SKiPPS Newsletter

Important Notices

End of Year Student Reports

For the last few weeks, our teachers have been very busy writing your child’s end of year student report. These will be made available to parents and carers via Compass next Thursday afternoon (15th December).

 

Please note: COMPASS access will be cut-off on December 20th for those students leaving SKIPPS  at the end of this year.  Please ensure you download or print any School Reports and other information you require from COMPASS before this date.   

 

When reading this report, you will notice that it provides you with a clear understanding of your child's current performance against the 'progression points' of the Victorian Curriculum.

These 'dots' and 'dashes' allow you to see their overall achievement against expected standards for their age across the curriculum and also the growth they have made since their previous report. This allows you to see whether they are working at, above or below age-expected benchmarks.

 

It also provides a personal comment from their teacher to tell you how they are as a class member - their behaviours, attitudes towards learning and personal skills. Class teachers have also provided a grade for your child's 'Work Habits' - the behaviours that we see consistently around their effort, behaviour and organisation in the classroom.

Also included in the report is your child's attendance for the whole year - indicating the number of times they were late and their overall attendance percentage. We know that 2022 has been a tough year with Covid-enforced absences, other illnesses and a higher than normal number of overseas trips, however, we do still pay close attention to this data as it is an important indicator of educational success. 

 

For those students who had more than a handful of late arrivals or an attendance percentage below 90%, we strongly encourage families to aim for better in 2023. It is so important that your child is at school as often as possible and on time - learning begins at 9am and every day counts. All available research shows that children with good school attendance and punctuality have better long-term outcomes than children with a high level of lateness and absenteeism.

 

As with the mid-year reports sent home in June, when it comes to details about your child’s learning this year, instead of writing lengthy comments in this report, teachers and students have been busy using 'Seesaw' to share examples of learning and create a portfolio of photos, videos and audio and written comments. 

 

We strongly believe that allowing you to view your child's learning and progress on Seesaw is the most effective way to involve you in their learning. If you have not logged in recently, we would encourage you to do so and enjoy this portfolio alongside this report.

Early in 2023, we will run parent-teacher interviews and information evenings to discuss their learning goals in more depth and provide ways that you can support learning at home. We encourage you to participate in these important events.

 

Next Thursday afternoon, parents will receive an email notification that semester reports are now available to view on Compass. Please access https://skipps-vic.compass.education/ and use your personalised login details to access reports.

 

Christmas candy canes

With Christmas fast approaching, many students are kindly sharing cards with their classmates and these are often accompanied by a sugary candy cane as a gift.

When these are handed out in the yard before school begins, children naturally want to open them and eat them immediately. Not only is this a dentist's worst nightmare, but it also takes away a parent's ability to choose and monitor what their child is eating during the day and goes against our rules around sharing of food at school.

 

Without wanting to appear grinch-like, we are asking students to hand out and share their cards and candy canes at the very end of each day so they can be put into bags and brought home to allow parents to make decisions about if and when the sugary canes are consumed. 

 

Teachers will support and monitor this taking place.  We thank you for your support and understanding on this matter.

End-of-term arrangements

I wanted to update you on arrangements for how we will finish the school year.

 

As shared in our last newsletter, students are not required at school on Tuesday 20th December .

 

This means that classes will finish for the year at 3:30pm on Monday 19th December. 

 

Team Kids will offer a full-day program at the school on Tuesday 20th December for those families that require childcare.

 

This arrangement means that the other end of term events and milestones will happen as follows;

 

  • Thursday 15th December - Final transition session and 2023 class lists sent home - students will meet their 2023 teacher and class and bring home a class list for next year.
  • Thursday 15th December - Semester two reports will be sent home via Compass
  • Friday 16th December - 9am: Final school assembly and Year 6 Leadership awards. We will start the day with a whole-school assembly to celebrate our leaving students and families, sing carols and round off the year. 
  • Friday 16th December - 3:15pm: Year 6 students will sing their graduation song at an end of the day assembly. Students dismissed at 3:30pm.

COMPASS access will be cut-off on December 20th for those students leaving SKIPPS this year.  Please ensure you download or print any School Reports and other information you require from COMPASS before this date.   

Start of 2023

Whilst we are all looking forward to a well-deserved break over the summer, we have already started to plan for our return to school in 2023.

 

School will begin for all students in Years 1-6 on Monday 30th January. Prior to this our staff will be taking Friday 27th as a Curriculum Day to enable us to be ready for the school year to start.

 

We look forward to seeing you all then!