Principal's Report 

Dear Parents, 

As we move beyond the Melbourne Cup, I hope you backed a winner if that is something you do, or at least enjoyed a day of festivities with family and friends. At our curriculum day on the Friday prior, we focused on assessment and moderation of student work ensuring that there is sufficient data and evidence of student work to support teacher judgements. This is valuable work that teachers undertake throughout the year, however this day was an opportunity to fine-tune and refine this process amongst all teachers without the time constraints of an after school meeting.

You may have heard recent media reports suggesting NAPLAN results in Victoria had slipped, or that certain age groups did not perform as well as had been hoped. Whilst I will leave the commentary on that to others, what I can reiterate for Mackellar Primary School is that we performed very well at NAPLAN this year in both grade 3 and 5. 

In fact across the five areas of Reading, Writing, Spelling, Numeracy and Grammar and Punctuation our grade 3 students met or surpassed 'Similar Schools' in four out of five measures. We also surpassed 'Network' schools in four out of five measures, and in relation to 'State' results we surpassed the state in two out of five measures. For grade three students, this is the strongest result in all areas for the past five years. 

For grade 5 students, the results are similar.  Our students surpassed 'Similar Schools' in three out of five measures. We surpassed 'Network' schools in one in five measures, and in relation to the 'State', two out of five measures. In Reading, Writing and Spelling, this is the strongest result in five years and in Grammar and Punctuation it is the strongest result in four of the past five years. All in all, our NAPLAN results are something students, parents and staff can be very proud of.

To assist in keeping this positive momentum in student learning next year, and thanks to the continuation of funding from the state government, we will be able to continue with our Tutor Learning Initiative throughout 2023. 

This will include reading intervention for students from grades one through to six.  It will also include writing extension from grades 2 -5 and maths intervention for students in grades prep - 6.  Our grade prep students also benefit from an oral language program delivered throughout the year to support both expressive and receptive language development. 

This high level support for students complements the highly explicit teaching that occurs in every classroom in every lesson. As the recent NAPLAN results show, this work is paying significant dividends and is testament to the dedication and hard work of the staff working with parents for students. 

Regards, 

Simon McGlade

Principal