Message from the Principal 

WE LOVE READING

I know we say this all the time – but at Greenhills we love reading. In fact, I think it is part of the DNA of our school. We start each day with whole school reading, we have set up and regularly resource reading corners in all classrooms and most importantly, the way we are teaching our students to read continues to grow from strength to strength. 

Across our school we have so many strengths that we identify and celebrate. You only need to have a look at recent NAPLAN results to see the evidence that reading is one of the strengths of our school. As you can see from the graphic, our Year 3 reading results are 22% higher than across the State and 10% higher than the schools we are compared with in terms of family social economic and education backgrounds. This is a huge result and why our school is seen as an “influencer” across our school system in terms of our reading strategies.  

Given the timing of the NAPLAN tests this year (in term 1), this result is a testament to the culmination of all the years of learning at our school. From their first year in Prep, our students are taught the fundamentals of phonics, fluency and comprehension. G.R.E.A.T. work Greenhills staff, students and of course all of our parents and carers who actively participate in your child’s learning, especially though reading each night at home.

We know that NAPLAN is one test on one day so importantly, the evidence we focus on the most, is our students love and enjoyment of reading. We measure this through regular conferencing with our students, discussions and interviews, library borrowing data and of course when we walk through our school and can actually see this love of reading in action. These photos are just a small example of this. 

THANK YOU PARENT ASSOCIATION FOR A WONDERFUL FATHERS & SPECIAL PERSONS BREAKFAST

Thank you to our wonderful Parent Association for a GREAT morning last Thursday. Lots of happy dads, grand-dads and special people were there to enjoy the morning together and this event is just another example of how good it is to be a part of our school community. Events like this do take significant time and organisation. A big shout out to Hayley Ormandy and the Parent Association Team for making sure it was such a special and memorable day.

iPad INFORMATION NIGHT

Thank you to David Symeonidis & Jon McFarland for facilitating our iPad Information for our Year 2 families moving into Year 3 next year. Once again, we continue to develop and improve systems and organisation for this roll out.

Our Years 3-6 iPad program is an incredibly important part of our school. It has been developed and strengthened over the last few years and built on the very successful 1:1 Netbook program that was introduced over 11 years ago. This process of development has included parent, student and staff surveys and when we moved across to iPad’s a few years ago, parent and staff surveys were also used to inform and guide our decision making. In fact, it was parent feedback via a survey that was the main reason we extended the program to include Years 3 & 4 and not a broader roll out across the entire school. 

One thing that is very important to communicate is that whilst our students in Years 3-6 are not regularly always on their devices at the same time, there are times each week when this does happen. This is why we require students to have their own device in Years 3-6 as opposed to setting up banks of devices across the whole school as opposed to just our Preps – Year 2’s. To maintain our most effective practice, we require the flexibility of students being able to access a device at the time of need. This is the main reason why schools adopt a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) program. This flexibility increases the teacher’s ability to deliver targeted and point of need learning to all students. An example of this is our maths goals program. We have set up the entire maths curriculum with matching goals for students to work through all with their own QR code. These have links to teacher explanation videos, work samples and learning tasks. In this way our 1:1 iPad program is enabling a very high level of personalization and student agency.    

I take this opportunity to again thank those families that have donated an iPad/s to the school. These devices have been added to the school fleet so that those families who are unable to provide their own device can have access to one at school. This year we have also purchased another bank of 20 iPads for use in our Prep – Year 2 team. (This is now over 40 devices purchased in the last 2 years). This is really important to us for many reasons, one being so that we can further develop and embed our continuous reporting so that our parents are provided with information and feedback about your child’s learning and progress.

Here is the link to the recording of the iPad Information Night if you missed it on Compass: https://clickv.ie/w/kAXv 

TERM 3 DATES

Last day of Term 3 - Friday 15th September

Assembly at 2.00pm

2.30pm dismissal

TERM 4 DATES

Monday 2nd October - Term 4 starts

Monday 6th November - Curriculum Day (Assessment & Reporting)

Wednesday 8th November – Parent Association Colour Run

Wednesday 15th November – Mid Term 4 Meet with the Principal Team

Wednesday 19th November – Greenhills Music Festival

Tuesday 5th December – Parent Helpers Morning Tea

Thursday 7th & Tuesday 12th December – Whole School Transition Sessions

Wednesday 13th December – Semester Two Reports

Thursday 14th December – Year 6 Graduation

Friday 15th December – Final Assembly

Monday 18th December – Year 6 Excursion to Funfields

Tuesday 19th December – Student Free Day (Staff Professional Practice Day)

Wednesday 20th December – Last Day 1pm finish (No Assembly) 

Cheers,

James Penson

Principal