Aaron Cox

Principal

Welcome back to all our wonderful children and their families. We've had a very calm return to onsite school learning followed by a return to remote learning. Whilst it lasted, it was great to see so many parents coming onsite in the afternoons after using the school QR code on our entrances. We wish we could have more of you back in greater numbers, but it just wasn’t possible. Moving forward, we need to stay positive for our children and embrace all opportunities with gusto when they are presented. I hope to see you all back next week if numbers keep dropping.

Parent opinion Survey

WE WANT OUR PARENTS/CAREGIVERS/GUARDIANS TO TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents/caregivers/guardians think of our school. The Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education and Training that is conducted amongst all parents/caregivers/guardians (previously known as the Parent Opinion Survey). It is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, student engagement and experiences of remote and flexible learning. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. All families will be invited to participate in this year’s survey. All responses to the survey are anonymous.

This year, the Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey will be conducted from Monday 19th July to Sunday 22nd August.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the fieldwork period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. The online survey will be available in a range of languages other than English. These include Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Chin (Hakha), Hindi, Japanese, Somali, Turkish, Punjabi and Greek.

PARENT/CAREGIVER/GUARDIAN OPINION SURVEY LINK

https://research.orima.com.au/parent/forms/Form.php?source=ParentsLanguage

School Name: Kingswood Primary School

Personalised PIN: This has been sent to your family email account

Compass - Subtle Changes to Newsfeed Delivery

From the beginning of Term 3, Kingswood will no longer prioritise messages sent via Compass. This should ensure all messages are received in chronological order. When searching your newsfeed this should help with sorting. It is essential though that parents embrace strategies to action important posts. Some strategies include flagging or saving those posts, taking a screenshot of your phone and adding to your camera roll to action at a later and more convenient time.

Kingswood leaders and parent representatives will soon be providing sessions to our parent community on how to use Compass, including tips and tricks and looking at the different functions between the mobile app and the desktop version.

Any Parent Concerns about Communication- We’d Love Your Feedback

As Kingswood consistently adapts and tweaks its communication strategies, it is essential that we receive timely feedback from parents when required. For example, if there is an error in a post, please report it immediately to the school or the poster of the communication. Please do not head to social media looking for answers as the school is not present in these spaces and it only delays a response or correction from those that can make any changes or provide clarification.

Our school phone number is 9551-1727 and all staff are contactable by email. I know when people contact the office to seek clarification about any school camp, excursion, incursion, event, club, meeting, interview, booking, etc. our friendly staff are available, 99% of the time, to give an immediate response. When they are not sure they find out the appropriate information and respond as quickly as possible. Whilst we are ‘connected to community’ we need parents to provide us with feedback so we can meet our community needs.

We were asked recently if the school has received any feedback about communication from our parent community and when talking specifically about general communication, we can say we receive almost zero feedback which is tacit approval that everything is good and there are no issues. Naturally, we can only respond to things we know about and would greatly appreciate your support in providing us with feedback by phone or via email.

School Restrictions

We have unfortunately seen our Year 5 camp, Year 6 ski camp cancelled due to Covid-19, and the wearing of masks in the kitchen is not proving to be safe so we will be trying to run kitchen classes for the foreseeable future with just staff, from a logistical and workload perspective this is difficult. The effort from staff should be greatly appreciated by all. This might also mean that some classes are cancelled if we can’t organise the right amount of supervision. We will do everything we can to continue to provide opportunities for our students but sometimes this just may not be possible.

To the staff who planned to give up their Term 2 holidays to attend professional development to provide better teaching and learning opportunities at Kingswood, I would like to thank those staff members for their efforts and acknowledge the sacrifices they were prepared to make for our school community. Unfortunately, none of the professional learning went ahead due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Ongoing Permanent Positions at Kingswood

I would like to congratulate Leanne Taylor, Lucy Chesters and Neena Hunt for successfully obtaining permanent ongoing positions at Kingswood. This is the first time in four years Kingswood has been able to offer ongoing positions through a highly contested local merit and equity process.

‘The Patch’

I am pleased to announce we are getting closer to the completion of the Patch Café at Kingswood. We have recently had blinds installed to protect from the weather. The last step is to install a self-service coffee machine to serve our community. We hope that in the future this space will be used by parents frequently every morning and afternoon as a meeting hub to help support community engagement.

The Fathering Project

A successful launch evening was held on 14th July in the school library with guest speaker Rodney Eade. This was a wonderful opportunity for dads to get together to discuss how to best support children to develop as the healthy, happy children that we all want them to be. Future events for dads and children will be developed in conjunction with community suggestions. Russell Keys (School Council member) and Simon Lees (Past School Council President) are the school's Dads Coordinators for the program.

The following QR code is specific to Kingswood Primary School’s dads group, you will find information about The Fathering Project and a link for dads to register to become part of this initiative. Once you are a member, you can access fathering tips, receive upcoming events messages, receive fathering content from The Fathering Project, plus be informed about activities of their Fathering Channel including expert webinars, podcasts and online events.

Building Update

Initial drawings have been made and are being tested against the budget for their viability. I will now be able to communicate with impacted residents, as part of our good neighbour approach. School Council and invested parents have been involved in the design process to date and I hope for this to continue. In the near future, it would be nice to offer a school community building update evening, however, this will need to wait until the budget testing analysis is complete to ensure expectations are realistic.

Reading Challenge 2021