Head of Primary Years' Report

Dear parents, carers and our community of Hazel Glen College,

We hope that you enjoy reading your child's Semester One report to celebrate their achievement and continue to support them for their next steps with learning. Our students have worked hard this year to make progress in all areas for their learning as well as social and emotional development. Today was extra special with a sea of green and gold with students and staff showing support for the Socceroos in the World Cup. An exciting way to finish the term.  I am sure the holidays will be a welcomed break and we look forward to everyone returning in Term 3.

Canteen counter sales for Primary Years will stop in Term 3 and resume in Term 4 when icypoles will be avaiable again for sale during lunch breaks. For snacks or lunches during Term 3, please make use of the Munch Monitor app where all of the College canteen food can be ordered and delivered to your child's classroom. 

From Term 3, our Year 6s will be able to visit the College canteen to purchase snacks during recess. Year 6s will attend the Secondary Years to purchase items, then return to the Primary Years grounds for the remainder of the break. This is an exciting opportunity where our Year 6s can begin to experience the Secondary Years campus and support their transition for 2027.

Our Primary Years and Prep tours are proving to be successful, with lots of great feedback from families who join us to find out more about Primary Years at Hazel Glen College. Families are impressed with our approaches to student wellbeing, where we support students to engage and participate in their classes through evidence-based approaches and connection. Our approaches are supported by school data, where our students are feeling safe and welcome in their classrooms. Our staff invest in their students' well-being by monitoring, checking in and communicating home when needed. For students with additional needs, we apply a staged approach to ensure that supports are in place and recommendations are made for further supports.

As we draw to the end of Semester One, we reflect as a team on the successes experienced and how we can continue to grow and improve. We are especially proud of our student achievement data in NAPLAN for both literacy and numeracy and our students continue to achieve strong results and growth. Our staff implement targeted explicit teaching and small group learning to support our students to achieve growth and progress for literacy and numeracy. We have also achieved increased growth in all areas of the annual student survey issued by the Department of Education, where students answer questions about their attitudes to school in the areas of learning, wellbeing and connection. We are proud of the work of our staff, including teachers, education support and leaders who work collaboratively and always with the students at the centre of their focus. We thank families for their support and continued positive work with us as a school. 

Highlights of our cross College connections have been our Year 5 classes visiting their Year 9 buddy class to share their Personal Best projects. Our Year 5 students had a shared focus with the Year 9s for our Learner Dispositions, where they asked questions to the Year 9 students about their dispositions and how these were applied to their projects. This was a fabulous taster experience for our Year 5s to experience the Secondary Years campus, as we know that the choice of Secondary School is beginning.

We aim for our students in the Primary Years to experience a seamless transition to their secondary schooling. We also have another cross College partnership coming up with a collaboration between the Year 2 and Year 8 teams, where the Year 8 students will assist the Year 2s with their day camp later this year. Next term, our Preps will visit Mr Berry in the Secondary Years woodwork room, where they will make their marble run as part of their Curiosity unit. We also have a mentor program where some of our Year 6s work with a student mentor from Year 9 and this is also a great support to our transition program.

Next semester, we look forward to our camping program with Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 heading away for their individual camps. We have many more events coming up and will continue to hold learning expos where parents are invited to attend the classrooms for students to showcase their work. Students are busy preparing for the House Performing Arts and rehearsals will start in Term 3 with the performance to be held later in the term. 

If you have a child starting Prep next year, you are invited to our Hazel Glen College School Readiness Night. This event will be held at the HGC Kinder on Tuesday 28th July 6-7pm. This is an informative session run in collaboration with our Kinder and Primary Years Leadership. All of your questions about your child starting school will be addressed in this session. This information session is relevant for parents of both 4 and 3 Year Old kinder students. We look forward to you joining us for this popular event. Book now: https://www.trybooking.com/DNODL.

Take care over the holiday break and I hope that you can enjoy some valuable time together with family and friends.

Andrea Lynch

Head of Primary Years

Hazel Glen College