Message from the Principal Team

Parent/ Carer/Teacher Interviews
The Parent/Carer/Teacher Interviews this week were extremely well attended. The commitment and active participation from both parents and teachers have reinforced the strong sense of community that defines our school.
We have received positive feedback from parents, carers and teachers as we try to develop the communication between home and school further. The success of these parent/care/teacher interviews is attributed to the dedication of our teachers and the active involvement of our parents in their child's learning and wellbeing.
Tree Planting
Arborists visited the school on Tuesday and determined the best locations for our new trees to be planted. Out of the 50 trees, we received 20 Red Gums and the arborist informed us that these trees were not appropriate for our school grounds.
Yesterday Ben and 56B spent the afternoon preparing the chosen locations for our new trees. 56B also spent some time beautifying the school with some sweeping and weeding. Today Ben started planting the trees with representatives from our classes. The tree planting will continue tomorrow.
SEIL and EIL Visit
Senior Education Improvement Leader (SEIL) Jane Hancock and Education Improvement Leader (EIL) Alex Fonstin visited the school today to watch 3 Maths Lessons. Maddi, Billy and Ben kindly volunteered to be observed teaching a Maths lesson using the CNPS instructional model for teaching Maths. Jane and Alex were highly impressed with the engagement and enthusiasm of our students and the high quality teaching. Here is some of the feedback they provided to the three teachers:
- The 3 classrooms were warm and stimulating learning environments.
- The 3 teachers had a great rapport with the students and it was obvious they knew each learner.
- The students clearly knew the routine of the problem solving approach and this is a credit to the teachers.
- The pace of the lessons was spot on, I really liked the use of timers to keep the lesson on track.
- The way in which the teachers provided the students with the appropriate amount of struggle time, I thought the idea of having independent time first then moving to a partner was a really good strategy.
- The use of resources, whiteboards, calculators etc the students knew what to do, good routines have been established.
- The extending and starter prompts were excellent and teachers knew exactly when to direct students to use them.
- The recalling of the strategies and naming them correctly was very powerful, writing key vocab on an anchor chart sheet was another opportunity to embed the vocab.
- Collecting real time data was also very powerful on what strategies students were using to solve the problem; one teacher used a grid with the students' names, capturing students' work (taking photos) and then sharing was great.
- The teacher questioning was spot on: What is a number sentence, what does that mean, what does plus mean…..all open ended and the questioning was making the students articulate their thinking.
As a result of this visit, Carlton North PS has been asked to host visits from other schools in our Network for their teachers to observe our teaching practice.
Thank you to Maddi, Billy and Ben for welcoming Jane and Alex into your classrooms.
Foundation 100 Days of School
We are incredibly excited to celebrate 100 Days of School for our Foundation Students next Tuesday 8 August. This is an important milestone for our Foundies, their teachers and their parents and carers. We can’t wait to see what celebratory activities they will be doing on the day!
Staff Professional Learning
Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) and Respectful Relationships (RR)
On Wednesday 9 August the staff on our SWPBS/RR Team will spend the day planning the next steps in our work as a school with Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support and Respectful Relationships. The staff on this team include Emily, Billy, Jesse and Rachel.
North East Melbourne Area Principal Forum
On Thursday 10 August Rachel, Jane and Maddi will attend the North East Melbourne Area Principal Forum. The agenda includes further information about updates to school workforce planning, monitoring for impact - using real time, school level information to monitor implementation and further information about the Disability Inclusion initiative.
Principal Team
Rachel Corben and Jane Bilby