From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers,

We have enjoyed an excellent year at Golden Grove Lutheran Primary School with highlights including the broad range of engagement the children have had with their learning, excursions, camps, and Christian Studies lessons as well as a range of additional opportunities offered this year including Children's University, Tech Girls in STEM, Wakakirri, a range of academic competitions, Virtual Debating and Public Speaking. 

As an International Baccalaureate World School, we have continued to hold a strong focus on the Primary Years Programme, implementing our new five-year action plan flowing from our successful evaluation in 2020. We have had a strong focus on the explicit and intentional teaching of writing, developing a coaching model to support growth in teacher practice, led by Lisa Burman, a renowned expert in the field.

The expansion of our wellbeing program with the introduction of a school counsellor and developing a dedicated wellbeing hub to offer integrated support to students and families with external support from speech and OT's, psychologists this year has been a highlight.

Our School Board have worked hard throughout the year on our new constitution, updating our risk and compliance frameworks, and on developing our new buildings and facilities masterplan, and providing continued support for us to maintain our distinctive links with Eisugakkan School in Japan, to list just a few of their achievements.

The feedback from our whole school survey and a range of other evaluative data this year has been pleasing, showing that positive academic, wellbeing, and spiritual outcomes for the children, a strong sense of community, and a commitment to excellence. 

It has been a joy to see the school and church continuing to partner together in our Community Fete and in support of Asaroka and in shared mission and ministry generally. We are thankful to Pastor Greg, Jon Schutz, and the Church Council and congregation for all of their support. Similarly, it is appropriate to acknowledge all of our school staff for their efforts as we have an outstanding team at Golden Grove who is wonderfully focussed on the students and our values as a school. We are also thankful for the work that Mr Tim Kriewaldt and Mrs Jayne Zadow have done in leading teaching and learning, Karen Howell as our Business Manager, and for the great support that our P & F, led by Michelle Parcell, Kylie Chinca, Angus McKay and Melissa Laycock, and our Class Carers led by Karen McKinnon and Karen Tiller, have been throughout the year. 

We look forward to the continued expansion of our co-curricular program in 2022 where we will provide specialist lessons in PE, Art, Japanese, and Music for the students each week. We welcome Mrs Melissa Bishop back to the school as our Teacher of Japanese and Mrs Naomi Ali as our Music Teacher. Next year will see our choir and band programs continue to grow with our involvement in the Festival of Music, and we have also joined SACSA as an additional sport pathway which will provide opportunities for Year 3/4 students in basketball, netball, soccer and touch football, in addition to those already available for Year 5 and 6 students. 

Over the coming weeks, you will see a range of videos posted on our Facebook page which showcase some of the wonderful aspects of our school. Please continue to share these with family and friends, as we do have a limited number of places available in most year groups for next year. 

We are thankful to Ruth Zimmerman for all of her services to our school as she steps down as a Board member at the end of this year. Ruth has enjoyed a long history with our school, initially coming to Golden Grove as a Year 1 Teacher, followed by serving as our Teacher-Librarian and then Deputy Principal before serving as Christian studies facilitator across our network of Lutheran Schools and lecturing in education and theology at Australian Lutheran College. 

We also give our substantial appreciation to Genevieve Freund who steps down as our School Board Chair. It is fitting that Genevieve was recognised with the Wright Volunteer Award by Blair Boyer at our Closing Service. Genevieve has had a great vision for the school over the past nine years as Chair, overseeing our Year 7 students transitioning to Endeavour, our IB PYP candidacy, and full accreditation, the introduction of our bus service, building programs including redevelopment and expansion of Year 5/6 building, updating our building and facilities master plan, and her work with governance and updating our school constitution. Genevieve is held in high esteem in wider educational and governance circles, which is reflected in the strong appreciation with which she is also held on the LESNW Board.

Thank you, Genevieve, as our whole community gives our love and best wishes to you and your family for new experiences, the future, and the continued service of the Lord Jesus Christ. 'Well done, good and faithful servant'. 

It has been another successful year at Golden Grove Lutheran Primary School and we are thankful for the manner in which the children have been interested and engaged throughout the year with so many opportunities for learning, growing, and celebrating all that we have achieved this year as well as the wonderful message of salvation that we have in celebrating the birth of Jesus this Christmas, which reminds us of God’s love for us: 

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 1 John 4: 9.

Blessings,

Will