Principal's Report

As I have written about previously, contemporary education research from Australian schools supports ATTENDANCE as a crucial aspect of the partnership between schools and families. Regular and engaged attendance has a direct correlation between academic achievement and positive wellbeing. No matter what is going on between friendship groups, lack of adequate sleep, dissatisfaction with learning and/or the ‘teacher’ and/or the Principal (!?), there is nothing that our team of skilful helpful adults or our Wellbeing Coach would not do to problem solve and deliver and/or seek the right assistance. Check out the link below on a recent article in the Daily Telegraph about “school refusal” and the need to grow necessary ‘resilience’ in our children who “have concrete coping skills and the self-confidence that comes from overcoming challenges on their own”.

School refusal problem hampered by woke ‘mental health days’: Clarissa Bye

And I get it as a long term Principal in country areas that access to far away medical appointments and rural business necessities legitimately takes families away from school. It is what it is with that sort of stuff…Nonetheless, if a child misses more than 10% of the academic year they will end up missing 20 days of learning! And 10% is easily done - simply by being absent one day per fortnight across the year, a child will miss 20 days of learning. Consequently, during 2023 we are going to affirm those children who attend more than 90% of the time each term. Our first set of Attendance affirmation certificates for Term One will be presented at the Week 10 Whole School Assembly on Friday 31 March.

Our showcase of past student success focuses this week on Alex Newsome who is currently playing in Europe for French club, ASM Clermont Auvergne. He has previously played for the NSW Waratahs and the Western Force in Super Rugby. He has also represented Australia in the under 20s team. At secondary school he received an ATAR of 97 and completed an accelerated course in Mathematics by Year 11. This led to a degree in Commerce - majoring in Finance and Business. A fine example of balance between success in sport and high academic achievement. Well done Alex we are proud of you as a graduate of St Joseph's School Glen Innes.

NAPLAN kicks off much earlier this year for our Year 3 and 5 students in an effort to get results back to teachers and families earlier. As a benchmarking tool that assists our team of skilful helpful adults to determine how each individual student and the cohort are going in comparison to national literacy and numeracy standards, NAPLAN has great value in enhancing our collaborative work in improving student growth in literacy and numeracy outcomes. As a tool used by the media to weaponize inter-systemic rivalries or as a tool to determine ‘good’ schools over ‘bad’ schools it has little if any credibility. Please join me in praying for our Year 3 and 5 children that they approach NAPLAN assessments calmly and with little stress. While it is another opportunity to test ourselves at the next level, it is small stakes in the big scheme of learning and wellbeing.

Until next time.

May God go with you.

Geoff McManus

Principal