PRINCIPAL UPDATE
Welcome to week 4.
We have had a great start to the term and although busy, students and staff are settled and engaged.
Grade 5 and 6 students have been engaged in the BatForce learning sessions ‘Ready to Launch’ to support their social awareness, resilience and connection, both in person and online. Students unpacked statements around transition into secondary school that ‘excited’ them or made them ‘worry’ and it is interesting to get this feedback on order to put strategies in place to support them moving forward. This will effectively support them in the final term/s of primary school, their transition to secondary school and with their connections and friendships.
Last night I was lucky enough to be able to attend the BatForce parent information session titled ‘Digital Tattoo’ Over 58 parents were in attendance, and I personally believe it was one of the most valuable technology info sessions I have been too. This session provided an overview of the topics the student sessions covered that will enable parents to continue the dialogue and to talk to their child/ren about it in detail, while further building home school connections. Post COVID, Leigh Bartlett (BatForce) has been delivering ‘Digital Tattoo’ across communities and has heard firsthand of the challenges that exist. In 2020/21 we relied heavily on screens to connect, create, and consume, now is a great time to reflect on how they worked for us as families and whether we need to revisit what screen time means to us and how we move forward in both our online and in real life worlds. Topics covered included, healthy relationships, respect for self and others, consent and ethics in an online world, social media, what students are saying about tech use in 2023, the importance of role modelling and boundary setting, putting tech to sleep for the night so Young People can wake ready to learn.
Next year we will be moving to the COMPASS platform and leaving Sentral. We have experienced multiple concerns and challenges with Sentral over the past few years and believe that Compass is a far more accessible platform for us to sign up to. We will transition to Compass in the new year and will ensure all families are communicated with the necessary information to make this a seamless one. We have spoken to a number of schools that have transitioned from Sentral to Compass, and the feedback was unanimously positive toward this change , the ease of use and accessibility to information to support families, reporting, administration, finance etc.
We have confirmed will be moving to composite classes for grade 1 and 2 in 2024. As a staffing group we are looking forward to planning for this in the coming weeks. In addition to this we will be looking at combining STEM and ICT/ Digitech into a year long specialist class and can’t wait to spend time designing what this will look like in 2024. I surveyed multiple classes about specialist subjects in relation to key skills, understanding and engagement and will work with staff to plan for this. 2024 Prep students will not commence with the year with STEM, they will undertake the Perceptual Motor Program, like this year. The Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) is a movement-based program which helps younger students improve their eye/hand and eye/foot coordination, fitness, balance, locomotion, and eye-tracking skills.
Many factors are considered in the placement of students into classes including, but not limited to, the individual’s academic and social learning. If you believe there are students that your child learns well with, or is not so productive, within class, which you feel the classroom teacher is not aware of, please put this in writing to me chilwell.ps@education.vic.gov.au no later than 9am on Tuesday November 7th.
Please note these are requests only and the final outcome is NOT guaranteed. We use multiple sources of information when developing classes and a great deal of factors are considered.
I look forward to hearing all about the preps visit to the Werribee Zoo today. We farwelled some very exciting 5 and 6 year-olds on the bus this morning, ready to explore the habitats of animals.
Next Wednesday we see Grade 5 take off to Anglesea for three days. I will head down to visit them during this week and look forward to seeing them engaged in some fun filled activities.
Kind regards,
Meg