Greetings from Shaun
Fete Fever
If you've been out of town recently you may have missed the news, Northcote Primary School is having it's fete and it is TOMORROW!
As I watched deliveries coming in to school this week, it hit me how close the event actually is. When walking around our school, you might have felt the energy of the NPS fete gather as it finally all comes together. Hopefully you have been able to keep an eye on our Compass notifications and newsletter updates to get a flavour of what is happening, what to look forward to and how you can help out.
I want to take a moment now as the preparations continue to specifically acknowledge the dedication of the parents, teachers and staff who put in countless hours to make it all happen, it really is a celebration of our beautiful Northcote PS community working togetehr. It takes a lot of work to pull together an event of this size, and I appreciate everyone's commitment to making it a success.
Thank you for stepping up and taking on this responsibility. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed and your hard work will surely be appreciated by all who attend the Fete on Saturday. I am grateful for your contribution to our community.
One of my most joyous moments for this week was gathering the students who won the right to slime their teachers. I collected the three successful students from their classrooms late one afternoon just before the bell and marched them towards my office. My intent was to share the delightful news, however on the way I was quite tight lipped not wanting to give away the secret. I did not say a word on the way, even to dispel their suspicions that there were on their way to the principals office because they were in trouble.
The look of shock and relief on their face may have been them trying to process the news but also the realisation that they weren't in trouble.
Meet our new School Council
This week we also had our first meeting of the newly elected School Council.
I would like to congratulate Steve Horvat who has been re-elected as President and Joanne Pitt who was elected as Vice President. I would also like to congratulate Steve Moore who has been elected in the position of Treasurer. We also have the following parents filling out the remaining parent positions Thomas Payen-Payne, Christian Scallen and Lucy Sinclair.
I would also like to welcome Bale Micovski and Rebecca Garrow who nominated to join the School Council as the Teacher Representatives and Dale McLean who fills a 12 month position on School Council.
As very special thank-you to all those whose time on school council has come to an end. We thank-you for your commitment and dedication to the school.
Please note that the SChool Council and sub-committee dates have been added to the "important dates" section of the newsletter for all upcoming meetings. If you would like to get involved, come and see me when I am on gate duty to discuss what is involved or email northcote.ps@education.vic.gov.au
School Review
As part of the improvement cycle, each Victorian government school undertakes a review every four years. The school review supports each school to differentiate its improvement journey by building on current strengths and identifying areas for future growth and improvement.
Our school review is taking place in Term 2. Prior to the review, each school completes a comprehensive Pre-Review Self Evaluation which involves identifying highlights from the past four year, evaluating our school’s performance against the goals and targets in our school strategic plan and completing a self-assessment against the FISO (Framework for Improving Student Outcomes) continua of practice.
This term our teachers have worked together during staff meeting sessions to begin analysing school-wide data, reflecting on our achievements over the past four years, and identifying possible areas for growth.
We would like to welcome input from our school community by asking you to complete a short survey about NPS and our strengths as a school as well as areas for development in the future.
Link to a short anonymous 2 minute survey below:
https://forms.gle/C8P6LimMEj28A73z7
We will have further information about our school review in the coming weeks.
NAPLAN
This week our Grade 3 and 5 students sat the NAPLAN assessments in Writing, Reading, Language Conventions and Numeracy. Our students are to be commended on their calm, resilient and engaged approach to the tests. It has been wonderful to walk through these sessions and witness our school values of respect, collaboration and community mindedness in action, not only from the students taking the test, but the rest of our school community in ensuring a quiet environment during test sessions! Students who were absent on tests days will have the chance to participate in some catch up test session next week. As mentioned in previous newsletters, the format of the NAPLAN report to parents has changed, from the previous numerical bands to the following 4 levels of achievement: Exceeding , Strong, Developing, Needs additional support. Reports will be made available to parents in Term 3.
Shade Sails...finally!
We may have missed them for the fete, but we are looking forward to the installation of our new shade sail on The Block campus, compliments from a Victorian State Government grant that we received. In the coming weeks we will also see the re-installation of the shade sail, which was damaged in high winds last year. I know I have been promising them for a while now, but with every school in the state receiving a grant, this bottle necked the process and extended the timeline out. Keep an eye out in the yard for their installation.