PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Dear Parents and Carers,

Firstly, a big thank you to our Parents and Friends Association for their efforts in organsing the Welcome Picnic last week. It’s a simple event, but the foundation of a school is built in relationships and the picnic continues to be a wonderful event for fostering this.

Catholic Education in the News

Last Thursday, you may have seen an article in The Age titled ‘The big change coming to the way Catholic school kids are taught’. This article referred to a system-wide shift in thinking from Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) around how students are taught in Reading, Writing and Mathematics. MACS launched its ‘Vision for Instruction’ that same day and this vision details expectations for Catholic schools around the implementation of explicit (direct) instruction. This change is due to a body of research, predominantly coming out of the US that outlines the significant, positive impact of explicit and direct instruction approaches. In many cases, it is referred to as the Science of Learning (and Reading).

I therefore thought it would be timely to communicate our journey around teaching and learning practices at St Agnes’. With our staff, we have had a focus on explicit instruction over the past four years and after putting the pandemic in our rearview, there have been massive adjustments made to the way we teach at St Agnes’. We started with the introduction of Spelling Mastery from Year 2 to Year 6, which was followed by the rollout of the MSL approach in Prep and Year 1 shortly after. These two approaches have been the springboard that has provided enormous growth for our students and also learning/growth for our staff. We can now say with confidence that we are a ‘Structured Literacy’ School, with highly explicit, systemactic and sequential teaching of Literacy.

Our approach to teaching reading at St Agnes’

A critical aspect of our approach to Structured Literacy is MSL - Multisensory Structured Language instruction. MSL introduces letters, sounds and spelling blends to children in a deliberate and sequential manner. It is visual, auditory and kinesthetic, involving body movement and handwriting. This is delivered whole-class in Prep and Year 1 and on a needs basis with children from Year 2 up. This instruction is paired with ‘decodable’ texts both in class and at home, especially for our Preps, Year 1s, where the sounds taught in MSL are also taught through decodable texts. The development of phonemic awareness (the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds - phonemes - in spoken words) is supported by Heggerty curriculum. Heggerty is a short, sharp learning exercise that improves the children’s ability to hear sounds, therefore assisting their development of decoding (reading) and encoding (writing) skills. Paired Fluency is a daily focus, especially in the Junior school, to increase reading fluency, accuracy and speed. Fluency is the bridge between decoding and comprehension and is therefore a critical skill. Students read lists of letters/sounds or passages of text, increasing in difficulty, based on student need. To build reading comprehension skills, students from Prep to Year Six are using knowledge-rich texts as part of their daily, shared, whole-class reading to build student knowledge of a variety of content. This helps to build students' comprehension skills as they have a broader range of knowledge and vocabulary to help them understand text that is unfamiliar to them.

Structure Literacy Collective

At the beginning of 2023, we joined together with four other like-minded schools from the southern region of Melbourne to create a ‘Structured Literacy Collective’. This collective involves our curriculum leaders meeting together with the curriculum leaders from the four other high-performing schools, once per term, to discuss current research and best practice, specifically in Literacy. To further develop all staff in this space, the four schools will be having a combined professional learning exercise on our school closure day on Monday 15th April. We are thrilled to have three leading researchers from LaTrobe University working with our staff on these days. 

As parents, you can help by continuing to expose your children to a wide range of literature when reading at home. Sharing lots of different kinds, or genre, of books with your young reader exposes them to different words, different pictures, and whole new worlds. Encourage them to read fantasy/science fiction, biographies, information books and poetry. Whatever you choose to read with your child, make it an enjoyable experience. Have fun visiting that magical place, getting to know that famous person, finding the answers to questions, and reading with the rhythm of poetry.

We look forward to communicating more about the exciting teaching and learning developments in our school as we continue to seek improvement.

St Agnes’ School Fete - Saturday 16th March

The excitment is continuing to build with the fete fast approaching. It’s hard to believe it is only two weeks away! There are some key pieces of information to communicate about the fete:

1. All families are invited to purchase tickets in to the Fete raffle, as there are some amazing prizes on offer. Please feel free to share the link with family and friends: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1179202?qr=true&qr=true
2. Unlimited Ride Wristbands are also available for purchase for your children. Again feel free to share this link: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1186901? 
3. We ask that all families sign up for the stall roster to help out on the day. It really is a ‘many hands’ event and is a great way to connect with other parents, support the school community and contribute to your child’s education. Thank you in advance: https://signup.com/go/foSiOzn. Please note, families who volunteer their time by registering for a stall and pre-purchase ride wristbands by 12th March, go into the draw for their child to win a Golden Ticket. This ticket enables the winning child and a friend to jump the front of the queue for each ride at the fete. There will be a ‘Junior’ (Prep-Year 2) Golden Ticket, and a ‘Senior’ (Year 3-6) one too.

A separate Fete newletter will also be sent to you via your class rep.

Important - Change of date for Grandparents Day and Visual Arts Show

As many of you will know, our inaugural Visual Arts Show in 2022 was a great success. It is happening again this year, but we have decided to made some adjustments to our school calendar to have it coincide with Grandparents Day. An art show is a significant undertaking, so we are aiming to maximise our visitors by bringing it together with Grandparents Day. The new dates are as below and they won’t change again.

Whole School Visual Arts Show - Wednesday 27th November

Grandparents Day - Thursday 28th November

Little Body Investigators!

