Term 3 Reflection
As I walk around the school visiting classrooms and when we have whole school events involving our community, it reminds me of the positive feedback that we always have when visitors come to our school observing our programs and when I do enrolment tours.
People who visit from outside of our school, often comment about the ‘community feel,’ the ‘engagement of our students’ and the ‘friendliness and good manners’ displayed by staff and students. One educator from a school recently commented that;
"your staff and students seem so connected and it is obvious that you focus on the school culture as well as the high expectations for learning and wellbeing."
This should make us all feel proud to be a part of a very special School Community, and how we will continue to foster this.
Term Wrap Up
It has been another busy term with a number of Whole School Events, including Sports Day which was so wonderfully supported and enjoyed by our school community. We are finishing off the term with the ‘Run4Colour Explosion' this Friday (28/9) as a fundraiser towards our Nature Play Space. We hope to see many of you there cheering on our staff and students.
Our Nature Play Space at the end of Castle Unit is coming along, and the Project Manager now informs me that it will be completed by the end of the School Holidays.
More information will come regarding access for all students, an official opening and a process for seeking suggestions regarding an official name for the playground space in the future.
There has continued to be engaging learning across all classes this term in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths,(STEM) with students involved in coming up with solutions to problems around sustaining the environment, using the Design Thinking Process.
These are some of the essential thinking skills for the future and involve students in collaborating and using dispositions of Critical and Creative Thinking. We want our students to be engaged in real world problems and see themselves as capable of having a positive impact in shaping their world for the future.
Word Study/Spelling
Recently we had a consultant, Chris Killey visit to observe and facilitate further training for staff in our Word Study Approach. Chris has done a number of training sessions with our staff over the past 3 years. She was very impressed around the strategies and meta-cognition (thinking and articulating about spelling strategies) displayed by our students across the school. Chris provided training for key staff to support us with the next steps in our whole school approach and commented about recommending that other sites implementing this approach come to see the exemplary job our staff are doing in teaching. This is just another example of the wonderful job that our staff do with their willingness to take on research based ideas to support our students in learning, and that staff are doing it to an outstanding level.
Writer’s Workshop Approach
All of our staff teach using the Writer’s Workshop approach. This involves students having ‘voice and choice’ when they are learning a writing ‘genre’ and learning from Author’s using Mentor texts, eg when we are learning to write a Non-Fiction text to teach the reader, students look at lots of different Non-Fiction text written by real authors, to decide what features they will include in their writing.
This Friday (28/9) the R-2 classes will be showcasing their Non-Fiction writing and we hope to have many parents/carers attend to see the amazing published works by our younger Authors. Please see the class Facebook pages for details.
Staffing for Term 4
We welcome Mr Jonathon Kaesler back from extended leave and thank Mr Kaz Krupa who did a wonderful job of taking the Year 5/6 class in his absence.
We welcome Mrs Gill Dowd back from parenting leave. She will be taking the Reception class in Term 4.
Ms Kas Hillan is having to take leave due to having surgery on her ACL and will be away for all of Term 4 to recover. Mrs Gab Martin will take the Year 5/6 class on Mondays and Fridays and Ms Rachelle Bennett, who has been teaching the French Program for the second half of this term will teach Kas’ class on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Wishing all of our School Community a restful, happy and safe break and please take the opportunity to spend time with your children outside in the warmer weather.
We look forward to another busy, but productive Term 4.
Sally Slattery, Principal