From the Principal
Dear Parents and Friends,
NEW STUDENT AWARD
At assembly today we awarded the inaugural Pegasus Award. This award will be presented throughout the year as a way to acknowledge students who display what we refer to as the Pegasus spirit, it will not be presented each week but when we hear of acts that warrant it. Everyone in our community is part of the Pegasus family and we wanted to find a way to recognise the selfless way many of our students treat those in our family. We are committed to developing a place where the default behaviour of people is kindness and this award is a way we can celebrate this.
The recipient of the award today was George Z from grade 5. At the recent house athletics, George recognised that one of his peers was not having a great day and gave away one of his ribbons to this student. Acts of kindness such as this have a profound impact on those around us and George made someone else feel valued and important through his actions. Well done George, you are a true Pegasus!
NAPLAN
Last week and over the next 2 weeks, our grade 3 and 5 students will complete their NAPLAN tests for 2024. Over the past 5 years NAPLAN tests have moved from being entirely on paper to be completely online, apart from the grade 3 writing test. This year there were some glitches in the system in the lead up to the tests that made it more challenging for teachers to expose students to the NAPLAN platform.
Our students regularly use an online assessment tool called Essential Assessment, which gives students some experience with assessment using a computer. As a school we take the approach that the best way to prepare students for NAPLAN is exceptional teaching practices and a rigorous curriculum. Other schools take a different approach by exposing students to multiple practice tests at the expense of teaching time, both approaches have merit however our belief is that our responsibility is to the ongoing learning of students and to not overreact to an assessment that is a snapshot at a point in time.
CURRICULUM DAY
On Tuesday 12th March (Curriculum Day), our staff worked as a whole group with consultant David Anderson, focussing on:
- The language we use and how it impacts the way we work with each other
- Building stronger relationships across the school
- Developing team charters to guide our work and to hold us to account
This was a intense day for staff with the conversation being deep and thought provoking. David forces us to reflect deeply on the current reality and be accountable for what we do. He supports us to use cognitive rehearsal and to think before speak as we know that words matter and they all have an impact. As an organisation we are committed to ensuring that we work hard, set high expectations and hold each other to account. To ensure LPS is the best school it can be, it requires all staff to be the best team members and leaders they can be.
On Wednesday the 13th of March our School Improvement Team continued to work with David and follow on from the work the day before and also our learning from 2023. Our key areas of focus on the day were:
- What great leaders do?
- The essentials of a team player
- The power of listening to understand
- How to be an inquirer in a conversation
To finish we set ourselves a goal to continue, stop and start something from our work.
Have a great weekend!
Adam Wight, Principal