Acting Principal

Aaron Cox 

Acting Principal

June Reports and Parent/Teacher Interviews

The end of term is fast approaching. Where has the time gone? You can now book Parent Teacher Interviews via Compass. As we are now reporting on a term by term basis the school has decided that the most effective way to communicate with families will be via parent/teacher interviews. Although these will be short sharp 10 minute interviews, we encourage all parents who would like a more in-depth consultation with their child/ren’s teacher to make an appointment at a mutually convenient time to discuss progress.

Department and Dr. Mary Jean Gallagher Kingswood Visit

I would like to congratulate the staff of Kingswood Primary School for their Professional Learning Communities work as we are now recognised by the Department as an exemplar school. Dr. Mary Jean Gallaghan was very impressed with the work that we do. Our School Improvement Team presented our work we do here at Kingswood, to a very high standard. There is more exciting news to come on this front when released by the Department of Education.

Open Night- Education Week

It was such a delight watching the children complete all the activities around the school that complemented our Student Learner Profile on Open Night. Discussing children’s favourite activities resulted in many varied answers. More than 150 children completed their passport and entered the draw for our two amazing prizes. Congratulations to all families for participating in an enjoyable night. I believe there are now a number of students who now know how to pack a sleeping bag ready to go camping!

The Importance of Failure

FAIL or better known as the ‘First Attempt In Learning’ is essential for all learners. What is the point if you know everything, are you an expert in everything and never experience failure? For those old enough, we made many, many mistakes and paid dearly for our attempts at success, but with each of these experiences character was built. The message for any student not being successful in what they would like to do would be “Try harder next time” or “Next time, prove that you can do it”. It will invariably require hard work and dedication. We use our thinking dispositions of Habits of Mind for a reason. 

We have learned from parent sessions at school that continuously completing mathematical problems without failure is useless. Scoring 100% on a test proves nothing and doesn’t identify the child’s misconceptions or next point of need. (That is what we want, to find and work on to develop better understandings.) Our current generation of children, more than any other, require significant support from those around them to understand failure and disappointment. We do not encourage participation ribbons because someone merely showed up. What message does that send to those that applied themselves and deserve recognition for their efforts? Effort and reward go hand in hand. As Karen Boyes would say “You have to go through hard to get to easy.” Support your children in times of disappointment and encourage them to try harder next time. Whilst our collective objective is laying the foundations for success it we also strive to support children to be the best person they can be.

Q&A with the new Principal Class team and new School Council President

Please come along to our Q&A with the focus on the School Review process through Terms 3 and 4. This process will involve feedback forums involving parents, staff and students. We will present a Gantt chart of the process at this meeting. We will also discuss June reports and how they differ from Term 1 reports.

Professional Development of Staff Report

Kingswood is never a school to stand still. As teachers are life long learners, we need to model what we expect from our children. Currently we have Tim Blamires and Jenna Herbert studying with the Inspire program. This program develops the leadership capacity of teachers in their first 5 years of teaching. Linsey Paguio is studying with the L5 leaders. This is a program for middle school leaders. Aaron Cox is studying a Principal Preparation course, Michael Wall and Amy Cameron have both been Merit and Equity trained for future selection panels, Luke Bennett and Monique Driscoll have completed VIT mentor training, Aaron Cox and Patrick Halpin have been completing finance components of Strategic Management for School Leaders and finally, Karen Dissegna and Sarah Rohan are working through Leading Literacy. Stacey Galloway is studdieing a Certificate IV in Business for Business Managers in Victorian State Schools at Chisholm