From the Principal Team

Starting a New Year

Welcome back everyone to another year of learning, growing and connecting at Ringwood North Primary School. After a massive centenary year in 2023, we are all looking forward to twelve months focusing on our learning and friendships. 

One of our strategic goals this year is focused on the practices we have in place to build stronger home-school relationships and to support parents to feel confident in supporting their child's learning. 

It is exciting to work with our staff to plan out the resources and activities that will help to achieve this. At RNPS we have so much experience and expertise among our staff that they are highly motivated and keen to get moving on rolling these things out to parents. 

Our first key event will be the upcoming Parent Information Evening on Monday February 19. These events will have a focus on working with parents to share how we teach reading, in particular, and give you better insight into the classroom practices your child will be undertaking, as well as tips and guidance on how to support your child in their reading at home. 

In Term 3, we have another evening planned with a focus on mathematics, to help parents understand and feel more confident about how to build on school learning when you're at home with your child. 

 A further Compass message will be sent as a reminder to ensure everyone knows what is happening on the night. 

Information sessions will be held in your child's learning area. 

What to expect in a school year

Whether you are an old hand and currently have your third or fourth child enrolled, or you are new to the game and your eldest or only child has just started school, every school year brings with it a mixture of excitement and trepidation. It is natural for us to feel this way, although sometimes I think we make life more difficult for ourselves when we try to predict what will happen over the next 12 months. It can be hard enough to plan for next week sometimes, we simply can't control what might change so far down the track. 

However, there are always some basic tips that can help you prepare for what might arise in the coming weeks and months. See these articles below for parent tips and suggestions about supporting your child at school: 

Starting school: preparing your child

Morning routines for school

Talking about school with kids and teens

5 ways to support your child's learning

I can't stress enough how important the family's interest, attitude and expectations are in setting the atmosphere for school. We should all expect our children to be respectful of others and to be grateful for staff who make an effort everyday to support them. Even in challenging times, checking the example we set for our children, and recognising how our line of questioning might lead to a positive or negative discussion, can be critical for many children. Remembering that children can often hear through walls is also important. 

Over the course of 12 months, we can all expect to have great moments of friendship and difficulties with others. There will be people we find annoying and people that we annoy. We will have moments where we are vulnerable and someone says the wrong thing and there will be moments when we are insensitive towards others, too. 

Particularly for our children, it is important that we all understand and recognise that children are at school to learn. That doesn't just include academics. They are learning how to navigate social situations, how to treat others fairly, how to overcome challenge and disappointment, and celebrate achievements graciously.  They are learning how the expectations in a group environment may be different from at home, and how to deal with and respond to people with very different life experiences from themselves.

We do not believe that a child's actions today will dictate how they are, or who they are, tomorrow. Because each and every one of our students is learning and growing.  

With this in mind, your child's teacher may contact you to discuss examples of mistakes or challenges they experience. Likewise, your child may share examples of other children making mistakes or struggling in a situation. The most important thing a parent can do in these moments is to accept that their child is still growing and learning and to work towards improving your child's skills and knowledge for the next difficulty they encounter: they are not infallible and neither are other children. 

Please, stay in contact with your child's teacher, be respectful of what they say and work towards growth together. 

We are looking forward to a productive and collaborative year of learning, growing and friendship. 

Parent Calendar

Please see the embedded calendar that is now on the newsletter Calendar page. There are instructions there for how you can sync this with your personal calendar or add individual events. If you prefer something hard copy for the fridge, you may opt to print either the monthly or weekly view. 

We hope this helps in giving parents plenty of advance notice about upcoming events. As we explain on the page, there will always be events that are months down the line that we haven't confirmed details for, so it will be consistently updated but it means that you will have access to this information when it has been confirmed.