From the Acting Principal

Term 3 Week 2

Dear Parents and Carers

A major milestone is being recognised next week, with the formal celebrations for ‘100 Days of School for the Preps.’ I’m not sure how many of the parents out there can remember their 100th day at school but we hope to make it memorable for this year's class. I didn’t take it personally when one of the preps said the reason I couldn’t remember my 100th day of school was because they ‘Probably hadn’t invented numbers yet!’ We have included a photo or two of some of the 2017 celebrations for 100 days of prep, which for those who are good at maths means this year's year sixes. Wow, how some of them have changed and grown.

We look forward to sending home this year's NAPLAN reports to the families of students in years 3 and 5, on Tuesday 25th July. Each student will receive their individual report based on their participation in national literacy and numeracy assessments, which were conducted in March this year. An information brochure will accompany the student report, to assist parents in interpreting their child’s NAPLAN results.

This year the NAPLAN reports are measured using new proficiency standards. These proficiency standards provide clear information about your child’s achievement. The four proficiency standards are: Exceeding, Strong, Developing and Needs Additional Support. A description of each standard is included in the parent information brochure. These proficiency standards are better aligned with the five point scale that our school currently uses for reporting. NAPLAN is a snapshot of learning for your child, however it does provide both parents and teachers with information regarding how the students have performed in literacy and numeracy, against the national standards. The NAPLAN report allows teachers to better identify strengths and challenges and use these to set future learning goals.

While it has been wonderful to see the sun out and shining this week it would have been excellent if there was some heat to go with it. Please make sure that all items of school uniform are clearly labelled as we have been finding plenty of jackets around the yard. We endeavour to get the students outside for some exercise during recess and lunch even at this time of the year. Students are welcome to bring extra warm jackets to wear over their uniform polar fleeces or bomber jackets if they need.

We wish Mrs Lindy Chaplin-Holmes all the best as she takes some extended medical leave. We know her class will be well covered by Mrs Rose Hitch and Mrs Linda Lawrence during her absence.

We welcomed Mrs Emily Ashworth back from maternity leave. She is taking on the Physical Education Teacher role for the first 5 weeks of this term and then will be back with us in the same PE capacity for the 4th term.

In sporting news we commenced our weekly Inter School Sports of basketball, volleyball, rounders and finska playing against Eltham College this week. We continued preparing for the District Athletics Carnival on Friday 28th July with the official announcement of the team. Many of our Year 5 and 6 students will be in the team and I’m hoping that we will have plenty of parent helpers at the event to cheer us on.

Regards

Mark Pinkerton

Acting Principal