Principal's

Message

WORLD TEACHERS’ DAY

This week, I have been absolutely blown away by the sophisticated sentence-level knowledge of our students. Today, one year 4 student explained to a visitor, that a ‘D-Wedge’ is a dependant clause embedded within an independent clause, for example: Ms Stephens, a caring and clever teacher in our school, always makes learning challenging. I think our visitor was both shocked and amazed!

I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to our wonderful teachers, who make this learning come alive. This year, I have been thrilled with the way our teachers jump into the learning pit and support each other to develop their professional knowledge. Last night, we held pre-discussions about the up-coming peer observations. Their collegiality and openness to learning, from and with each other, is a credit to them. 

Our specialist team, too, are an exceptional group of professionals. I was just commenting this week about how passionate and talented our specialist team is!

Thank you, teachers. It is an extremely rewarding but complex and challenging profession. I feel very fortunate to work alongside you.

CLASS STRUCTURES FOR 2024

After much consideration and with our kids at the heart of the decision, we have decided to move to straight grades from 2024. There are always pros and cons for composite and straight grades, however we do believe that there will be greater benefits in having straight grades for next year’s cohort. We will have very small class sizes, which I’m sure will benefit all of our children. If your child will not be at SMPPS next year, please notify the office as soon as possible. 

CLASS PLACEMENTS FOR 2024

We are currently in the beginning stages of structuring classes for next year. All classes will be developed with care. Over the next week, the students will be asked to provide 5 names of children that they work well with, including some children from outside their current grade. These names will not be ranked. We will endeavor to make sure that every child gets to be in a class with at least one person from their preference list. You might like to discuss some possible options with your child at home this weekend, in preparation. 

As a staff, we will do our best to create balanced classes based on many criteria and complexities. Parents/Carers who believe that there are extenuating circumstances which need to be considered during this time, should email the school with the subject heading ‘Classes for 2024’ by Friday, 3rd November. If you have forwarded your request for consideration in previous years and it is still pertinent, we ask that you send in a new correspondence each year. We will not consider requests for your child to be placed with another student or for them to be taught by specific teachers. Thank you for your understanding with this.

TERM 4 PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

This term, we are continuing our work on the High Impact Teaching Strategy (HITS) of ‘Differentiation’, with a focus on small group writing instruction. The learning we gained through our focus on explicit teaching of writing in semester one, will be applied at point of need within small groups. Groups remain fluid as their zone of proximal development determines the next steps in each student’s learning. Teachers will engage in peer observation to further support their professional development in tier 2 writing intervention. Term 4 will also see a review of our planning documents in readiness for 2024.