Wonderful Week

Once again we have had a wonderful couple of weeks here at Kilsyth Primary School!

At our recent Professional Learning Day staff began looking at our strategic direction for the year. I have outlined some of this for you below, and will be sharing more each newsletter of the term. One of our driving beliefs at KSP is that it is important for students to "know and be known". We started the day with time finding out just how well known our students.

Every staff member filled out a sheet on every student in the school and we were able to note that every student was known by name by over 90% of our staff (which is pretty remarkable given we have two new staff members this year). We also looked at how many staff were able to comment on the academic of each student, who could name each student's friendship groups and who could name at least one family member of each student. Finally we look at how many people could refer to a time that each student had shared a personal story with a them. This was a great activity and showed us how well connected our students are at school and highlight those few students who maybe we don't know as well as we thought and will now intentionally focus on getting to know better.

Another highlight for me over the past couple of weeks has been the fabulously positive climate for learning we have in our classrooms. Alongside being out and about in the school each day, visiting classrooms and chatting with students in the yard, the school leadership team and I conduct intentional "learning walks". During these structured classroom visits, we spend a few minutes in each classroom observing the teaching and learning that is going and pick a few students to get some feedback from. We ask five questions of each student:

What are you learning? and Why are you learning it?
How are you going with your learning?
How do you know how you are going with your learning?
How could you improve with your learning?
Where could you go to for help if you need it?

This questions give us a concise and consistent way of taking a 'pulse check' in each classroom. We are very impressed with the focused way are students are on task and able to answer these questions with considered thought. Our students are really '5 star learners'. At KPS, a five star learner Contributes, Concentrates, Collaborates & Cooperates, Commits and Communicates Clearly.

When you are talking with your child about their day, I encourage you to ask them the five questions I mention above, or ask them about how they have been a five star learner that day. The examples of what success looks like under each heading in the image above will give you some great starting points for encouragement.

Working Bee

We ran a short working bee on Friday 24th Feb. It was a stinker of a hot day, even in the morning, but a dedicated team of parents spent a few hours weeding and mulching the area between our BER building and the oval. It was great to work up a bit of sweat and get our hands dirty, and we had a great time chatting as we worked.

When recess started, we handed tools over to some wonderful students who continued the work. These students then came back for more each recess that day until the job was done.

Thank you to Clare, Levi, Richard, Amy and Anna who gave up their time in the morning, and to the crew of students - lead by Savannah, Hayden, Jagger, Jake, Will, Harvey, Charlie, Lexi and Alyssa. It was a great effort by all and made a huge impact on our school looking fantastic.

Breakfast Club

Our Breakfast Club has started up again this year and we are so thrilled to have so many students and their families join us each week.

On Thursday morning from 8.15am, we serve cereal, toast and juice from our canteen and eat together in the hall. There is a team of parents who work alongside our Chaplain Jenni and our Social Worker Placement Jessie, to put the breakfast together. It was just wonderful to see new parents coming along to join the team to serve breakfast, and then having families spend the time eating breakfast together in the hall.

I really encourage you to come along as a family. It is really a great way to get connected with the school community. We would love yo see you there.

Cuttings and Coffee

Starting this Thursday, we are running a 'Cuttings and Coffee Club' for parents. If you enjoy gardening (and I mean the fun pruning and general prettying up style of gardening, not the hard slog mulching style of gardening), chatting with friends and getting to know people, and maybe even enjoying a delicious coffee (or tea, milo or other drink of your choice), then come along and join our 'Cuttings and Coffee Club'

Starting straight after Breakfast Clun, the CCC will be a chance for parents to just hang out and shoot the breeze, do a little gardening around the school together and chat and then finsih up around 10am with a cuppa in the staffroom. We would love to have you involved. Just drop by the hall at around 9am on Thursdays and we will see you there.

School Council Elections

We have had three candidates nominate for the two vacancies on school council. We are therefore holding an election. Ballot papers will come home today (Monday) and are due back to school by Tuesday 14th March.

The three candidates are:

JEM CUTTS:

I am Jem Cutts, I have 2 kids that go to the school (one in middle and one in Senior).

