Burnie Campus Principal  

Welcome back to Term Three for all those in our school community! I trust that you thoroughly enjoyed the longer than usual term break and feel ready and refreshed for the coming term. If you were able to make it to Christmas in July, I am sure that you would agree with me that it was a spectacular and special event and a wonderful way to end the term. Thank you to all those involved in the planning and delivery of such an incredible evening.

We have had some staffing changes at Burnie, and I want to welcome to the team Mr. Ken Greenwood, acting Deputy Head of Campus (while Mrs Polden is on long service leave), Ms. Rebecca Gray, Year 5&6 teacher 3 days a week and Learning Support Teacher the other two days and Ms. Bonnie Austin as a new Learning Support Aide. If you are a new family to the school, we extend a warm welcome as we partner with you in the education of your children. I pray that you will quickly feel welcome in our community.

Over the holidays, 50 of our staff attended the CEN ITEC Conference in Perth. They engaged in professional learning spread over 4 days and spent this time listening to a variety of inspirational speakers and presenters, along with 1100 delegates from CEN Schools across Australia. This conference provided invaluable teaching on Christian Education, presentations on the most recent research and initiatives impacting our schools and helped to firmly embed our staff in their calling to be teachers in a Christian School. 

Our team is growing and so are our facilities.

While many staff attended ITEC, there was a lot happening on the Burnie Campus to again update our facilities. New folding doors have been installed between grades 1&2 and grade 3&4 allowing them to become more collaborative learning spaces. The Pod was put into the break-out space so there is an area where children can go to de-escalate, to calm down or to have some time to themselves when it is needed. We also added a sensory swing in the undercover area to provide this for our students when they need it.

Several new initiatives been rolled out across the campus as well. Most excitedly we are starting and finishing the day with play! As we begin to roll out a pedagogy of play across Leighland Christian School, we wanted to embrace our school day to start and finish with play.  Already this has helped to settle the children of a morning and start the day in a positive way that allows them to play and build strong connections with each other and students across the school. More information about this initiative is going out to the Burnie Community from Mr. Greenwood. 

This term we are also introducing student choice activities on a Friday afternoon, alternating with family assemblies. Students have been actively involved since the conception of this idea, and as a whole school they met to record and discuss their ideas for activities they would like to do or learn. We are still deciding on a name for this time (also led by student voice and choice) and will announce it shortly.

This term our Prep to Year 2 classes have begun a new style of literacy rotations. Over the past several months, teachers and Learning Support Aides have been completing individualized testing with the students and they then used this data to form the three literacy groups that will be running in lower primary. We are confident that each student is in the right place and learning at their level, including being supported or extended. 

There is so much to pack into a nine-week term, but we are ready and excited to make it a great one of intentional learning, play, curiosity and creativity.

Elizabeth Scheu

Burnie Principal