Principal's News

Weeks 4 & 5

NAPLAN

Last week the grade three and five students did the NAPLAN tests. Any children that were away last week will be catching up this week.  NAPLAN helps the government, education authorities and schools to see whether students are reaching literacy and numeracy goals and areas for improvement. 

It can support school improvement by enabling teachers to monitor their students' progress over time against the national measure to identify strengths and areas to improve teaching programs. It provides additional information to support teacher judgement about improvement in a child's level of literacy and numeracy. 

NAPLAN also allows parents to see how their child progresses against national literacy and numeracy standards over time. As students progress through their school years, checks are made to see how well they are learning the essential skills of reading, writing, and mathematics – skills that will set them on the path to success as adults.

By sitting NAPLAN and trying their best, students help ensure teachers and schools have the correct information to help every student get the support they need to reach their full potential. Literacy and numeracy are core to a well-rounded education and are essential life skills students develop in every aspect of daily life. Students can't fail NAPLAN as it's not that type of test – they should try their best.

NAPLAN tests are one aspect of each school's assessment and reporting process and do not replace teachers' extensive, ongoing assessments of each student's performance. 

An individual child's results can be affected by many factors, including how they feel, whether they get nervous about sitting for the tests, or they may not have a good morning before the test. 

You need more information than an individual NAPLAN test to get an accurate picture of what your child is doing in school. When the results come out, if you are concerned, please talk to your child's teacher, so you get a more accurate picture of how they are going in their learning.

NAPLAN results will be available sometime between mid-August to mid-September. 

Mother's Day

We hope that all the mothers, guardians and grandmothers had a great Mother's Day last Sunday. If you attended one of the Mother's Day functions at school over the weekend or last Monday morning, we hope that you had a great time. Thank you to all the members of staff who contributed their time to preparing and hosting these events. 

We also thank Dina and Linda for spending the day with the children to create presents. It is fantastic when parents in our school community have an idea or a talent and somehow share it with the school.  The opportunity to have something different than the Mother's Day stall is a great incentive and one we would like to think about on alternate years. 

Language at School

Some of the playground language between the children is not what we want and expect to hear. There seems to be some foul language being used by children on the playground, and it does not reflect our value of being respectful towards one another. 

 Children are taught more appropriate ways to handle their frustration and anger than swearing at school. Unfortunately, younger children hear these words and sometimes start to copy them in the playground and at home. 

We cannot control the language outside of school, but we will keep a close eye on this over the rest of this term.  We are taking this matter seriously and will be speaking to the children about their language at school. 

Flu

There is quite the bad flu going around at the moment. We have had a lot of children away with it. If your child has the flu, please keep them at home until they are okay. This flu would seem very easy to pass on so it is important that they are at home when unwell.  

Steve Twomey

Principal