Assistant Principal's Report 

What a busy few weeks it has been at Orchard Park PS! There has been a lot of special and exciting events taking place and a lot of amazing learning. It also promises to be a very busy and exciting last 3 weeks to our very first year in operation!

Certainly welcoming our families back on-site, and having our Learning Communities with full classes of students in them have made the place feel much more like a school again! That buzz and those positive vibes that were so present throughout Semester One have really returned again.

It's hard to believe that so much of our time, at a Leadership level at least, is being consumed with planning for 2022 and beyond. It feels like just yesterday that we had our Opening Ceremony! However, we have almost finalised our staff and will make some exciting announcements in coming days and weeks. 

Perhaps the most exciting thing to have been taking place though is the continuation of our Prep transition program. We had another fantastic session on Wednesday that was focused primarily on Numeracy whilst doing a tour of our facilities. It gave Teachers another opportunity to observe the students in a school setting and see how they interact with one another which will be incredibly helpful when creating our 2022 classes. We will have our final Prep transition session on Tuesday, December 7th.

Our transition sessions for all other year levels will commence on Thursday, December 9th. On this day we will have all new staff with us and students will all meet their 2022 Classroom Teacher, our new Specialist Teachers and see just which other students they will have with them in their class in 2022. Teachers are just in the process of finalising these groupings, which will be really balanced based on a number of considerations.  

The other big item that Teachers have been working hard on are our Semester Two Academic Achievement Reports. As we have outlined in previous communication, these will look slightly different this Semester, simply due to the fact that we spent such a considerable amount of time in remote learning. They will still provide an outline of what learning your child(ren) has been participating in and what they have achieved throughout the semester. These will go live on Friday, December 10th. 

Given that it is late in Term Four, something else that will be taking place in coming weeks is the stocktake of our library books and other items. We would ask that any school books that your child has at home be returned to school by Friday, December 3rd at the latest. Stocktake will commence on Monday, December 6th. After this point we would really encourage families to access Wushka to support students in maintaining really positive reading habbits. They will have access to thousands of texts through Wushka, it really is an incredible program. I would also encourage parents to take students to explore our local libraries if they get a chance over the holidays. Kids typically love browsing the shelves and will always find something that captivates them, as often will Mum and Dad!

One other thing I wanted to touch on with families quickly is that around Casual Relief Teachers. Where a Teacher is absent from school for the day, for whatever reason but typically due to illness, we request a Casual Relief Teacher from an agency that we use. For the most part we have been able to have these bookings filled by quality relief Teachers. However, due to a whole range of circumstances at the moment - all linked to COVID in one way or another, agencies are starting to have difficulties in filling bookings across all schools. 

There may have been days of late where your child has come home saying that their class has been split for a day. This involves splitting the class across all other classes within the school to complete their learning. This certainly isn't our preferred method, but it has been necessary a couple of times lately. We will always endeavour to source a Casual Relief Teacher, and at times Nathan or myself jump in to teach some lessons where we have some availability, however, class splits may be inevitable from time to time. 

So there you have it, like I said, another busy fortnight at Orchard Park PS! It's so nice to see some improved weather in coming days, let's hope that this can remain the norm over coming weeks and months! Thank you all so much for your ongoing support throughout the year and we look forward to finishing it on a really positive note! 

Until next time, take care!

Danny Forster

Assistant Principal