FROM THE PRINCIPAL

To the St Nicholas School Community

TERM 3 - WEEK 2

Tuesday’s Athletics Carnival was a wonderful success. An enormous thank you to our parent community for your understanding, support and patience. Your 'understanding' of current restrictions from the NSW Government and Catholic Schools New South Wales preventing any parent being trackside to support their child. Your 'support' of our children having an active and healthy lifestyle and your 'patience' with the COVID compliant drop off and pick up procedures.

The Athletics Carnival once again reminded me how fortunate we are at St Nicholas School. Our students' willingness to challenge themselves in a respectful way is not only motivating, but also quite inspiring. The athletics facilities our students now have access to, are quite simply remarkable. The Tamworth Regional  Athletics Track (TRAC) is to be envied by many city cousins. 

Congratulations to Belinda Tyrrell for her leadership and coordination of an outstanding carnival. 600 students engaged and competing, in the middle of a pandemic, is a logistical nightmare. Belinda accepted the challenge and shone. On behalf of the entire school community, thank you!

Enjoy the short video highlighting our wonderful students at the carnival. We might even see a few of them competing in Brisbane in 2032!

Tomorrow morning, our age champions will be announced and presented with their medals in front of the school. Keep an eye on Facebook and our Compass portal for a small slideshow of the winners.

Student Led Learning Conference: Review

At the conclusion of the Semester 1 Student Led Learning Conferences (SLLC), St Nicholas led a review process to firstly understand how the conferences were received by the key stakeholders (Students, Teachers and Parents) and secondly to build on the initial phase, aiming for even better follow up conferences. Today I would like to share with you some of our results.

The attendance rates of parents at the SLLC’s was particularly pleasing:

• 94% of St Nicholas' 603 children had at least one parent attend the SLLC
• Historically, Parent Teacher Interviews have been well supported by parents in the Infants years, though the number of parents attending in the primary years drop off. This was certainly not the case with Semester 1 SLLC’s with 97% of Year 6 students having at least one parent present for their SLLC.
• 100% of Year 2 students had at least one parent attend their SLLC.

Teachers and parents were sought for their comments on the SLLC’s. These general comments reflect an extremely successful process and experience. Some notable comments were:

• Parent Comment: “In all the years of our kids going through school, this was the best interview we’ve ever had. I just wish they’d been these types of conferences when our older boys were still in school.”
• Teacher Comment: “When Mr C (parent) asked me how do we teach the kids to do subtraction these days, I just handed the whiteboard marker to LC (daughter) and said, “Go on, you show dad.” And she went on to demonstrate & explain the process on the whiteboard wall. It was fantastic.”
• Parent Comment: “At first I didn’t understand why the kids had to come along, but now I get it. Before I’d heard of things but didn’t really understand what they meant, like ‘connectives’, but now I know. It was also really good to see that the kids have to be accountable for their learning. It’s not just about a teacher handing over the work, it’s about the kids having to be responsible for doing the work and filing it away in their mind.”
• Teacher Comment: "I made the child physically go and get their ‘pencil goal’ off the wall during the conference. It was so good for the parent to see how VCOP, highlighting, uplevelling and the writing goals all tie in."

Some significant findings from the parent surveys:

• 70% of parent who responded to the survey were either highly satisfied or satisfied with the SLLC process.
• 8% of parents who responded to the survey did not find the experience worthwhile.
• 75% of parents who responded to the survey believed the focus on what the child is ‘doing well’ and ‘what they need to work on for improvement’ was most valuable.

Some significant findings from the Stage 2 (Year 3 & 4) and Stage 3 (Year 5 & 6) student surveys:

• 86% of students who responded to the survey believed it was worthwhile being part of the Student Led Learning Conference.
• 80% of students who responded to the survey believed they were adequately prepared.

Have a great week,

John Clery

PRINCIPAL