Principal's News

Dear Families,

If ever our resolve as a community has been tested it is certainly during these times, when families are facing great challenges due to lockdown restrictions and the impact they are having on all of us. Of course for us as a school community the direct impact is having to continue learning from home.  I hope last week you were able to read through our updated Remote Learning Policy, and I hope that we have managed to address most, if not all your concerns. Please continue to provide feedback as we are always willing to review how we can best work with you for our children. 

School Uniform

Earlier in the year I shared with you, in our newsletter, that our current supplier of school uniforms is no longer able to source or provide our existing items. Whilst we will have some stock remaining which could be cleared over the next 2 years it is not sufficient to fully supply our 2022 Prep students. Therefore, we have been eagerly searching for a suitable supplier who is able to provide a school uniform which is similar to our existing one. Of course this is quite difficult but does provide the opportunity to explore some changes and improvements whilst maintaining our school colours and profile.  Obviously I would like the input of parents as we make some decisions about the new items and will include a Google Form for your  feedback in the coming weeks. 

NAPLAN Reports 

This week we received our Year 3 and Year 5 NAPLAN reports which would normally be sent home in a sealed envelope with your children. However, this year Julie will be posting these out so that families can receive them in the mail. I am hopeful that you will receive these early next week.  One important measure of the NAPLAN tests is the growth in achievement from Year 3 to Year 5. This gives a school a good picture of the value added to students 

learning in these important middle years of primary schooling.  Trinity can be very proud of the considerable growth shown in this year's data which reflects our targeted teaching approach and differentiated teaching practices. However, as we have stated many times NAPLAN is just one form of testing completed over a few days and gives a snapshot of student achievement in certain areas of the curriculum. There are many things not measured by the NAPLAN tests which you should also value when thinking about your own child and their individual success at school.  What the NAPLAN does help us to do, as a school, is look at general trends in the data so that we are able to identify areas for celebration and areas for improvement.  

Doodle of the Day

A big hit at the moment in Remote Learning has been Ms Plackett's Doodle of the Day.  If you haven't heard your child talking about it, or seen them 'doodling' then here are a few samples from our Juniors from last week. 

Positive Behaviours for Learning

A major focus, in the area of Student Wellbeing, which has come from our whole school review last year is... 'that staff will begin to develop a clear and consistent whole school approach to student wellbeing and managing student behaviour.'  

As part of this focus a small team of school leaders and teachers will form a Positive Behaviours for Learning Team. The team will be involved in professional learning to develop an understanding of what this means for our students and how this approach can help us to further enhance our policies and procedures in managing student behaviour at Trinity. 

'Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) is a framework that schools use to get everyone – students, staff, families and the school community - on the same page to create a safe and supportive learning environment for all students.

Book Week Update

Book Week celebrations will go ahead in the last week of term and whilst we may need to modify some of the things we originally planned had we been onsite we are still confident that we can have some fun whilst sharing in some of the great literature which has been nominated this year.  So that parents and children can begin thinking I can inform you that we will still have a dress up day when children (and parents if they wish) can dress as their favourite book character.  Our dress up day will be on Monday 13th September and we will provide details about what this will look like next week.  We will also be having a visiting author Mr Michael Wagner who will be joining classes online on Wednesday 15th.  Parents are also invited to sit alongside to hear him speak. 

Onsite Attendance Forms

A reminder that onsite supervision forms must be updated each week to reflect the days and times required by families when children cannot be supervised at home by at least one parent. Julie will update the dates from the office. 

Student Voice & Leadership

Each week, Ms Antonella meets with our SRC leaders to catch up on how the week is going in each of the classes. On Tuesday I dropped in on the Google Meet and was so impressed by the level of conversation and input from even our youngest students.  It is difficult to capture everything that was said and discussed but to begin the Meet each class representative gives a short report of how things are going in a particular class. 

Assembly 

Thank you to our hosts from 5/6MG who led a wonderful assembly last week and to all those parents who were able to join us. Please join us once again, if you are free, from 1:20 on Friday 20th.  This week's assembly will be hosted by 4/5FA. 

Kind Regards

Mr Nigel Rodrigues 

Principal