Dear Families,

Thank you all for your support in enabling us to hold our Staff Conference last week. As you can see by the photo above we had a great time together and enjoyed two days of wonderful weather. I can also guarantee that we worked extremely hard throughout the two days to ensure some quality Professional Learning occurred for all members of our team. On Day 1 Richard Leonard, a Jesuit Priest, took us on a journey looking at the enormous impact that today's media, in all its forms, has on our children. The implications for us as teachers and as parents is very significant and a great challenge for all of us in 2021. I believe each staff member was able to take away great insights into how we can help our children negotiate the effects their media saturated world can have upon them. On Day 2 our focus was on developing a whole school approach to Positive Behaviours for Learning. To follow up from this we will create a PBL team whose focus will be to embed a more positive approach to our student behaviour management, and to ensure our School Improvement Focus of, 'evaluating and renewing our school’s policies and practices for wellbeing and behaviour', is achieved.

NAPLAN

All Year 3 and Year 5 Students have now completed the NAPLAN tests and the results of these will be communicated to families in Term 3. As we have stated many times before, these tests capture children's learning in just a few areas at a very specific time and there are many things not measured. The results of the tests are used by our system and individual schools to address areas for improvement in the future. Whilst it may have caused some anxiety or stress for some children it is important for all of us, as teachers and parents, to continually re-assure our children that these tests do not define their abilities as a whole.

Sacraments in 2021

Thursday 13th May. 6pm -7pm

Family Faith Night at Trinity Primary School MPR

Thursday May 20th. 6pm - 7pm.

Sacrament of Reconciliation (years 3 & 4)

at St James Church.

Sunday August 15th 9:30am -10:30am

Sacrament of Eucharist (years 4 & 5) at St Ignatius Church.

Sacrament of Confirmation date yet to be confirmed.

If any parent has any concerns or questions regarding our Sacramental Program please contact Ms deKort our RE Leader edekort@tcs.catholic.edu.au

Student Reports

This year's student reports will have quite a different look to previous years, as many Catholic Schools have now moved to a new reporting platform as part of the transition to a common administration service which all schools under MACS, (Melbourne Archdiocese of Catholic Schools) must adopt. It is hoped that the new format will provide a clear picture of student achievement in each of the Victorian Curriculum Learning Areas covered in Semester One. The reports template we have chosen will have a much simpler layout and include a curriculum summary page, including specialist areas, showing achievement against a five point scale, which parents will be familiar with from previous years. We will also include an overall general comment page from the classroom teacher. At Trinity our student led conferences and ongoing assessment by teachers makes up an important part of the Semester One report and should be considered in conjunction with the written report. Following the reports we will seek feedback from families so that we can continue to improve these for Semester Two and create a report which is clear and simple for all.

AEDC Data Collection

This Term Trinity Primary School will participate in the AEDC, a National Data Collection initiative which is part of the Government's process to identify areas for improvement in how families and young people can best be supported. Each family's participation in the process is completely voluntary and if any family does not want this data to be collected, an opt out form can be completed. I will forward more information and the opt out forms early next week.

What is the AEDC?

The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) is a nationwide data collection of early childhood development at the time children commence their first year of full-time school. The AEDC highlights what is working well and what needs to be improved or developed to support children and their families by providing evidence to support health, education and community policy and planning.

The AEDC is held every three years, with the 2018 AEDC data collection being the fourth collection.

The census involves teachers of children in their first year of full-time school completing a research tool, the Australian version of the Early Development Instrument. The Instrument consist of about 100 questions and collects data relating to five key areas of early childhood development referred to as ‘domains’, these include:

Physical health and well being
Social competence
Emotional maturity
Language and cognitive skills (school-based)
Communication skills and general knowledge

Data is collected for individual children and reported for groups of children at a community, state/territory and national level.

Prep 2022 Enrolments

We continue to host new families exploring schools for their children for 2022 and will be communicating with all of those as well as our existing families enrolling siblings in Prep next year. In Term Three we plan to hold a, "Meet a friend" playdate for all our new Preps and their families joining us next year. This will be the first of our transition activities which will be followed by more formal Transition Sessions in Term 4.

School Photos

Thank you all for the effort you made in having your children dressed in the Summer Uniforms looking fantastic for our school photos last week. Julie has already received the first proofs so I hope that it is not too long before we receive the children's photos.

Kind Regards

Mr Nigel Rodrigues

Principal

Prep SG -Inquiry

MS Grufferty