Principal's Report

Keep Up The Great Work

As we move through towards the end of Term 3 I am so impressed with the work of our whole community. Hearing and seeing that effort that our students are going to with their learning, despite being Remote in nature. The live sessions are being well attended across each day, and provide students with feedback and ongoing support with their learning. 

 

This couldn't be happening without the hard work and dedication that is going on around the students from the adults in their lives. Having committed families and school staff to provide support and guidance at this time is vital, and I thank each and every family in our community. 

 

Hopefully, we know by the end of this week what Term 4 looks like, based on the Premier's indication last week that schools would have announcements made around them this week. Whatever the information may bring, I welcome the idea of knowing and for all of us to be able to plan accordingly.  

Last week of Term

Next week, being the last week of the term would typically be planning week for staff (where our specialist timetable is changed around and classroom teachers have a day out of the classroom to complete the over arching planning for the following Term. This is a huge undertaking of our teaching teams, and will still be taking place, however, a silver lining to Remote Learning (and we must still look for those) is that this can happen for all of our classroom teaching teams next Wednesday, which is our Remote Learning Specialist Day and therefore have no impact on routines. This will mean that all feedback will be given during live sessions next week as a large part of the Wednesday time currently is planning for the following week and also preparing written feedback. 

 

On Friday next week, Melissa Den Elzen has been able to 'win' our school a session with Jackie French (author of Diary of a Wombat, amongst other texts). This session will take place at 12:15 pm on Friday, September 17th and be one part of our Literacy work for the day.  Your child's teachers will be sending out the link to a whole school Webex (very brave of us) session. All students must remain on mute for the session unless invited to participate and there will be an open-ended follow-up task provided by your child's teachers. This is a fantastic opportunity to hear from a published author, one I am sure your child had read or has had one of Jackie's books read to them.  

2022 enrolments

We are planning in earnest for 2022. Knowing our student numbers is a vital part of this work. Schools are currently experiencing lower than usual Foundation enrolments for 2022, and this has an impact on our ability to make strategic decisions around our programs and structures for next year. 

 

If you have a younger sibling who will be attending Marlborough next year, I would ask that we have your enrolment form by early next week. Failing that, as we know that families are very busy and dealing with many things if you can please email me: neil.butler@education.vic.gov.au to let me know you have a child who will be enrolling for next year. Families who have enrolled their child for 2022 should have already received a confirmation letter. 

 

Similarly, if you are aware of friends, kinder families, neighbours etc. who are planning on enrolling, please encourage them to do so by next week as this assists with our planning.