The Golden Vine

From the School Leadership Team

Farewell Service for Pastor Greg 

We will take the opportunity to give thanks for God's blessing of Pastor Greg to our community over the past eight years at a special whole school Chapel Service on Friday 24 November, commencing at 8.50am in the Worship Centre. Pastor Greg is much loved in our community and this will provide a great opportunity for us to pray for the next chapter in his journey as he moves to Queensland with his wife, Connie, and takes up the role at Faith Lutheran College, Redlands, in 2024. 

 

The Chapel Service will be followed by morning tea in our cafe, which will give all of our families to catch up with Greg personally, to give him our thanks and to wish him well for the future. 

 

Strategic Plan and Survey Feedback

Thank you for all of your support in completing the strategic plan and annual school survey recently. We enjoyed receiving many positive responses from our school families, students and staff team.

 

"A good sized school with a great community” is one way that many of our parents and students have described the key strengths of Golden Grove Lutheran. The sentiment was expressed throughout the survey comments. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking part and share a summary of the feedback we have received.

 

It was helpful to have a range of positive feedback and insights  about our draft strategic plan. This is incredibly helpful in refining the final version for approval by our School Board, which will then be launched with our school community later in the term.

 

The feedback from parents about the school was overwhelmingly positive. Overall, our families have expressed a deep appreciation for our Christian philosophy, believing it contributed to the genuine caring nature of the staff and the positive school atmosphere, which was described as having a strong sense of warmth, collaboration and wellbeing. The school was praised for the way in which teachers know our students as individuals, as well as for its engaging style of learning through the IB Primary Years Programme aligned with the Australian Curriculum. Our wellbeing programmes, scope for student voice, choice and agency, and opportunities for students to engage in a wide range of activities were also rated highly.

Staff members at the school have expressed deep fulfilment in their roles, emphasising our supportive and collaborative work environment. They valued the opportunity to share their Christian values, to teach through the lens of the IB PYP, and our balanced approach to academics, wellbeing, and co-curricular activities, the sense of community among colleagues and with families, and the school's commitment to professional learning. The school was praised as a beautiful and nurturing place, with an emphasis on holistic child development, Christian values, and community engagement, fostering a sense of togetherness and continuous spiritual and professional growth.

 

Students expressed a positive experience at our school, describing it as fun, interesting, and filled with enjoyable activities. They appreciated the engaging and interesting style of learning, as well as the supportive and friendly atmosphere created by teachers. Students particularly highlighted the clarity of instruction, quality of feedback on their learning and the clear caring and kindness shown to them by the staff team. The sentiment was overwhelmingly positive amongst the students, with many expressing real gratitude for the school.

 

A key area for growth that was raised from our school families was in the area of continuing to streamline and sharpen school communications, and improving our feedback to families on student learning and progress. Students are interested in seeing us continue to improve the sporting facilities that we have. 

 

I can gladly say that this feedback is most welcome and we are working to continue to address it, and planning to do so is being finalised as we speak (write). Watch this space for more announcements over the next few months!

 

Will Wallace

Principal

In the coming weeks, our teachers will be busy writing progress reports. As an IB PYP (Primary Years Primary) school, our learning is transdisciplinary, drawing subjects together into our units of inquiry. Of course, as we have discussed many times, some of our learning doesn’t authentically fit into our units and Programme of Inquiry which is a framework for organising our curriculum. This is especially true for a large portion of the Australian Curriculum in mathematics and English.

 

We continue to report on the Australian Curriculum and have implemented version 9 which was released in 2022. We continue to learn what the changes in the curriculum mean for our student learning and, as with change, this is different across the school and across subjects. While we use Toddle to share student work, self, peer and teacher assessments and information about learning, the progress reports are used to share:

  • the achievement standard in each subject and the key ideas in Christian Studies
  • how children are meeting the achievement standards in the subjects at your child’s year level and learning in Christian Studies
  • comments in English and Mathematics relating to areas of strength and areas of future growth
  • an assessment of how students are developing in their skills to approach learning. This is in the categories of communication, thinking, research, self-management and social skills. 
  • A general comment about your child’s learning, a student comment and comment from leadership.

More information is being released about version 9 of the Australian Curriculum and a recent addition has been information about each of the subjects. I encourage you to visit the Australian Curriculum website at: https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/resources/parent-information#accordion-0361f0474e-item-ac31ec8090

This parent information offers you a deeper understanding of the how the curriculum meets the needs of learners within Australia in each subject and at different year levels. 

 

Please pray for our teachers as they write reports as this is a task that takes time as they try to accurately share their assessment of your children’s learning.

 

Jayne Zadow 

Director of PYP, Teaching and Learning