RIPPONLEA PRIMARY SCHOOL

Principal's Message

FATHERS, FRIENDS & FAMILY BREAKFAST 

Being a special time of the year where we get to spoil our dads on the weekend, we openly invite everyone to join us for a special fathers, friends and family gathering on Friday 30th August from 7:30 to 9:30 am. We will be serving hot sausages, egg and bacon rolls, fruit and juice. Come and join us for a hot breakfast, fun mystery games and a footy parade. No money required, unless you would like to grab a coffee from our visiting coffee van. We hope to see you all there!

EARN & LEARN STICKERS

Thank you to our community for shopping at Woolworths and collecting stickers. As a result of your efforts we earned 11,400 points. Mrs Nield and our teachers have been looking at catalogues and have finally decided that we can purchase over 60 headphone sets. Our students can use these when on the iPads, netbooks and during listening centre activities.

BOOK WEEK CELEBRATIONS 

 

The Book Week theme for 2019 is "Reading is My Secret Power”, at Ripponlea we encourage our students to develop a love of reading. Throughout the school the students are engaging with author studies, listening to CBA - award winning titles and engaging in rich discussions. Join us for our book parade on Thursday morning and step into the shoes of your favourite character.

Here are some things you could do at home during book week.

 

Discussion points:

  • Why is reading an easy super power to get?
  • Why is reading a good super power to have?
  • What is your favourite book and how has reading it made you more powerful?

Art and craft ideas:

  • Origami ninja stars- label with your reading powers
  • Design the ‘Super Reader’ logo, chest plate, uniform, powers and enemy

Use a page of an old book to:

  • Make a superhero outfit from old newspapers
  • Draw a self-portrait with secret powers you have got from books
  • Cut and paste things from books/magazines/newspapers/brochures etc. to make your secret super hero

Home activities:

  • Practise a new reading superpower each week- super knowledge, super ‘how to’ power, super problem solving, super time travel, super world travels etc.
  • Design a reading superpower board game/card game where players have to read stuff to win
  • Brainstorm ways reading makes you powerful
  • Race to list as many books that have characters with powers (secret or not).

THE GREAT BOOK SWAP - 

SUPPORTING THE UNESCO INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE 

Low literacy levels are a significant barrier to education, employment, health and wellbeing. In 2017, 95% of Year 5 non-Indigenous students living in major cities met the minimum standard for reading in NAPLAN. However, in that same year, only 35% of Indigenous students in Year 5 living in remote communities met that minimum standard. Together, we can help address this significant disadvantage.

Ripponlea has signed up to support Indigenous Literacy Day on Wednesday 4 September when we are taking part in the Indigenous Literacy Foundation’s Great Book Swap. We have been allocated a language house – “Wamparla” which means ‘Possum’ in Arabana (SA). Our contribution to this event means that we can actively support the ILF’s programs to: develop pre-literacy skills for families; supply culturally appropriate book resources; and support indigenous community literacy groups.

How can you lend your support?

  1. Visit our page to donate: https://go.greatbookswap.org.au/EventDetail/7011J000000xAsM/Ripponlea-Primary-School-Great-Book-Swap
  2. Take part in the Great Book Swap by:
    • Bringing in a pre-loved book (in good condition) to donate to the Great Book Swap (these are to be given to your classroom teacher before Wednesday 4 September).
    • Bringing in a gold-coin donation on Wednesday 4 September to enter the book swap and take home a book in exchange for your donation.

Check out https://www.greatbookswap.org.au/ for information about this national event.

 

Speaking of books, we’d also like to thank Bronwyn Howell who organised our recent Book Week performance. “Big Dreams” creatively synthesised three CBCA shortlisted books: Cicada, Girl on Wire and The All New Must Have Orange 430. The performance drew upon ideas in these picture books to teach the importance of ignoring negative thoughts, to believe in yourself and be courageous to achieve your dreams.

FORWARD PLANNING

We’ve had a lot of interest from families wishing to enrol their child in our school for the 2020 Foundation year and across other years. It’s lovely to receive such positive feedback about our school in the local community and we are a school of choice for many families who live locally.

Next year we will have three Foundation classes similar to this year. At the same time that we have students enrolling, it is also very important for us to know if students are leaving the school at the end of the 2019 school year (not including Year 6 graduates). If you know that your child will be leaving RPS, please email the school as soon as possible. Knowing our school numbers helps us consider the most accurate class sizes for 2020.

MID CYCLE REVIEW - ANNUAL IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

At the end of last term our Senior Improvement Education Leader – Stuart Andrews visited the school improvement team, commonly referred to as the school’s leadership team. This was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the goals we have set so far this year and celebrate the achievements to date. Stuart acknowledged the hard work of our staff and instructional leaders and highlighted how much we have achieved in such a short time, which is a credit to our wonderful staff. In particular Stuart noted our work in the following areas of leading school improvement:

  • Ongoing professional learning to refine practice and build teacher capability, in particular Leading Literacy
  • Teachers participating in the development of an evidence based agreed instructional model of practice
  • Continued development of the schools model of VCOP and a strong focus on improved writing achievement and working with other SAGE schools with Misty Adoniou
  • A particular focus on mathematics through engagement with the PMSS project -Documentation and mapping of the curriculum with the development of scope and sequence and planning documents to ensure consistent practice
  • Assessment schedule and procedures developed using SPA and a range of diagnostic assessment tools implemented for Literacy & Numeracy
  • Developing and refining school assessment approaches to ensure teacher understanding and use of formative and summative assessment
  • Enhanced school wide development of the School Wide Positive Behaviour Support Program and Student Management
  • Continued development of a PLC approach, clarifying and refining areas of specific focus, responsibilities and roles
  • A specific focus on building leadership capacity through a distributive model

Until next fortnight ...

                                                    Natalie Rose                                        Jess Grey

                                                          Principal                                     Assistant Principal