From the Principal

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome to Week 8 and to the second day of Spring!

As a school community, we continue to be hopeful and supportive as we face the ups and downs of life at this time, whilst trusting in God’s love and protection for us all.

Father’s Day 2020

A big Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and father-like figures in the St Simon’s Community for this Sunday.  Whilst the celebration of Father’s Day will look different this year, I hope that sentiment and “specialness” of the day are still felt through those small acts of kindness that can be shown within our homes or through a phone call or video chat.

The Year 6 students will be leading a Father’s Day Liturgy this Friday at 10am.  It will be available on live stream. Please see the Latest News section of the newsletter for the link.

Assessment of Learning during Remote Learning

Over these recent weeks, you may have noticed teachers working with the students in different ways to assess their learning achievement and progression.  This assessment practice looks different from year level to year level, however, one thing that is clearly important right across all year levels is that students need to engage in these assessment activities independently.  

In the learning and teaching cycle, there are times where explicit teaching takes place and then times when there is “check-in” moments to see how well learning and understanding have progressed in a learning area.   As parents, it is understandable that we want our children to shine at all times however it is in these moments of mistakes and\or errors that lie the biggest clues for teachers to know where the next step of learning needs to be for a student.  

Sometimes, as parents, our well-meaning assistance can skew a student’s demonstrated understanding of a learning concept making it challenging for teachers to work out where the next teaching moment is for the student. 

As you support your child\ren over the next few weeks, I ask you to be mindful that the tasks that students are engaging in maybe for assessment purposes and therefore should have very little or no support from parents or carers to complete.  Your child’s teacher will make it clear if the task is assessment-related or not.

As teachers, we appreciate the support and cooperation we have received from families throughout remote learning.

R U OK Day - 10th September 2020

Next Thursday 10th September our school community will be acknowledging R U OK Day in a bid to support awareness of the importance of mental health and wellbeing.  Students and staff are being encouraged to wear yellow or a splash of yellow to highlight this day.

Newsletter Language Translation Feature

Did you know that our newsletter document has a built-in translation feature?  If you would like to read the newsletter in another language, scroll to the bottom of this page and select a language on the left side.

If you are reading this and you think this feature might be helpful for someone else, please tell them about it!

A Final Word…

During the week, one of our school families shared a wonderful analogy with me that may help build a different perspective about how people are coping with the COVID pandemic.

God bless

Tom Wursthorn

Principal