Mr Irwin's Message

Mr. Irwin's Message

Hello Families and welcome to this week’s newsletter.

Parent Check In Week

This week is check-in week with families. Teachers will be prioritising getting in touch with the families of their students to discuss how students are settling into the year at school academically and socially, as well as provide the chance for families to share any insight from what their children are sharing about their learning at home. Schools approach these in many different ways. Some use the first week of school to convene these types of chats and some wait until the middle of the year. We preference getting in touch after students have had a period of time at school to settle so we can work in partnership to support our students with any issues that are starting to surface, so that we can attempt to get on top of them quickly. Whilst teachers will be making the effort to get in touch with you, please make sure you do return calls if they’re missed and set aside some time to check in with your child’s teacher early in the year.

mClass Beginning of Year Assessment 

 Students are also bringing home their mClass Home Connect Beginning of Year Assessment. These assessments monitor literacy skills necessary to become a successful reader and are conducted across the year. They are a new assessment to Teesdale Primary School as we evolve our understanding of the teaching of Literacy and we believe they provide great insight into specific areas of focus for all students in Reading. It’s important to bear in mind that as these assessments hone in on specific reading skills, a student’s performance level in some areas may look different to their overall Progression Point in Reading. This is because a Progression Point on a child’s semester report is an aggregate of achievement against the Victorian Curriculum, and not a forensic look at individual skills like this mClass report.

Each student report suggests an individual goal for students and the Home Connect website provides recommended activities for school and home that students can practice.

I hope you enjoy the insight these reports provide, and check in with teachers this week.

Bye for Now.

Save Your Cardboard Cylinders for Science!

Over the next few weeks, instead of throwing your used cardboard cylinders (toilet paper and paper towel rolls) in the recycling bin, could you please donate these to the Science Room? The Grades 3/4 students will be needing plenty of cardboard cylinders for a simple machines project which they will be completing later in Term 1. 

There will be a drop off tub located in the Science/Art room and another one at the office.