St Francis Xavier’s Primary School, Narrabri

Principal's Report

Term 2, Week 1

 

Dear St FX Parents and Carers,

 

Welcome to Term 2! I trust you all had a wonderful break from the usual term routine and were able to recharge your batteries!

 

Recess & Lunch Sessions in Term 2

Towards the middle of Term 1, staff became increasingly concerned about the safety of students during Recess and Lunch. Staff were mostly concerned about three factors: 

  1. The high risk of injury with the large number of students playing on the playground concurrently.
  2. The high risk of injury and emotional safety with the large number of students trying to access the Kindergarten-Year 4 bathrooms at once. 
  3. The exposure to loud environments that resulted from all Kindergarten-Year 4 students sitting and chatting under the COLA at the same time. 

In an attempt to collect some data around mitigating these risks, we trialled separate eating and playing sessions, firstly with Recess sessions. These sessions were organised so that two of the four Stages (Early Stage 1 - Kindergarten, Stage 1 - Yrs 1 & 2, Stage 2 - Yrs 3 & 4  and Stage 3 - Yrs 5 & 6) were playing, while the other two stages were eating. Students were asked to wait until their designated eating time to use the bathrooms, where possible. This plan effectively halved the number of students on the playground at once, halved the number of students trying to access the bathrooms at once and reduced the volume under the COLA by half. With a noticeable difference being made, we then trialled how it would work for Lunch sessions too. Due to the duration of the lunch break, there still exists a 10 minute period in the middle of the lunch session where all students are on the playground at once.

 

At the end of Term 1, the St FX Leadership Team distributed a survey to students to collect data about their views on the change. The feedback we received from students indicated that there was still a level of confusion around why we made the changes, but that the majority of students felt safer on the playground because they eat and play at different times. We are aware that there are some St FX students who have friends in other Stages and are now not able to socialise during these playtimes. In saying this, these students still have the support network of having friends in their own age group to converse and play with.

 

Given the feedback and observations at the end of Term 1, we will be proceeding with the same structure that we finished Term 1 with. I thank you for your understanding as we simply want to explore the safest way to provide play and meal times to your child(ren) and I'm confident that we now have a model that will ensure safety is maximised, especially as our school continues to grow.  A review of this term's Recess and Lunch Sessions will be undertaken at the end of Term 2. 

 

Lyn Sharratt - CLARITY Workshop

On Monday and Tuesday this week, the St FX Leadership Team attended a workshop in Gunnedah involving the work of Lyn Sharratt, specifically around assessment. It was a rich couple of days and affirming for the work of Lyn's that we, as a Diocese, have been undertaking for about 10 years. The work placed a huge weight on student voice; in particular, making students assessment-capable, that is, having students being able to articulate:

  1. What they are learning (and why that is important)
  2. How they are going with that learning
  3. How they know how they're going
  4. Where they can go to for help when needed; and
  5.  How their learning can improve. 

Justin Matthews, our School Performance Leader from the CSO, spoke about the huge leaps our Diocese has made in improving student outcomes since undertaking Lyn's work of embedding the '14 Parameters' into our system practices and putting names and faces to the data we're continuously collecting. 

 

ANZAC Day March Participation

Thank you to all the families and staff who turned out to commemorate the fallen service personnel, as well as show our thanks to those who have served in honour of our wonderful country. It was warming to see so many students involved in the ANZAC Day March as they participated with pride.

 

St FX Welcomes the CSNSW Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander State Education Conference 'Message Stick'!

At Sunday morning's Mass, the Message Stick was presented to the St Francis Xavier's Parish as it makes its way to Tamworth for the CSNSW Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander State Education Conference in October. The Message Stick is with St FX until the end of the week before it moves to Boggabri. For more information, please read our 'Activities and Events' page. 

 

Kind regards, 

 

Mal Frend