Principal's Report

It's been great to get back into the swing of things here at NPS after a few weeks on family leave. Again I'd like to thank the hard work and dedication of all NPS staff, in particular Jacqueline for keeping things rolling in my absence. In the last week of term we have our cross country at Hanging Rock and in the first week of Term Two our Grade 2-6 camp to Philip Island. 

The past couple of weeks have been busy with the scheduling of NAPLAN. Students showed great resilience when faced with the dreaded computer glitches while logging and and completing their Naplan tests. All grade 3 and 5 students should be commended on how they approached this series of tests, demonstrating their personal best and having a go. Results will be available later in the year. 

School Arrival

A reminder our school day begins at 9:00am with classes sharing important details about the day ahead. We hope to continue to see students in their classroom at this time to minimise disruption to learning time. We are very understanding that sometimes being late just can't be avoided, if so, please send your children through the front office door. They'll either get marked in by Narelle or be given a late pass to give to the classroom teacher to ensure they're presence is acknowledged on the roll (these are generally marked first thing). Thankyou for your continued efforts to ensure this is hapening. 

Curriculum Day

Friday before the long weekend was a curriculum day. Staff spent the day working through our SWPBS practices and unpacking the new Maths 2.0 curriculum. Research suggests best practice of teaching maths is making connections between topics to develop deep knowledge of all concepts. We mapped the new curriculum into areas that share links meaning our maths teaching and learning focuses on using skills from a range of concepts to become proficient learners. 

Professional Development

Over Tuesday and Wednesday this week we had all of our teaching staff attend Berry Street training professional development.  The learnings from this experience will continue to shape our classrom environments and school culture into the future. A short summary from their website about their model is below.

The Berry Street Education Model (BSEM) equips both mainstream and specialist schools with practical, classroom-based strategies to increase the engagement of all students, including those with complex, unmet learning needs.

Our education model enables schools to support students’ self-regulation, relationships and wellbeing to increase student engagement and significantly improve academic achievement.

School Council

On Monday we have our first School Council meeting of the year. This also means our AGM will be held prior to this at 7:00pm, all parents are welcome to attend. Following our most recent nominations for positions on school council, it will be made up of:

Tim Furphy, Sharny Smith, Shey Newitt, Chris Wiseman, Tanya Mouat, Karlie Goodison, Gemma Gamble and Rachel Hamilton. 

Kitchen

Grades 2-3-4 and 5-6 will have one more Kitchen session each before the end of term. This is such a special opportunity for teamwork, practising responsibility, trying different foods and applying practical numeracy and literacy skills. Please let us know if you're available as a parent volunteer, we appreciate the extra hands and eyes.