Assistant Principal
Megan Franklyn
Assistant Principal
Attendance and Late arrivals at school – Every Day Counts
Attending school on a regular basis is vital for all students so that they can access all they need to learn throughout their 7 years of primary schooling. The Department of Education promotes the message that there is no safe number of days to be away from school.
If a student has a day off, once a fortnight, this adds up to 20 days in a school year or 4 school weeks. This would be equal to missing a year of schooling up to Year 10. The impact of poor attendance is very real, each day missed is associated with progressively lower achievement in numeracy, writing and reading. These students will be at risk of not achieving their potential and therefore limit their life choices.
Other consequences may include:
- Social isolation
- Will have gaps in their learning of knowledge and basic concepts
- May feel insecure in the school environment
- More likely to leave school early
- Could lead to school refusal further in their education
- May place themselves at risk of harm while absent
Regular lateness can also impact on student wellbeing. Children who arrive late, miss core teaching and instruction time and can have more difficulty transitioning into the classroom space.
If you are having any issues or concerns about your child’s attendance at school please contact your child’s teacher or myself for support.
Respectful Relationships
This term our teachers will be covering topic 8 of the Respectful Relationships curriculum ‘Positive Gender Relations’ in their wellbeing lessons. This covers content such as learning about fairness, violence, body safety, respecting others and coping and help seeking strategies.
If you have previously contacted the school to opt your child out of these sessions, they will still be provided with alternate activities during this time, the curriculum documents and opt out forms are still available on the Compass News Feed.
Teachers will be sharing the content of the sessions to be covered this term in their curriculum updates via Compass, so please contact them with any specific questions that you may have.
PLAY Leaders
We are excited that our PLAY Leader program will be beginning this term with our Year 5 students providing some structured play opportunities in the yard for our Prep and Year 1 students. We can’t wait to share more about how this program goes throughout term 4.
Access to wellbeing supports
Our school counsellor Melissa Godeassi is working with many of our students this term in a six week block and will be back with us for 2024. She is fully booked for the remainder of the term. If your child requires particular support, please still reach out to our wellbeing team and we can offer advice and support based on the individual needs of your child. It may be check ins with one of the team, access to Leo the therapy dog or links to other community supports.
RUOK? Day 2023
Last term we wore a splash of yellow to recognise RUOK? Day and to remind us to check in on our friends at school.
All of our students completed activities in the classroom to support this learning. In Year 2, the classes read Mr Huff, a story about a young boy who has a bad day and gets in a huff.
