Welcome Back

The first week back was a great reminder that winter still has a little bit of bite left with some cold mornings and plenty of rain (particularly overnight). Pleasingly, we have had a great first week and we weren’t impacted by any wet day timetables allowing students a much needed run around.

Welcome back everyone, with my footy team enjoying back-to-back losses I write this with melancholy optimism. More pleasingly, I have really enjoyed seeing our classrooms vibrant and full of happy, healthy students to begin Term 3. I hope all our families enjoyed a wonderful holiday break. Thank you for helping us make such a smooth return to school this week.

Staffing

Over the school holiday period, we undertook a recruitment process to replace Ms Deng (1/2C). I am delighted to welcome Jessica Harper (Miss Harper) to our school. Jessica has extensive experience in teaching, including experience in Japan and South Korea. She holds a MEd and a Bachelor Degree in Applied Linguistics and Intercultural Communication (UniSA). We look forward to welcoming Jessica to our school next week.

Congratulations

A very big congratulations to Mori sensei and her husband Teizo who celebrated the school holiday period with their wedding and ceremony in Japan. On behalf of our school community, we send our best wishes to them both. They are currently enjoying a honeymoon before Mori sensei returns to our school in the coming weeks.

Naplan

Year 3 and 5 Naplan results were released at the beginning of this week and provide a great opportunity for the school to review school improvement focus and our 2024 academic targets. Individually parents and families are able to receive a snapshot and summary of their own child’s performance. Further support on how to interpret and read these reports are available via the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) with the brochure linked here.

I will share further details about our school achievements, but there are some great highlights to celebrate including:

15% improvement from 2023 in ‘Exceeding’ achievement in Year 3 Reading
10% improvement from 2023 in ‘Exceeding’ achievement in Year 3 Writing
5% improvement from 2023 in ‘Exceeding’ achievement in Year 3 Spelling
3% improvement from 2023 in ‘Exceeding’ achievement in Year 3 Numeracy
‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong’ combined achievement level of 84%, 2% above the SaGE Network average in Year 3 Numeracy.
12% improvement from 2023 in ‘Exceeding’ achievement in Year 3 Grammar and Punctuation
‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong’ combined achievement level of 93%, 5% above the SaGE Network average in Year 5 Reading.
4% improvement from 2023 in ‘Exceeding’ achievement in Year 5 Writing
6% improvement from 2023 in ‘Exceeding’ achievement in Year 5 Spelling
‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong’ combined achievement level of 93%, 7% above the SaGE Network average in Year 5 Numeracy.
‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong’ combined achievement level of 85%, 4% above the SaGE Network average in Year 5 Grammar and Punctuation.

These highlights are a wonderful credit to our teaching staff throughout the whole school who continue to challenge and engage our students in high quality teaching and learning in a bilingual immersion environment. I make no apologies for benchmarking our expectations against the SaGE network, it is one of the highest achieving networks (collections of schools) throughout Victoria, to be performing at network level or outperforming that level is a considerable achievement.

Working Bee

A date for the diary for Term 3 is our Saturday Working Bee on the 17th August. We have deliberately waited for some improved weather (fingers crossed) to host a working bee. These are a great opportunity to contribute to our school. It is amazing what can be achieved with many hands. We will continue to promote this and look to encourage all available families to contribute on the day.

Prep Enrolments

A final reminder for any siblings or prospective 2025 prep enrolments, you are encouraged to submit your enrolment application to our school by next Friday (26th July). In doing so, this ensures that the school can effectively plan for 2025 class sizes and provides us the opportunity to begin planning our transition sessions and welcome packs for the year ahead. If you have any questions or wish to seek any information about this process, please speak to Therese, Jess or myself.

Holiday Maintenance

Over the course of the holiday break, we took three days to replace carpets in our stairwell and corridor of the main building. This has considerably improved the visual aesthetics of the corridor and stairwell and from a functional place, has also provided some underlay where it had previously eroded away to dust. It feels nice to walk on and looks great. Thank you to our families who kindly assisted over the school holiday break, moving furniture and books cases to allow this work to occur.

Dates

Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with our Term 3 dates, these are shared via our newsletter and provide a snapshot of important dates for the term ahead.

2024 Parent, Caregiver and Guardian Opinion Survey

The 2024 Parent, Caregiver and Guardian Opinion Survey will be available to complete online from Monday 29 July to Friday 30 August 2024. The survey seeks feedback on school climate, community engagement in learning and teaching practices for student engagement and learning outcomes.

The survey link will be available to parents, caregivers and guardians from Monday 29th July and will be shared via schoolstream. Our school is very eager to have as many families complete this survey as possible. Please keep your eye out for the link from Monday 29th July.

It was great to welcome everyone back this week, I have really enjoyed catching up with our students and speaking to many of you throughout the week. Thank you for stopping your conversations and saying hi. Enjoy a great weekend and I look forward to seeing everyone next week.

With Thanks,

Edward Strain

Principal

Team Kids