Principal

Dear Parents & Carers

As Term 2 draws to an end, I find myself reflecting on the past 10 weeks through a lens of achievement and professional accomplishment regarding how our St Philomena's Learning Community has responded to the diverse challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented and demanded of our staff, parents, students and the wider community.  In many ways navigating the COVID-19 landscape has provided the school with a rare opportunity to re-look, re-shape, and re-focus our thinking around how we are meeting the diverse learning needs of our students.  New learning platforms, a deeper understanding of how technology can support and add value to learning, along with tighter pedagogical practices, have all been a result of how we as a learning community were required to respond to leading learning differently during this time. These 'new' practices are still evident even now that normal face to face learning has resumed.  In short, our students continued to learn and experience growth and success throughout this period of uncertainty, something our government feared may not happen.  Again, congratulations to our St Philomena's Learning Community for your commitment to our students (and families) throughout Semester 1.  Like me, I hope your are able to reflect on this time and identify the many wonderful opportunities it provided us with, particularly the special time spent with our families.

This semester, student reporting will look very different to the reporting document you have been used to seeing at this time each year.  For Semester 1, 2020, students will receive a 'Semester 1 Learning Progress Report' which will only focus on the key learning areas addressed throughout the COVID-19 self isolating period.  In Primary (K-6), this will be only English, Mathematics and Religion. For Secondary (7-10), it will include all learning areas, but with a reduced content focus.  Reports will not include an 'A-E' grade, but rather, a 'Working Towards', 'Working At' or 'Working Beyond' statement.  The Learning Progress Report will also include a Learning Goal section, where goals have been identified (through the use of student data) for each student to focus on in Semester 2.  Unlike in previous years, the Learning Progress Reports will not be printed out and sent home.  With the roll out of our Compass School Management System in 2020, all student reports will now only be accessible via the Compass Parent Portal.  Email communication has been sent to all parents, providing direction on how to access the portal in preparation for accessing their child(ren's) semester report.  Please contact the school office if you are experiencing any problems accessing the Parent Portal.

Parent Teacher Conferences for Semester 1 will take place in Week 2 of Term 3, Wednesday 29th July, 2020.  This year we will be using the Compass Parent Portal for makings to book appointments to meet with Leaders of Learning in both Primary and Secondary.  Primary (K-6) conferences will continue to be a maximum of 10 mins, whereas Secondary (7-10) will be a maximum of 5 mins per curriculum area. The booking system in the Parent Portal will be open from (for making bookings) 2pm on Friday 3rd July, 2020.  This is the first time St Philomena's will be using this functionality of the Compass Platform, and although all testing has been positive, please let us know if you experience any difficulties. 

Finally, I would like to wish all of our staff, parents and students a safe and well deserved term break.  It has been a very exciting and rewarding term, and I look forward to greeting all of our wonderful students at the school gate on the first day of Term 3.

Warm regards and God bless

Jamie McDowall

Principal