A Message from the Principal

Mrs Pauline Long

Dear Parents and Carers,

 

Term 4 Roadmap

From 8th November, all Catholic Schools in NSW will operate on updated Level 3 settings - supported by layered safety measures. Our priority is to ensure the safety of our students and staff and we must follow the guidelines set by Catholic Schools NSW.  I am pleased to note there are additional activities allowed such as our school canteen will operate now each Friday for the rest of the term. Thank you to our wonderful PT & F for organising this. You can read about the safety measures in the following link.

  

Brain Olympia 

We had our annual Brain Olympia Competition yesterday for all our Primary students. The students were placed into 6 teams and participated in General Knowledge questions, Challenging Mathematics problems, delivering a speech and creating a short play. Congratulations to all students for your enthusiastic participation and a special mention to our winning team consisting of Brandan Thompson,  Jack Morris, Ella Jamieson, Jorja Jamieson and Mackayla Trembath.

The winning team for 2021
The winning team for 2021

PAT Assessments

During the last two weeks, students from Years 1 - 6 participated in online assessments for Reading Comprehension and Mathematics. The assessments are created by the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER) and this year we used the new ‘adaptive format’ where the questions students answer are at varying levels depending upon student responses. Standardised assessments usually have all students answer the same questions but with this new format students receive a variety of levelled questions. 

 

Last week our teachers also received professional learning from ACER on how to analyse the assessment so it can be used as a tool to tailor their teaching to student needs. We also use the results  as a measure of student learning growth. In a few weeks time when teachers have end of year meetings with parents, they will share with you the exciting growth we have witnessed in our students this year.

  

Year 5/6 Canberra Lessons

I encourage you to read about the wonderful lessons Mrs Meade prepared for our 5/6 students in the Focus on Learning section of this newsletter. Thanks to Mrs Meade for making the week so engaging and educational for the students. 

 

Have a wonderful week

Pauline Long

Principal