Assistant Principal's Report

At Glen Waverley Primary School we are dedicated to meeting the academic and wellbeing needs of all students across our school. As a school we deeply understand the high impact connectedness has for our students both inside and outside the classroom. As a result, making connections with our learning community, along with academic and wellbeing foci infiltrate our First Two Weeks at School program. Classrooms across the school have been building relationships with their peers and teachers, investigate our school values, set classroom expectations and develop routines and structures to support the teaching and learning process. 

What has the start of the 2023 school year looked like across our school?

The Preps have started the year undertaking developmental play. They have used this as a springboard for making connections with others such as finding a partner and building structures using tools such as kinetic sand and lego. The prep learners also undertook a school tour and have learnt about school routines and expectations. 

The Year One cohort have started the year embracing the growth mindset. They also made connections to others through identifying their strengths and that of others in preparation for demonstrating leadership in learning throughout the year. The Year One cohort has also explored our school value of ‘Global Empathy’ by sharing their cultures and sharing special celebrations within their daily lives. 

The Year Two cohort have worked on co-constructing a ‘just right’ learning space for all, with student voice being a key driver for this. The students have had plentiful opportunities to connect with their peers through interactive ‘getting to know you’ learning tasks such as using paper plates to write their holiday reflections on and finding someone new to share their holiday highlights with. 

The Year Three cohort have utilised the morning roll routine as an opportunity to find out more information about their new class, with each learner sharing an interesting fact about themselves when their name is called out. They have also connected ‘getting to know you’ to CAFE by encouraging the use of their schema to recall information about their classmates. Collaboratively, students have also designed the welcome sign into their classrooms and anchor charts around the classroom. 

The Year Four cohort have designed and labelled their learning spaces and decorated their book boxes for the year. They have deeply investigate emotions, connecting this to the emotions of starting the school year and have undertaken a ‘people scavenger hunt’ to locate and identify their new peers. Year Four have also made an effort to ensure all of their learning tasks are collaborative, encouraging the children to work in partnership with a person new to them.

Year Five have focussed on the varying strengths within their learning spaces and created a display that students can use when they need someone else to lean on provide them strategies when in productive struggle. They have conversed with someone new in each learning session and focussed on finding three things they have in common with someone else during recess and lunch eating times. 

Year Six have created a Kahoot with different facts about their group members, in an effort to learn something new about their group members before sharing this with their class. They collaboratively made a Rube Goldberg machine to develop strategies for working together. In addition, they problem solved putting a lego set together without instructions and then filmed this to view and reflect on what makes successful collaboration. 

The Specialist Team have made a concerted effort to build connections with and among the students during their specialist sessions. Learning tasks such as games, songs, collaborative problem solving have enhanced opportunities for students to build their social relationships. The students have also delved deeply into our school values, sharing their ideas about what these look like in each specialist class and across the school. 

We are so proud of the way our students have started their school year and look forward to a rigorous year of learning ahead.