From the Principal

PARENT AND TEACHERS WORKING TOGETHER

It will be great to build community through our ‘You Tell Us’ sessions that are planned for tomorrow. These short 'in person' 10 minute meetings are an opportunity for parents to put a face to a name and vice versa. It is also a time during which you can communicate confidentially about your child's pastoral or educational needs.

This year, our You Tell Us meetings are taking place at school, we welcome you to come along to our classrooms. If your appointment is prior to 3:30pm, please enter the school grounds via the office.

All parents have received a 2023 Information booklet via Compass outlining specific details pertaining to your child/ren’s year level. We also hope you enjoyed watching the Meet the Teacher clips that were posted last week by all teaching teams. They give you a brief insight into our teachers and their passions. We hope you enjoy watching them and putting faces to names.

SCHOOL COUNCIL CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

I would like to convey the community’s gratitude to the following parent members who have finished serving their current term on School Council: Karen Phillips, Miranda Welham, Sandra Michela and Verity Walker. These councillors, along with all parents, are invited to nominate for our 2023 School Council.

School Council is responsible for ensuring the effective governance of our school, overseeing school policies, finances and other aspects of the school. It is made up of parents and teachers meeting once a month in the evenings either face to face at school or via video conference.

Further information in relation to School Council is attached at the end of this newsletter. Nomination forms are available at the office. If you have further questions, please call at the office to see Karen Bentata-Grimm or myself.

Nominations close this Friday 24th February at 4pm.

CURRICULUM DAY

School council have approved a whole school Professional Practice day to take place on March 29th. This is a student free day.

Youth Leadership Australia will provide a program on this day.

Please add this date to your diaries.

STUDENT ATTENDANCE AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES: EVERY DAY COUNTS

There is no safe threshold to missing school

Our researchers wanted to know how many days of absence kids could 'get away with' before it started to affect how they were doing at school. The answer was none.

They determined this using a combination of school enrolment figures, attendance records and NAPLAN results. They studied patterns of over 415,000 primary and high school students over a five-year time frame. In all analyses, average academic achievement on NAPLAN tests declined with any absence from school and continued to decline as absence rates increased.

Every day of absence made a difference, and this was particularly true for unauthorised absences. The effect of one day of absence was relatively small but added up quickly as more and more days were missed. The effect of missing days accumulated over time, so that school absence not only impacted achievement in the year in which the days were missed but in future years as well.

NAPLAN

The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a nation-wide, standardised series of tests for children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 which cover writing, spelling, grammar, reading and numeracy skills. NAPLAN has traditionally been held in May but this year has moved to March. At CPS the tests commence on March 15th. An information sheet for parents and carers is included at the end of this newsletter.

Our staff are currently working strategically with students and classroom teachers in Years 3 and 5, to ensure that the children are comfortable with the technology they will be using, the testing format and the time requirements, to give their Personal Best.

SCHOOL CONTRIBUTIONS

A reminder to families that School Contribution payments are still being taken. Thank you to those families who have already settled this with Pip, Annie or Molly. If you are unclear about any of these payments, then please call in or phone the office for further details.

SAFETY AND RESPECT TRAVELLING TO AND FROM SCHOOL

As our new school year commences, I ask you all to take the time to travel to and from school safely and respectfully giving consideration to others. Respect is our overarching school rule.

The most problematic issues that are quite regularly bought to our attention include:-

Parking illegally at pick up and drop off times
Not observing Kiss and Go and Disabled parking signs
Parking in our neighbours’ driveways and over crossovers.
Dangerous U turns particularly in Truganini Road putting others at significant risk
Students and adults crossing the road dangerously in peak traffic times in preference to walking to our supervised crossings
Children riding too fast or without consideration for others on footpaths
Children riding their bikes across the school crossing, rather than dismounting and walking their bikes across the intersection. Glen Eira council have contacted us this year to remind students that dismounting is the safest way to cross.

I continue to encourage families with concerns to report these to the Glen Eira Council. Council Traffic Safety Officers will continue to patrol our school and may use photographic evidence for enforcement purposes. Being courteous and considerate to others and acting as a positive example for our students is so important.

Karen Roberts and Karen Bentata-Grimm