Principal's Report

Dear Parents,

On Friday August 4, I had the distinct pleasure of having afternoon tea with Natalie Hutchins MP, the Minister for Education. The afternoon tea was part of 'Principals' Day' celebrations, yet it was also an opportunity to share our great work with the Minister, and to hear from other principals about the great things happening at their schools. It is great to know our local member takes such an interest in our school, and from a Ministerial point of view, that she has such a deep and caring interest in the welfare and education of every student both here at Mackellar, and across the state.

Earlier in the year, students in grades 4, 5 and 6 completed the 'Attitudes to School Survey', and staff recently completed the 'Staff Opinion Survey.' Later this week, a randomly selected group of parents will be asked to complete the 'Parent Opinion Survey' providing their judgement on how the school is progressing across a range of areas.

All of these surveys are anonymous with results correlated by an external company and presented to the school later in the year. The results from these surveys help us gauge the success we are having in school improvements, in particular against goals from our strategic plan. If you are selected to participate in the survey, we would greatly appreciate your feedback accordingly.

Parents of students in grades three and five recently received their child's NAPLAN results for this year. The results from this year are quite different to previous years with student results placing them in of five proficiency levels:

Exempt (did not sit NAPLAN)
Needs Additional Support (Student is likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily)
Developing (Student is working towards expectations at the time of testing)
Strong (Student meets challenging but reasonable expectations)
Exceeding (Student results exceed expectations at the time of testing)

These results should always be read in conjunction with a child's mid-year report and with the corresponding information from parent-teacher interviews to provide an overall understanding of student progress.

Finally, with our school production fast approaching excitement is certainly building. A walk through the school lately is sure to find you watching, participating or being a part of rehearsals for any number of performances, as everyone gets ready for the big night. There was some confusion with the ticketing prices in the last edition of our newsletter. Our apologies for that, however all is good now for families to purchase their tickets and come along to our special night.

Kind Regards,

Simon McGlade

Principal