PRINCIPAL UPDATE
Good afternoon,
Congratulations to our Prep students on reaching ‘100 DAYS OF SCHOOL’. This is an exciting milestone and we look forward to seeing them undertake a series of activities tomorrow in relation to this.
We have had the Optometry students from Deakin University here this week undertaking vision screening on 100 students from Prep- 2. We are very fortunate to have these opportunities arise and thank Jacquie Clancy for arranging this in conjunction with Deakin.
We have had some great NAPLAN results again this year and congratulate the students in Grade 3 and 5. Whilst we are very much of the philosophy about the ‘whole child’ at Chilwell, including their social, emotional and academic wellbeing, we feel it is really important today to acknowledge our NAPLAN results. Our students approached NAPLAN with a positive attitude and readiness to attempt all assessments provided to them. Their achievements and growth is evidenced in our strong data.
Strong or Exceeding Measures
This NAPLAN data set shows the percentage of students achieving results in the strong or exceeding band, which indicates that students performed comfortably at or above the expected academic level as measured against the Victorian Curriculum. This is then compared to schools in our Network and in Similar Schools.
Chilwell Grade 3 students outperformed students in Network and Similar Schools in all areas, with 96% of students achieving in the strong or exceeding range in Writing. Our Reading Data remains high with 35% of students in Grade 3 Exceeding in their results.
Chilwell Grade 5 students outperformed students in Network and Similar Schools in Reading and Spelling, while achieving a comparable level to Similar Schools in Writing, Numeracy, Grammar and Punctuation. Reading has again proven a strength for our students with 38% of Grade 5 students achieving an Exceeding result.
In celebrating our students and their positive approach to NAPLAN, our results are also testament to the consistent and strong teaching and learning programs offered by our classroom teachers, who dedicate a great deal of time to plan engaging and interesting lessons that cater for all students. We are seeing a reduction in the numbers of students ‘requiring additional support’ or ‘developing’ in our results, which is further testament to the differentiation and targeted learning taking place in our classrooms.
Results like these are also supported by Parents and Carers through the strong Home / School partnerships that exist when children are well supported at home. Parent involvement in our Reading programs and continuous support of students with their weekly homework also enables strong results such as these to be achieved.
Well done to our Grade 3 and 5 students for the manner in which they completed NAPLAN this year and for the tremendous results they have achieved.
In addition to this, our Students Attitudes to School results have shown some continued strengths to be celebrated.
| Framework factor / Question | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
| Effective teaching time | 86% | 87% | 88% |
| My teacher tells us what we are learning and why | 91% | 90% | 96% |
| My teacher explains difficult things clearly/helps me understand things | 76% | 83% | 86% |
| My reading and writing learning is well supported at school | NA | 91% | 92% |
| Differentiated learning challenge | 85% | 91% | 91% |
| My teacher understands how I learn | 74% | 83% | 83% |
| My teacher gives extra help when students need it | 91% | 95% | 97% |
| My teachers give me work that stretches my learning | NA | 88% | 88% |
| Stimulated learning | 88% | 88% | 90% |
| My teacher makes the work we do in class interesting | 88% | 87% | 88% |
| My teacher makes learning fun | 88% | 90% | 91% |
| Effective classroom behaviour | 83% | 84% | 88% |
| Students at this school treat teachers with respect | 73% | 76% | 85% |
| My teacher expects students to pay attention / My teacher expects me to listen | 99% | 93% | 99% |
Other results:
Learning Confidence 85%, Perseverance 84%, Self-Regulation and Goals Setting 86%.
Respect for Diversity 87%, Advocate at school 94%, and Sense of Inclusion 95%.
Once breaking particular data sets down into year levels and gender there was some really varied results. It is clear in a particular year level that a percentage of female students felt they did not have voice and agency within the classroom. Some data informed us that particular male cohorts lack motivation and interest in what they are learning. This presented opportunities for members of the leadership team to unpack results further with these cohorts, what this data meant to them, and actions we can take moving forward. The first session of a 5-week program took place yesterday, whereby Jason and Steph are working with cohorts around building confidence to find their voice and strategies to problem solve, along with another group around respecting and valuing differences in opinion and the voice of others within a class.
This is an example of why these surveys are so important and how they enable us to advocate for our students, to ensure their feelings are validated; they are heard and supported here at school.
It was great to meet Junior School Council for the first time this term. They have come up with some great suggestions for Term 3, one being a student Dodgeball competition at lunchtime. The other big-ticket item for them is around students having the opportunity to be ‘Principal’ or ‘Specialist Teacher’ for a day. We had a few laughs determining how this may look, and we will discuss further. JSC were very keen for this to be the result of receiving raffle tickets for displaying our school values. We will keep you posted.
Have a great week everyone.
Kind regards,
Meg