Sausage Sizzle Success

Thank you to all our community volunteers who helped with the two recent sausage sizzles. The students across the school, from Prep to Year 6, really appreciate these events. From the set up at 11:30 am, through the cooking of sausages in the early afternoon, organising the bread, serviettes and drinks, to serving the food to the students and the community – the collective effort ensures a great building of community. The added bonus is that we raised just under $2000 which can be used to build resources for learning in the classroom and specialist programs.

Student-Led Conferences

The Student-Led Conferences were held last Tuesday as an essential part of our assessment and reporting process. These conferences are a fabulous for students and their families to celebrate the successes in learning. From an observer’s viewpoint, it was wonderfully to feel such a positive tone in the school. Thank you to all the teachers and educational support staff who guided the students in preparation for the conferences.

Matilda Junior

The Year 5 Production - Matilda Junior will be held over two nights early next week. The performances will take place at Forest Hill Secondary College. I have been lucky enough to see the students in rehearsals over the last couple of weeks and I can report that extraordinary talent and energy is evident. I am really looking forward to seeing the full performances along with our community. I would also like to acknowledge the brilliant work of the Performing Arts teachers – Caroline Barron and Laura Dimattina, who have led the students and staff members throughout.

NAPLAN

The NAPLAN results were released to parents this week. These reports provide a snapshot of student achievement in English and Mathematics in Years 3 and 5. The individual results are used by teachers as a cross-reference against the observations and assessments of the ongoing work of students in classroom learning programs.

The aggregated results as used by the school to analyse the overall effectiveness of the learning programs in English and Mathematics. When we do this, we look at the Five-Year Trend Data and the Current Year School/State-wide/National comparisons. In all areas of English (Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation) and Numeracy, in both Years 3 and 5, the trends were steady or slightly improved over the five-year period. This was very pleasing and a credit to the students and their teachers over the years.

The Current Year School/State-wide/National comparisons were very positive with an increased number of high performances by the student cohort. A very significant number of students topped the tests by achieving the maximum scores available. In all NAPLAN tests the school’s median scores was significantly higher than the long-term state-wide and national median scores.

Close examination also revealed that additional attention from the school will be needed for some students to lift their performances in Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation. This can be readily achieved through a whole school focus on these areas in the normal face to face teaching in classrooms. I believe that he last two years of remote learning had deprived the teachers of the opportunity to regularly conference students in their learning to develop their editing skills and improve their written work through a progressive and supportive ‘writing process.’ The return to normal learning in school should see improvements in student learning in these areas.

Twilight Carnival

Set aside the date of Friday, 11 November for the Twilight Carnival. This year we will have many exciting rides, loads of food trucks, community foods and craft stalls. Early next term we will be getting together to work on the community aspects of the event.

Planning for 2023

The School Leadership Team are busily working on plans for the 2023 School Year. If you know of family, friends or neighbours who are intending to enrol their children next year please encourage them to contact the school now. We have had lots of interest in Prep for 2023 and we are planning to have seven classes at this level. At this stage it is likely that we will have forty-three classes, in addition to a broad range of specialist and support programs.

End of Term Assembly

Term 3 will conclude Friday, 16 September with an assembly which concludes at 2:30 pm. We wish everyone a restful term break and look forward to the new term which begins on Monday, 3 October.

Glenn Butler

Principal