Principal's Report

Dear DPS Students, Parents and Carers,

Last week our Wellbeing team visited a "Gold Star" school as we are moving towards this level of recognisiton inline with our SWPBP, School Wide Positive Behaviour Program. This is particularly interesting at this time of year. This is the term when students "may" start to feel they are a bit too big for their boots! We call it the silly season especially as we get closer and closer to Christmas, so we need to keep kids busy and not waste a single day of learning. I also ask that you make sure your child/ren attend school every day and that they arrive on time.

We recently completed the selection process for Junior and Senior Numeracy Learning Specialists. The successful applicants are Kelly Soccio who will lead Numeracy in the Senior School and Brent Granger will lead Numeracy in the Junior School. Following our Review earlier this year we decided Numeracy (Maths) was going to be one of our focus areas from P-6. We do already have a Literacy P-6 learning Specialist who is Julia Bay. Our Learning Specialists are outstanding teachers who will continue to move the school forward using student data and professional learning while promoting Numeracy and Literacy. We already have very good data in all areas but we want to have great data as we continue to support and challenge students.

We have many bright students at DPS who consistently achieve above expected level of attaintment. Our TLI (Tutor learning Initiative) supports students who need a bit of extra help, however we also have TLI students who working at above are above average. This program ensures they are successfully extended. Hannah Stagoll, our Grade 2 Leader attended professional learning yesterday to find out how we can extend our brightest students even further.

I would like to thank our Prep team for their hard work preparing for our Transition program for our 2024 Preps. The first transition session was last week and went really well with lots of enthusiastic new little faces. Future Friday transition sessions are as follows:

Friday October 20th    9.15 - 10.30am 

Friday October 27th    9.15 - 10.30am 

Friday November 3rd    9.15 - 10.30am

Friday November 10th    9.15 - 10.30am

Please check Compass and our website daily to ensure you keep up to date with what is happenning at DPS. Term four is always a busy time as Christmas (there you go - I said it!!!) approaches.

Remember DPS is your school. Let us know if you want to be more involved as there are many ways to help out at school. We want you to be as involved as you wish and students always love to see Mum or Dad at school showing how clever they are. If you haven't been in for a while you don't need a reason, just come for a visit as I'm sure you will delight in our grounds. Now that Spring is here, our beautiful gardens have really taken off. wE are very fortunate to have such beautiful grounds and always receive many compliments.  

Planning for 2024

If you are not attending DPS in 2024 please inform the office as soon as possible, so all necessary data transfers and reports can be done.

Regards

Jim Hill

Principal