Deputy Principal

School Library Books 

Please be advised that this is the last week for your child(ren) to borrow school books from the Library. Children are encouraged to return all borrowed Library books by next Friday 29 November. 

Thanks for your support. 

Swimming Program

As previously mentioned to parents via Operoo, all students will be participating in a swimming program from 9 December - 13 Decemberwith qualified swim instructors at Methodist Ladies College (MLC) Swimming Centre. 

Children are to wear their sports uniform each day to school (and can wear their bathers underneath). They will need to bring a separate bag to school with them each day.

Items Required

Towel

Goggles

Bathers (or change of underwear if wearing bathers to school under their uniform).

Please ensure all items are clearly labelled along with their sports uniform worn on the day.

Your child’s swimming classes will be held each day from:

Each day, all children will walk to and from the venue with their classroom teacher.

** Note ** Classes depart school and walk to MLC prior to start of lesson and have changing time available. Students will be in the water for 45 minutes and change after. Class teachers will notify families soon if assistance is required to walk to MLC.

Camp Experiences

Over the next few weeks and early next year, there will be some exciting Camp Experiences occurring in different year levels.

Prep

The Prep children will be starting one special day with breakfast at school on Thursday 5 December. Children will come to school in their pyjamas, eat breakfast and get ready for the school day together. More information to come closer to the date.

Year 1

On Friday 29 November, the Year 1 students will experience an extended school day and an afternoon of fun activites at school. The theme of this special occasion is "Fun At The Fair!"

Year 3

All Year 3 students will participate in a Zoo Snooze sleepover at Melbourne Zoo. 3GR will sleep over on Tuesday 26 November and 3MD will sleep over Wednesday 27 November.

Seniors

The 2025 Senior students in Years 5/6 will fly to Canberra on Monday 3 February to Friday 7 February. Parents and children attended an information night on Wednesday evening. The presentation will be sent to all families.

Assessment days to begin 2025 school year

As was the case this year, to help minimise interruptions to the beginning of the school year, all assessment of children will occur in 1 hour time slots (Year 1 - 6) or 30 minute time slots (Prep) on either Wednesday 29 January or Thursday 30 January, before ALL children begin together on Friday 31 January. Over these first two days, each child will come into school for their relevant assessment time slot, with a small group of other children from their class. Please note, that Prep children will be required to attend an additional 30 minute assessment time slot, on a Wednesday (Prep free day), early in Term One. 

During this time, children will meet their new classroom teacher and participate in the usual literacy/numeracy assessment that occurs at the start of each school year. Parents will be able to book their child(ren) in for a relevant time slot that is convenient for your family situation (via the usual School Interviews online booking site). This link will be provided to parents in the final week of the school year. 

The following assessments will form part of our planned assessment day(s). 

• Mathematics Online Interview (MOI) - Prep and Year 1 students complete the Mathematics Online Interview assessment in Term 1 each year. The Mathematics Online Interview (MOI) is an online tool for assessing the mathematical understanding of students in the early years of schooling. The Interview assesses students’ knowledge, skills and strategies in relation to key ‘growth points’ in the strands of Number and Algebra.
• DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) - DIBELS is a set of procedures and measures for assessing literacy skills such as phonemic awareness, alphabetic knowledge, accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. By giving students a number of quick tests, this will allow teachers to have data to identify students who need additional assistance and later monitor the effectiveness of intervention strategies. All Prep-6 students will complete this assessment.
• BURT Word Test - This is a standardised reading test that is widely used to determine a child's reading skills. The test provides a list of 110 words, and a child attempts to read as many words as possible. The words increase in difficulty as you progress. All Year 2-6 students will complete this assessment.
• TORCH (Tests of Reading Comprehension) - is a set of twelve reading tests designed to assist teachers of students from Year 3-6 in their assessment of students’ reading comrpehesnion skills. TORCH provides an estimate of a student’s level of reading comprehension achievement. That is, information about the student’s performance on the sets of comprehsenion tasks from the TORCH tests.
• Reading Running Records - ​A Running Record is an assessment tool which provides an insight into a student’s reading as it is happening. A Running Record provides information on the following:

-a score of word reading accuracy

-an analysis of a reader's errors and self-corrections

-an analysis of the reading strategies used

Using a series of established conventions, the teacher can quickly and accurately record what the reader says as they read a text or section of a text aloud. After the reading, the teacher completes an analysis. All Year 2-6 students will complete this assessment.

• Essential Assesment - Students will be assigned individual assessment tasks and activities throughout the year that aim to support their mathematical knowledge and key understandings of concepts taught. Literacy and Reading activities are also accessed for teachers and students to work through systematically. All students in Year 1-6 will complete assessments in Literacy and Numeracy.

nForma Parent Portal

nForma have updated the Parent Portal which has been designed to be more user-friendly. The portal gives parents access to a platform that allows access to Student Reports at any time, and also view student absence details. Below are the instructions for:

• Logging in and Downloading the app to view Student Reports.

Please note that you will be able to access Semester 2 Reports via the nForma Parent Portal on your desktop or the installed app.  When the Semester 2 Reports are made available later this term, you will be notified to access them through the nForma Parent Portal. In the meantime, if you need to view previous Reports, please read through the attached instructions.

Christmas Giving Tree