Principal's Report

TERM FLYING BY

It feels a bit strange that we’re into week 9, with just shy of 3 weeks to round out term 1.  There certainly has been plenty happening over the past few weeks with the Fete, Open Mornings, 3-6 Aths and then NAPLAN. 

 

Given NAPLAN requires a lot of organisation and adjustments to the routine, it was actually nice to have very little else happening last week.  We have NAPLAN catch ups throughout this week, but the bulk of the work relating to NAPLAN is done.  The students have managed NAPLAN testing extremely well.  That’s a product of sound messaging from parents and staff, so well done to all involved.

 

Once NAPLAN is behind us, we’re certainly packing plenty in what’s left of the term…..Ride to School Day this Friday, the GRIP Leadership Conference and Grand Prix excursion next week and then our Inter-House Cross Country event on April 4th.  That’s lots for the kids to look forward to as we head towards the Easter break.

 

Jarrod Rogers has done a great job organising some action around Ride to School Day for this Friday.  We’d love lots of kids and parents to get involved.  See the attached pdf for details.

WEEKLY STUDENT AWARDS

For the past few years, our weekly awards have been called the ‘ROCCH’ awards, based on the school values at the time (Respect, Optimism, Commitment, Compassion & Honesty).  With the change of values for 2023 (Respect, Responsible and Kind) it’s time to update the name for our weekly awards. 

 

As part of this process, we opened up the conversation to students to get their views on what name we could use for our new student recognition awards.  

 

After many great suggestions, we have decided to call our new awards The Bunjil Awards. These awards embody the Dreamtime legend of Bunjil. According to legend, 60,000 years ago, Bunjil soared over Wadawurrung Country, shaping the landscape and creating all the people and animals. A wedge-tail eagle creator being, Bunjil made the laws for people to live by.  

 

We are currently working with the students to come up with a design for the Bunjil Award certificates and we are hoping that these will be ready by early Term 2.

 

(Art by Safina) https://artbysafina.com.au/product/bunjil/

 

With the rebrand, comes a new initiative.  We’ve introduced a morning tea catch-up for our Bunjil Award Winners with a member of school leadership each week.  The first of these was last Friday, with the grade 5/6 award winners from week 7.  Each child got the chance to make themselves a hot chocolate and then we sat and had a chat.  

 

We’re going to use this as an ongoing opportunity to check in with the kids and get their feedback on how things are going.  Last week the questions were based on some wonderings teachers had expressed with regards to our use of student achievement data.  The questions asked of the students were:

  • To what extent do you feel like your teacher knows where you’re at with your learning?
  • Does your teacher talk to you about your learning progress?  What does that look like?
  • To what extent does your teacher adjust the learning for you?  What examples can you give?
  • Would you say the learning is generally ‘too easy’, ‘about right’ or ‘too hard’?

The kids were great and spoke candidly as always.  Overall, their responses were very positive, especially with regard to the work of teachers to check in and provide support for those that need it. That’s a big pat on the back for our staff.  

 

After each of these focus groups, we’ll catch up with the relevant teaching teams to share the feedback provided by students.  I’m really pleased we’re running with this initiative, as it provides a formalised process for us to stay in touch with the experience of our students. 

DISPLAYING SCHOOL VALUES AT ASSEMBLIES

At each assembly our school captains are looking out for students displaying the school values (Kind, Respect & Responsible). Assemblies finish with the 4 children being presented with a sash and a voucher to the Pancake Parlour.  Pictured are last week’s winners, those being Wilhelmina, Astra, Ariella & Sully