Murrumbeena P.S. Newsletter

From the Acting Principal

WELCOME

Welcome to another edition of our MPS school newsletter. 

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

These wonderfully sunny days have been an absolute blessing. There’s nothing like a bit of sunshine to lift the spirits.  

Talking about the positives, so many of our parents have acknowledged that while this lockdown has been particularly difficult, it has also provided new opportunities for students to develop their ‘soft skills’, such as time management, organisation, accountability, dealing with disappointments (therefore expanding resilience) and thinking creatively. 

It is recognised that these soft skills strengthen other skills and abilities, and that students with these skills will be equipped to adapt more quickly and easily as their educational and work futures continues to evolve.

PLEASE KEEP CHECKING IN WITH YOUR CHILD

As a parent, we all know that our little ones need our support and monitoring, because they are constantly at our feet. 

As the child grows older though, it’s easy to assume that because your child does well at school, they will be fine doing their school work independently at home. 

When there are younger siblings, parents find themselves playing a juggling act, endeavouring to manage work commitments, assisting the younger siblings with remote learning and leaving our responsible and easy going older children to work on their own. Older children still need you, even when they act like they’re fine. 

Here are some simple things you can do to support and encourage them:

  • Ask your child how they are ‘mapping out their day’ to balance school and leisure (this could be a discussion first thing in the morning or the night before)
  • Ask the child to share with you one piece of school work they are proud of, or the piece of work they are scheduled to upload for the day.
  • Friend Connections – help your child to connect with friends or classmates (eg. phone call, meet up for a walk etc)
  • Balance screen time and time outdoors
  • Ask the child if there is anything they need help with. (They may appear to be on top of it all, but need strategies to maintain motivation and purpose.)
  • Home Chores- give them chores to do (gardening, vacuuming etc). The old saying ‘idle hands are the devil’s work’ results from too much ‘free time’

OUTSTANDING RESULTS IN NAPLAN

The Year 3 and 5 NAPLAN results were released on Tuesday and we are proud to report that Murrumbeena Primary School has once again achieved outstanding results. 

Not only do we look at how our school compares to the state average, we also compare our school results to similar schools with a similar demographic profile across our geographical network. 

NAPLAN assesses five different areas: reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation and numeracy. Our school excelled in all 5 domains. 

The NAPLAN results allow us to moderate achievement standards by comparing the educational growth of students between years 3 and 5. Analysis of NAPLAN data allows us to pinpoint the areas where we are making a positive difference and the areas where we might direct our future attention to. 

This year, the standout area of improvement across our school has been in numeracy. The relative growth between Years 3 and 5 for the state was 25%, our network achieved 37% and our school achieved a massive 57%.  

 

CONGRATULATIONS to our incredible students for their continuous efforts and positive engagement in their learning. Congratulations also to our parents for valuing education and working with us to ensure that each child is nurtured and encouraged.

TOURNAMENT OF MINDS

Tournament of Minds (TOM) is a program for all primary and secondary students providing the opportunity to solve authentic, open-ended challenges that foster creative, divergent thinking whilst developing collaborative enterprise, excellence and teamwork.

Challenges are set in the following disciplines... The Arts, Language Literature, Social Sciences and STEM.

This year, Mr Cripps and Ms Perera worked with four teams of our talented year 5 and 6 students to enter the competition. The students registered their interest while they were still at school and even when we switched to remote learning they found ways to continue to share their ideas and solutions to their respective challenges.

Congratulations to all of our our teams and I encourage families to read more about the TOM challenge later in this newsletter (page 6) to see how they achieved honours recognition and also a State-wide win!

FRIDAY ONLINE ASSEMBLIES- THANK YOU

Friday afternoon assemblies are a highlight of the school week, but it wouldn’t happen without the time and effort of a few dedicated people. 

Each week, a small team get together to plan the assembly. Their focus is always to capture and share the many wondrous activities occurring at home in remote learning. 

On behalf of the school community, I’d like to acknowledge the creativity and planning of Calvin, Audrey, Bimal, Monako, Anya, Miss Seares and Miss Callanan and thank them for their entertaining and creative productions. 

Please join us at 3.00pm this Friday for our very special Father’s Day assembly. 

I don’t want to say too much and give it away, but this is certainly one not to be missed. 

PLANNING WEEK

At the end of every term, the teachers of each year level get together for a day to plan the next term. Each team works with the PYP Coordinator when planning the units of inquiry (UOI), who guides teachers to plan provocations that inspire curiosity and a desire to inquire further. 

To enable this to occur next week, slight changes to webex lesson timetables will occur. For example, the year 5 and 6 teachers will be planning on Monday with the PYP Coordinator and therefore teachers will only hold the 9:00am whole class check in. The rest of the ‘planning day’ will replace the Wednesday Wellness day. 

Your classroom teachers will provide you with further details. 

Not to spoil the ending, but everything is going to be okay.

 

 

Chellee Plumb