From the Principal...

Good News Data

Since the beginning of the year the school leadership team have been working in classrooms to help improve our students' reading outcomes. As part of this process we have been assessing all students PM Benchmark levels every five weeks. Using this data we are then able to plan five weeks programs of interventions to lift the reading level of targeted students. Over the next five weeks our focus is on reading in Kindergarten to Year 2. By prioritising this area we have been able to have 6 adults in Kindergarten and 9 adults in Stage 1(Year 1 and 2 together) 4 days a week. These adults are made up of Class facilitators of learning, educational assistants and members of the leadership team. If your child tells you Mrs McRae, Mrs Reinke or Mrs Cain has been teaching them then don't be surprised it is good news!

We are seeing some excellent results and improvements in our reading data so far across many of our classes. In Year 4 63% of our students have already met the end of Year 4 benchmark. In Year 2 42% of our students have already met the end of year Benchmark of 22+ and 9 of those students have reached the aspirational Year 2 benchmark of 27+ which research has shown means that they have the potential to score in the top band for Naplan reading in Year 3! In Year 1 we have 44% of students who are above the end of Year 1 benchmark of 15+ and of these 2 students are also above the Year 2 aspirational benchmark of 27+. I thank all our staff for their dedication to improving student learning.

Absences

I am very concerned about the low attendance level of many of our students. To help explain my concern I have attached an article from Michael Grose at Parenting Ideas. The article outlines how parents can maximise their child’s chance of future success just by making sure they come to school on time, every day and save absences for genuine illness and poor health. This means making medical and dental appointments for outside school time and where possible scheduling family holidays in the school holidays.

While this is our cold and flu season, and with Covid 19 there is a government requirement for students displaying symptoms to not be at school, it is even more important that students are only missing school when they are genuinely unwell. Please read the article and consider the necessity and impact of your child being absent from school.