Principal's Report

I’m preparing this report using the frustrating speech recognition on my computer after another bout of surgery on my hand. The term has started in a blur of activity with the year six camp in week two and many other events around the school, including yesterday’s Color Run. Plans are already well underway for 2020 with an expectation that we will have over 910 students next year. It seems the plateau in our growth was short-lived and that student numbers will continue to rise.

Russell Quaglia – An Exciting Partnership

There is exciting potential ahead for us in 2020 in regard to our priority on developing student voice. Recently, the Department of Education brought US expert Russell Quaglia out to Australia to speak at the statewide principal conference.

Since then, we have been in contact with Russell, building a strong connection between Russell’s student voice work and our Walker Learning pedagogy. As a result, we have been invited to join with a small group of other schools to work with Russell’s new Australian Institute to build student voice into our school program. You can see more information about Russell on the link below.

http://quagliainstitute.org/qisva/

Year 6 Summit Camp

I was privileged to join our year six students on their challenging Summit camp last week. The camp was five days of full-on activity, personal challenge and teamwork. I was very proud of our students, particularly in the way that they challenged themselves each and every day of the camp. Their behavior was of a very high standard as we have come to expect from our Lyndhurst students and the way they were just able to “get along” was a pleasure to watch.

Colour Run

What a great day we had yesterday at the first Lyndhurst Colour Run. The Colour Run, of course, replaces our annual walkathon as one of our major fundraisers for the year and it seems from all of the feedback that it was a highly successful event. Parents, teachers and children had a wonderful time. Hopefully, the fundraising is equally successful. The PFA have put in an enormous amount of work to get the event up and running and it would be fantastic for them to get a great result from the fundraising as well as seeing the smiles on the faces of the children during the run yesterday. The PFA fundraising this year has mainly gone to provide hundreds and hundreds of new readers and books for our students. In a growing school, the task of continuing to provide new and interesting reading material for a students is a challenge. Thanks to the PFA and their amazing efforts this year, our students will continue to have the best available reading resources for their learning.

Another Lyndhurst Baby

Another baby has joined the Lyndhurst family recently and we congratulate our ICT teacher, Greg Thomas, and his partner, Bec, on the birth of their new baby daughter, Charlotte Ellouise. We wish Greg and Bec all the very best as they set off on their parenting journey.

OSHC Parent and Student Re-Survey

We had a wonderful response when we last asked parents their views on the quality of the Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) program here at Lyndhurst. Soon, there will be another opportunity to provide your feedback and I hope a number of families respond. The School Council established an OSHC Committee to ensure we have the best OSHC program possible. Following the last survey, Camp Australia provided school council with an improvement plan which has been implemented over the last 12 months. We are now surveying parents once again to gauge improvement and to set further goals for OSHC in 2020. An online survey will be sent to all parents. The survey asks a number of questions from the parent perspective but also a small number of questions for students who attend the program. It would be great if parents could help children with this part of the survey. More details of the survey will be available soon.

Classes for 2020

Already there have been parents making enquiries as to which teachers will be in what grades or roles next year so that they can make requests for particular teachers. Please know that it is my firm policy NOT to take requests for particular teachers. Certainly, there are a very small number of children who may have particular social or academic needs and these will be considered when deciding grade placements. These requests should be submitted to me in writing when we are allocating children to grades. Please also note that we do not have confirmed grade allocations for teachers until at least early-December so don’t start asking teachers which grade they’ll have next year. They probably won’t know and are not allowed to tell you anyway! Factors such as the employment of new teachers, mean that there may even be uncertainties about grade allocations during the Christmas holidays. The placement of children in grades is a complex task, taking into account the academic and social characteristics of each child, friendship groups, grade arrangements and special circumstances. A change of grade after they have been allocated is normally difficult and rarely accommodated. Please understand that allocations are arranged with the best interests of each child in mind. This may or may not coincide with your personal preferences as a parent.

Enrolments for 2020

Enrolments for 2020 continue to roll in and we are expecting more than 900 students next year. So that we can make the most accurate estimates for staffing for next year it is most important that parents let us know about their intention as early as possible. If you have not yet enrolled for 2020 or know someone who is not yet enrolled for 2020 please do so as soon as possible. If you will be leaving the school in 2020 it is also important that we know as soon as possible. We can only plan on the information we have at hand so we would appreciate any information that might help our planning as soon as we can get that.

Walker Learning Study Tour

Last week, we hosted another Walker Learning Study tour with a small team of leaders and teachers from Chapel Hill School in Brisbane, observing our classrooms and teachers in order to implement Walker Learning Inquiry (Years 3-6) in their own classrooms. We are very proud to be recognised in this way as an outstanding Walker Learning school and we were delighted to share our learnings and expertise.

World Outdoor Classroom Day

Next week, we will be celebrating World Outdoor Classroom Day with a large range of engaging activities in our beautiful grounds and in the local community. The outdoors form such an important part of our school curriculum and are such a critical part of a child’s development. Outdoor Learning Day should be fantastic fun!

Greg Lacey

Principal