School News

Principal Message, Leadership Notices, Community Reminders

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to our new newsletter! If you would like to give us feedback, please utilise the feedback page. We hope you enjoy the first issue.

Mothers Day: A massive thank you to all the parent volunteers who helped organise and run the Mother's Day stall. We can't run these important days without you. Thank you so much. I hope you all enjoyed your Mother's Day and your special people suitably spoiled you.

Inappropriate Language at School: Unfortunately, our staff and students have noticed an increase in swearing in our yard by many of our children. This is not something we are noticing in the classroom, however in the yard and in before and after school care, some of our students are using inappropriate language.

We will be focusing on using formal register at school and talking to our students about what's appropriate language in different settings. School is definitely not a setting for informal language like swearing.

Students swearing in the yard will be walking with yard duty staff to discuss alternatives. If it is a repeated issue, students will spend time in our Alternative Lunchtime Program, where they will be able to talk with the teachers running the program in a respectful manner. We will be contacting parents if these swearing issues can't be resolved at school, as we need your support to combat this issue as a community. We would love you to discuss this with your children.

Helmets: Another reminder about helmets. Some of our students are riding bikes and scooters to school, which is encouraged. Please make sure your children are wearing helmets before they leave home. This is something we need your help with and is for the safety of your children.

Portable Update: Last week I met with the project manager for the new Mod 10 portable. Yesterday I was informed that the new portable will be installed on Friday the 20th. There will be a crane arriving at 6:30am, with the trucks transporting the building arriving around 9:30am. All relevant authorities are aware and traffic will be managed by the appropriate people. This is very exciting news!

Remember to let us know why your child is absent! This is so important to know that your children have explained and valid reasons for their absences.

Thanks,

Kate

Acting Principal

Facebook and the New Newsletter

Last term we made the decision to close our Facebook page, this was not a decision we made lightly. When we closed the page we advised the school community that we would be looking at alternatives, we also asked families and staff to provide feedback. We asked what worked well, what could be improved and future suggestions. A lot of families took the time to provide us with feedback some of the feedback is listed below.

Worked Well	Improvements	Future Suggestions
Was able to check details of events (but compass does that now)	Clear concise information - sometimes it was very ambiguous the information provided causing some increased anxiety of parents. Potentially having a proforma for information regarding events maybe helpful	Good Luck, its a huge task to be undertaken by one person
It kept us up to date about school events.	I would like to see more posts about all the great stuff that the school does as there is so much more we hear about but don't have the opportunity to read about or celebrate with the school community.	More info on what the schools up to
Seeing updates on school activities and events photos	I personally quite enjoyed how it worked. The only thing would have been to use the events section as well which helps to remind all of when things are on.	Leave it closed and use compass or email.
I am glad the Facebook page has been closed-as a parent who does not have Facebook I was excluded from this communication.	Other family members, such as grandparents, could see what was happening at school. Reminders of upcoming events. Photos of events that we couldn't attend. Handy to see other people's questions. Allowed us to see what other grades were up to. Showed how much effort, dedication and fun the teachers had.	We loved it as it was
The updates, seeing photos and of what our children do at school.	More Celebrating successes rather than dissemination of information - such as grant wins and what was done with the money - ie buddy bench type thing Integrating programs at school to encourage those to be continued at home - walk to school week, bin awards, nude food week, green magpies,	More photos and interactions with parents and teachers

It was clear through the feedback that the community enjoyed seeing all the pictures we used to post, highlighting all the wonderful activities and learning students undertake at school. Staff feedback centered around workload and the time it takes to monitor and manage the Facebook page.

We hope that the new Newsletter can fill the hole left by Facebook and addresses the feedback received by the community and staff. Student photos will be regularly included. Head to the School Life page to see a snapshot of learning from all grades. The Specialist page will have photos highlighting learning from the previous month. Photo's from assembly will also be included.

The newsletter will also be available to any member of our community, grandparents, aunts and uncles included. Head to the bottom of the page to subscribe and have the newsletter sent directly to you.

Each newsletter will be archived and available to you at any time. Classroom updates you are currently receiving via Compass will be moved to this platform. Every fortnight after the newsletter you will receive a newsletter titled Classroom Connections, this will detail important information from the different areas of the school and will show lots of photos of students learning from each grade. If you do not wish to have your children's photos in the newsletters or would like to change your permission given in the past, please contact your student's teacher through Compass.

We are aware that it can be challenging to phone us. We are currently working with our phone provider to fix this issue. We will let you know when it has been fixed.

Mr Hartland helping at the NAPLAN breakfast!

Mrs McKenna hard at work during the NAPLAN breakfast!

NAPLAN

It has certainly been a busy time for our grade three and five students (and teachers) over the last couple of weeks. Students have completed four NAPLAN tests which have assessed their progression in literacy and numeracy against the national standard.

NAPLAN tests the sorts of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life, such as reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy. It is important to remember that NAPLAN is not about passing or failing, but about assessing learning progress.

This year we have moved to online testing for all NAPLAN tests in grade three and five, except for the grade three writing test, which was still mandatory to be completed via the paper version.

We have been able to conduct some catch up classes for students who have missed tests during the two week testing window of time. However, unfortunately due to some prolonged absences we haven’t been able to complete them all. These students will be marked as absent.

Schools generally receive their students' NAPLAN reports from mid-August to mid-September, we will notify you when the NAPLAN reports are being sent to your home.

Well done to all students who participated in this years NAPLAN testing, you have conducted yourself in a calm and studious manner. A special thanks to the grade three team for organising the NAPLAN BBQ on the two Tuesdays during this time for the students to have breakfast on board, ready to do their assessment.