On Monday 26th February the Junior classes (Prep, Year 1 and Year 2) participated in an Incursion called Body Investigators by Drama Toolbox. It was a fun drama incursion where the students were Body Investigators and looked at the different systems in the body. They each dressed up and became different parts in the body such as the brain, neurons, oxygen, red and white blood cels and the digestive system. The students worked collaboratively together and also enjoyed learning about healthy and unhealthy foods and what they do to our bodies. 

NAPLAN

In the week following the Labour Day Long Weekend, our Year 3 and 5 students will sit NAPLAN Online. All tests are completed using the school’s Chromebooks, with the exception of Year 3 Writing which is handwritten. The Year 3 and 5 students will complete the following tests:

• Writing - Wednesday 13th March
• Reading - Thursday 14th March
• Conventions of Language - Thursday 14th March
• Numeracy - Friday 15th March

It is expected that all students complete NAPLAN assessments, unless there is a valid reason for exemption. Results will be received mid-year and an individual report will be provided to families displaying your child’s achievement. Please click here, for parent information regarding NAPLAN in 2024.

School Advisory Council Meeting

A reminder that the first SAC meeting will be held at school on Tuesday 5th March from 7.30pm. An agenda will be provided to SAC members in the coming days.

P&F Meeting

Last night, our Parents and Friends Committee met for the first time this year. It was a great turnout and there is an exciting calendar of events planned for the year. At St Agnes’, we continue to look for opportunities for shared responsibility and leadership, including with the P&F. In recent times, our school has allocated events for particular year levels to lead and this has been a great way to provide all parents with an opportunity to get involved and contribute. Thank you to our Class Reps and P&F Exec for helping to drive much of what goes on in our school. Our school simply could not operate without the input from our parents community and we are very grateful for all support. An important Save the Date for our mothers and mother figures - Mother’s Day Dinner will be held on the evening of Friday 3rd May.

Prep students full time - Monday 4th March

With Prep testing completed today, we look forward to welcoming our Prep students full time from next week. 

Tracey Law - Leave

Mrs Law will be taking leave from Friday 15th March until the end of term. Tracey requires surgery to repair an injured shoulder and hopefully will be back on deck at the beginning of Term Two. Amanda Baker will be teaching Year 4 during Tracey’s absence.

Footy Tipping Competitions

This year we will again have the Parents and Friends Committee Footy Tipping Competition. We will also be introducing a footy tippping competition, only for current St Agnes’ students. Mr McMahon has set up the adult competition and the teachers will work together to get the students competition up and running in the next week or so. To register for the Parents and Friends competition, please use the following link:

https://www.footytips.com.au/comps/st_agnes_pf_tipping&p=stagnes2024

There is a $25 entry fee for this adults competition, with $15 going towards prizemoney and $10 to the P&F. Please pay your entry fee promptly to avoid point deductions (payment details below). There will be no entry fee for the student competition.

St Agnes' P and F Bank Details

BSB: 083 347

Account #: 173 603 985.

 Please use your initial and surname as the description

Clean up our Community Day

A reminder that this Friday our students will be heading out into the local community to ‘clean up’. This outward-facing action is designed to promote community spirit, healthy lifestyle and environmentally minded actions. All information has been communicated via Operoo. Please ensure you have actioned permissions.

School Closure Days

A reminder about our upcoming school closure days on Thursday 7th and Friday 8th March. The school is closed for staff professional learning, focused on the Berry Street Education Model. The BSEM training will further equip our staff with practical, classroom-based strategies to increase the engagement of all students, including those with complex, unmet learning needs. I thank you in advance for your understanding as we complete this important work and hope you all manage to make use of the extra family time. Extend have opened bookings for care on these days, but require a minimum of 10 for the program to run. The school is also closed for the Labour Day Public Holiday.

St Agnes’ Dads’ Night - Pot and Parma - Thursday 14th March

St Agnes’ Dads Pot and Parma night is back. We are aiming to establish a St Agnes’ group to strengthen the connection amongst St Agnes’ fathers and father figures. Please register your attendance with Year 4 Dad Bart Carroll (bartscarroll7@gmail.com or 0421 877 991) so we can book some tables. Please see the P and F page for the flyer.

Sibling Enrolments - Prep 2025

We are asking those current families to complete the enrolment process for any siblings who will join our school in Prep in 2025. We need all families to enrol as soon as possible so we know how many places we have to offer new families.

Sacrament of Reconciliation Family Faith Night - Wednesday 28th February, 7.00pm

Tonight, all Year 3 families of children receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation are asked to attend the family faith night. This session connects school, home and parish around the preparation for this sacrament. It will be held in the children’s classroom from 7.00pm and will run for a little over an hour. The Year 3 children will also participate in a refleciton day related to the sacrament on Tuesday 12th March. The children are invited to wear casual clothes on this day.

Tuckshop

Tuckshop has commenced and will continue weekly. Orders can be placed online at https://www.salutecatering.com.au/tuckshop using the code: lunch2024 

Term 1 school fees

School Fee invoices were emailed on Friday 16th February and payment is due by Friday 1st March. Please see Shannon (sshine@sahighett.catholic.edu.au) in the office if you have any queries or would like to set up a payment plan.

Assembly

Assemblies are in the Hall on Wednesday afternoons at 2.40pm. Parents are welcome to attend. At assembly, there will be presentations from classes, student awards, birthday acknowledgements and special announcements from student leaders.

Wed 6th March - Year 3

Wed 13th March - Year 1

Wed 20th March - Prep

Wed 5th April - Year 6 - Leadership

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Kind regards,

Lachie