From the Principal Team

Pushing through the challenge

Cross Country is always an inspiring event in the school calendar. The efforts by students to go further and try harder are awesome to see and I love hearing about the training students put in on the weekends in preparation for the event. 

We don't expect everyone to cross the line in record time, but we do encourage students to always try for their personal best. 

I know that we had another fantastic day at Ruffey Lake on Wednesday and I wish to extend my applause to all students who pushed through their personal barriers on the day. 

Attendance

As always, we wish to emphasise the importance of students attending school. At RNPS, we often have better attendance rates than the rest of the state but that doesn't mean we can't do better. 

It is important to remember that a child who misses a day each fortnight will have missed the equivalent of 4 weeks of school by the end of the year! This can be an entire maths unit from beginning to end. Similarly, students who consistently miss the first 20 minutes of each day are missing the equivalent of 12 weeks of reading instruction. 

I appreciate how difficult it can be to get a child out of bed and ready for the day, it's my job to rouse my very sleepy 8-year old and get her ready each morning, but I am sure that no-one would voluntarily have their child miss more than a term of reading instruction. 

For these reasons, the Department of Education, and the staff at RNPS, are working to ensure that we are doing all we can to promote ongoing student attendance. 

If your child is absent and no reason has been entered into Compass, you will get a call from our office staff to confirm their absence and to enter a reason. It is part of our legal obligations but it is also an important way to know if we need to offer support to families or students who are finding it difficult. 

If you don't wish to be interrupted by these calls, please enter your child's absence reasons in Compass. If you do receive one of these calls, please know that it is not a criticism, but an important piece of information about your child's engagement with school. 

Good luck

Today we wished Kaitlin Moskovic all the very best as she heads off on family leave, ready to start her new family. Next week, we will send off Chantelle Trend as her and Jono welcome baby number 3 into their family. 

We wish Kaitlin, Chantelle & Jono all the very best for their new arrivals and can't wait to see them bouncing around RNPS with the many others we are fortunate to have. 

Prep parents have also received notice about Ms Webb's pregnancy, another wonderful piece of news for one of our long-serving and valued staff members.