Whytalla

Assistant 


Principal Report 

Welcome back to school for Term 2! Whilst it is a shorter term in length, it is a very busy term with students having the opportunity to be involved in a host of activities. As a school community we are extremely grateful to have navigated our way through Term 1 without too much interruption to the school, but acknowledge that many families had to work around illness and isolations last term which has impacted on the continuity of school life. With the restrictions easing somewhat this term, we encourage our parents to continue to communicate with the school should their child test positive for COVID-19. More Rapid Antigen Tests will be distributed over the course of Term 2.

 

A key focus area for Edenhope College is to continue to improve communication between all members of the school community and to build a strong culture of parent-school engagement. Positive communication between parents and teachers is shown to lead to improved classroom behaviour, better reading performance and overall achievement. This week we have will be hosting our first parent-student-teacher interviews for 2022 which will provide a great opportunity to check in with your child’s teachers about their academic progress, as well as other benefits, such as:

  • showing your child that you are interested in their learning and life at school,
  • learning more about your child’s academic, emotional and social development,
  • meeting and getting to know your child’s teachers,
  • helping your child’s teachers understand more about your child,
  • making plans with the teacher about how you can both support your child, 
  • building a relationship with the College.

Whilst your child may try to convince you that parent-teacher interviews are not important, as many students often do,  they are a terrific opportunity to enhance parental engagement. Parental engagement recognises that both parents and teachers play an important role in children’s learning, development and wellbeing, and that children generally do better when there are positive connections between the different spaces they learn in. As we strive for continued improvement in this area, your input and your feedback is important. If you have suggestions for how we can improve parental engagement please call or e-mail me at the College to discuss. Parents also have the opportunity to complete the parent/guardian/carers opinion survey in the coming months, which we strongly encourage all parents/guardians/carers to complete to help us with our continued improvement.

 

In line with the focus on communication, it is important to reiterate that our main communication platform is through the Xuno app which allows communication between parents, students and staff via a messenger function (inclusive of an SMS option for staff to send parents text messages). It is a fantastic app with a range of functions that, we, as a staff, are continually improving our usage to support our students and to improve communications between our school community. If parents would like additional support on how to use Xuno please make contact with the College.

 

As I alluded to in the first paragraph, Term 2 is shorter than usual, but it is filled with opportunities for our young people to be a part of, including:

  • 15 students are undertaking the Job Camp as this newsletter goes to print. 
    • The College received a grant for 15 students to complete their Responsible Serving of Alcohol, Use Hygienic practices for Food Safety + Transitions, Barista Skills, Prepare and Serve Non-Alcoholic Beverages and First Aid.
  • School sports
    • Volleyball, Cross Country, Athletics (our first with Balmoral), Netball, Football
  • Drama Camp
  • Hip-Hop workshops
  • Yoga with Cath McDonald
  • Elevate program

There is a lot going on and we acknowledge the ongoing support for our students from families.

 

Chad Frost