensure our prep students in 2022 are well prepared for school life.  To ensure your child does not miss out, please have their enrolment forms lodged prior to Book Week in August 21-27.

Finally, we welcome four new staff to Mackellar Primary School this term.  We welcome Xavier Viola, Kristy Sallama and Luisa Bartolo to our Education Support team, and Yurani Perara who will be teaching grade 4A for the remainder of the year, and Gwen Laughlin who is replacing Anna Kourkoulis whilst she is on long service leave.  I am sure you will all make them feel most welcome. 

Kind Regards, 

Simon McGlade

Principal