Principal's Report

Meet the Teacher Transition Sessions

2020 Foundation students will have the opportunity to meet their classroom teacher for next year in our final transition session. This will run from 9:30am-10:50am on Tuesday 10th December. Our new students have had an incredibly successful transition to school throughout this term and it is great to see how ready they all are to begin with us next year. Their school readiness is thanks to the fantastic work put in by their parents and the kindergarten/childcare educators who have done a wonderful job in preparing these students for the excitement and the challenges that lay ahead at Primary School.

We will also have a Foundation Information Evening on Monday 9th December at 7:00pm. At this evening we will provide information for families that will support your child beginning school. We look forward to seeing many of you there.

Our Yr 1 to Yr 6 students will have their 'Meet the Teacher' transition session on Tuesday 17th December from 9:15am to 10:45am. On this day, students will complete a slip to bring home to their parents explaining who their teacher will be, something they are looking forward to in 2020 and some class members they are looking forward to working with.

Kalinda Crews in 2020

One of our goals in 2020 and beyond is to enhance student to student relationships and student to teacher relationships at Kalinda. This goal and the actions we will take to make it happen were developed during our Appreciative Inquiry Day (the student free day we had before the long weekend).

We pride ourselves on the positive relationships that abound at Kalinda, however it is an area that we must continually focus on improving. The strength of a child's connections with their peers and with teachers is a major contributing factor to academic and wellbeing outcomes.

In order to facilitate this relationship building, we will be launching 'Kalinda Crews' next year. The students will be split into 25 multi-age groups (F-6 students) and each group will be connected with a teacher. The students will stay in these same groups for their entire journey through the school (with new Foundation students added to the groups each year).

These groups will meet every second week and the 5/6 students in the group will lead 'Play is the Way' activities with them (games that focus on building wellbeing, resilience, teamwork and problem solving). The teacher facilitating the group will support these leaders in preparing for the sessions and help guide them during their leading of the sessions.

In order to find time for Kalinda Crews, without taking time out from the core curriculum areas of Reading, Writing and Numeracy, we will run them every second week on a Friday afternoon. As such, we will be having our Assemblies next year every second Friday rather than every week.

We will bring you more information about the Kalinda Crews early in 2020 and we will also publish the dates for Assembly at the beginning of each term and in the Newsletter. We will ensure that the Newsletter and Assembly are in alternating weeks next year, in order to facilitate communication between the school and our community. We will also publish the Students of the Week in the Newsletter and this will give families more than one week's notice to organise attending Assembly to see your child receive their award.

We are kind. We are resilient. We are respectful.