Principal's Report

Fabulous February - Finding out and putting Faces on the Data!

One of the things I love about Kilsyth Primary School is that we focus on Knowing and Being Known.  Out staff work hard to know every student in their care and to help every student to feel known.

At the beginning of a new school year, it is a great opportunity for us to get to know our students a little more, their learning needs and aspirations.  We do this through our start up activities in the classroom, meeting with parents (through events such as our recent Get to Know you Interviews) and through formalised assessment tasks.

Our students have just completed their "Gen All" assessments through our Essential Assessment program.  The "Gen All", or General All, assessment is a broad sweeping assessment task that students complete online and it gives an overview of a student's specific knowledge, capabilities and understanding.  We complete a Gen All for Reading, Writing and three different forms of Numeracy, for every student across the school.  Teachers use this data to plan their curriculum, and reassess students in July and December to measure student growth.  

Our School Improvement Team - Mrs Black, Mr Roscoe, Miss May, Miss Johnstone and myself - spent the morning on Wednesday analysing the General All data for every student in the school.  It is a great experience to put faces on the data, to talk about every child, their current achievement and the growth we expect from the this year.  We set targets for every student from this data and work as a team to hold teachers and each other to account to ensure every child in our school makes expect growth.

It has been a Fabulous February focussing on faces and finding out about every student in our care.

Upcoming Pupil Free Day

Friday 6th March, 2020

We will be holding a Pupil Free Day on Friday 6th March 2020.  All staff will be attending a professional learning workshop with educational expert Simon Dewar examining strategies in BUILDING A CULTURE OF CURIOSITY.  We will be working with schools across the Lilydale District Network to investigate ways we can enhance curiosity in staff (about student learning) and students (about their own learning) particularly in the area of teaching and learning WRITING.  This day will not only inform our practices in teaching writing, but will set up further collaboration and professional learning opportunities between our school and others in the area throughout the year. We will be using this opportunity to further enhance our whole school instructional model and ensure we know our students, their needs and the growth they are achieving in their learning.

THERE WILL BE NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY 6th MARCH

School Council Elections

Last newsletter we called for nominations for the three parent vacancies on our school council.  We received three nominations for the three positions.  As the number of nominations is equal to the number of positions, there is no need for an election. I am therefore pleased to announce Richard Henry, Taryn Stanley and Sam Robinson duly elected.  Thank you Richard, Taryn and Sam for your willingness to serve our school community in this way.  

Our first official meeting of the new School Council will be held in March.  At this meeting we will elect office bearers.  Following this process we will introduce your school councilors to you here in the Newsletter.