Principal Reflections

A Short Message from Dr Jake

Dear Parents & Friends,              

How Good Is St Edward's?

The Productivity Commission's latest review of school standards in Australia has just been released, and it makes for grim reading. The report finds Australian schools "persistently fall short" when it comes to providing a high quality and equitable education for all students. And with teacher shortages becoming more common, we need urgent measures, as well as long-term changes if we're going to turn things around.

The report found too many students are falling behind. Every year, between 5% and 9% of Australian students do not meet year-level expectations in literacy or numeracy.

The agreement will encompass three key areas: supporting students, teachers and enhancing the data accuracy of schools in Australia. The agreement is set to be signed by late 2023. The Commission released its interim findings on Wednesday, ahead of the full report to be delivered in December, when Education Ministers will begin discussing a new agreement for the next five years.

Now, if the Commission is really serious about improving learning, they should come and visit St Edward's to see how to improve student learning.

With the release of the 2022 NAPLAN results, it is crystal clear that our school is bucking the literacy & numeracy decline. As shared with Yr 3 & 5 parents last week, students at St Edward's have made remarkable gains. We are outperforming schools statistically similar to us by a "country mile". 

Why?

...because of our relentless focus on our school's vision... to be better tomorrow than we are today... Our personalised instructional approach, the high calibre of our staff and the close working relationship with our parents are central to our success. Our PM reading levels are 30% higher than this time last year, the number of students at or above benchmarks exceeds last year already, and we are confident that this growth will continue. Our writing programs (Big Write/Cold Write) is being successfully implemented across all year levels, with students producing texts that are more sophisticated and better organised than ever before. In mathematics, we have introduced the MaST programme, the CSO's Diocesan problem-solving approach across the whole school that is having a positive impact on student learning.

As we prepare to break for the spring holidays at the end of next week, you can be assured that our focus on learning will continue to ensure our students receive the best possible learning experiences.

Have you registered for our free online workshop on Wednesday 17 October? If not you can register here.

Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us as we are only too happy to help.

Peace & Best Wishes

Dr Jake Madden

(Principal, St Edward's Primary School)