We started here last year. I might seem young however I am passionate about education and wellbeing including the initiatives that are currently in place at the school.

My hope is to provide a different viewpoint to these initiatives that are currently in place being a stepmother and from a blended family as well as potentially adding initiatives which can benefit both parents and students from all walks of life.

AMY DAVIS:

My name is Amy Davis and I have been a member of the Kilsyth Primary School Community since 2013. My husband Adam and I have two children, Ruby who is 15 and attended Kilsyth Primary School and Ellery who is currently in Grade 4.

I have served on school council for the past 8 years. I originally joined school council to become more involved in the school community and gain a greater understanding of how the school works.

My hopes for the school in being re-elected to school council are to provide a connection for parents that encourages more engagement and a greater sense of community.

TAMMY BRYSON:

Tammy has served on our school council for the past five years. She has two daughters attending Kilsyth PS, both in their final year this year. Tammy is an active member of our Fundraising team and regularly serves our community through our breakfast club and selling zooper doopers on Wednesday recesses. Tammy is keen to continue to serve our school community through her involvement in School Council.

(no photo supplied)

I encourage you to vote for your preferred candidate by returning your ballot paper to the office by Tuesday 14th March. If you can't make it in we will accept a photo of the ballot paper emailed to the office.

AIP Update

Each year, schools develop an Annual Implementation Plan, based on the School Strategic Plan. This makes sure that the school is carefully and strategically focusing its work on long term improvement. Every four years the School Strategic Plan is reviewed and new direction set. At the end of 2022 we reviewed our planning and set a new strategic direction in place.

Over the next few weeks I will outline our school direction for 2023, based on this strategic direction. This week, our key overarching goal: Maximise Growth.

Our key goal as a school is to Maximise Growth for our students. Whether they are already achieving at, below or above the expected level for their age, our aim is to maximise growth for every students. We focus on using evidence based, high impact teaching strategies to ensure every child has the opportunity and support to realise their potential and grow academically, socially and emotionally. Over this year, and the next four years, we will be strengething our school practices to support students to improve their academic, social and emotional learning outcomes, and develop their academic, social and emotional behaviours.

To achieve this we need to know what our students need to LEARN. To know what they need to learn, we need to know our STUDENTS, know our PRACTICE and know BEST practice. If we know our students we will know what we need to teach them so they can maximise their growth in their learning. If we know our practice we will know how well what we are doing is impacting students' learning. If we know best practice, we can compare our practices and know how to improve to make it the best it can be.

In the graphic, under the words MAXIMISE GROWTH, you will see ACADEMIC , SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL above the words LEARNING and BEHAVIOUR. This sets the direction for what are expecting to see growth in. Each word links to the another, and can be read like this:

We will MAXIMISE GROWTH in:

ACADEMIC LEARNING - maximising student knowledge and understanding of key areas of content across all areas of the curriculum.
SOCIAL LEARNING - maximising student knowledge and understanding of how to interact effectively with others in our school community and beyond
EMOTIONAL LEARNING - maximising student knowledge and understanding of their own emotions and the strategies they have to regulate these emotions
ACADEMIC BEHAVIOUR - enabling students to act in a way that will maximise their abilities and capacity as a learner
SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR - enabling students to practice and develop their skills and develop positive relationships with others
EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOUR - enabling students to practice and develop their strategies to self-regulate their emotions.

So our strategic goal over the next four years is to maximise growth in our students learning and behaviour - academically, socially and emotionally.

Next newsletter I will cover how we plan to achieve this through out Multi Tiered Systems of Support approach... stay tuned!!

Student Voice and the Newsletter...

So ... you may have noticed that, so far this year, our two newsletters have been mainly written by our Principal. Going forward this will not be the case. We have out team of student leaders firing up their journalistic notepads and getting ready to put together their own editions of the newsletter, covering what is going across the school with interviews, updates and photos. We have just given them the first month to get themselves settled into their learning and they will take up their quills next edition...

"Be The Best You Can Be"Excellence, Resilience, Respect

Issue 2 · 06 Mar 2023

In this issue

"Be The Best You Can Be"
Excellence, Resilience, Respect