Mr Hyatt

A Proud Sporting Moment

Last Thursday I was very fortunate to be the manager of our school team at the Diocesan Swimming Carnival at Gunnedah. All of the students should be proud of themselves as they competed against the best of the best from the four corners of the Armidale Diocese. Even though we didn't have any of our team members make it into the diocesan test, we definitely came first with the volume of cheering as well as displaying great sportspersonship. I would like thank all of our team's family members who had an early start leaving Walcha and then having to encounter a number of road works along the way. It is very much appreciated. A full report on how well our team went is included in the sports section of this newsletter.

Mrs Healy from O'Connor visited Yr 6 

On Tuesday Mrs Healy visited our Year 6 students to invite them to the 2022 STEP Days at O'Connor. The first STEP Day is for Year 6 on the 24th March. A note has been sent home outlining the day to our Year 6 families.

Term 1 Parent Teacher Interviews

Thank you to both Mrs Makeham as well as all of the Kindergarten parents who recently took part in the Kindergarten Best Start Assessment Interviews. Yesterday the other classroom teachers sent home Parent Teacher interview dates and time to all families (excluding Kindergarten) via COMPASS. We have had a number of trials with the COMPASS program to ensure this will be a smooth process of selecting and booking an interview with immediate confirmation. Hopefully, we won't encounter any difficulties. Please ensure that you complete the conference booking ASAP to avoid any disappointments.

Year 5-6 Canberra Excursion

I have been meeting with the principal of St Joseph's Primary, Uralla and we are ready to begin sending home notes of interest to participate in the Year 5-6 Major Excursion to Canberra. We will be leaving on Monday 12th September and returning back to Walcha on Friday 16th September. We are planning to stay at the Canberra Park Resort and it looks like it is going to be an action packed week. Some of the various activities we plan to take part in is: zone bowling, exploring the Royal Australian Mint, test our sporting skills at the Australian Institute of Sport, having a tour of Parliament House as well as testing our scientific skills at Questacon and many more. I plan to send out the first information note to all parents early next week.

Online Naplan Practise Assessment

Very soon, our Year 3 and 5 students will be taking part in an online NAPLAN Practise Assessment. This assessment is designed to assist schools in preparing for the upcoming NAPLAN Assessment that will be held in early May to ensure that we don't encounter any difficulties during this period. The results from this practise test will not be released as this is a dummy run, so the students have familiarised themselves with the outline of the program as well as the various tools that they will need to use to complete this assessment. Both of our Year 3 and 5 students will be having a number of opportunities to prepare for this assessment in the classroom. If some students/parents would like to start preparing for either of these assessments, please click on the link below. 

https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site

This is not the whole assessment but it gives you an idea on what certain types of tasks our Year 3 and 5 students could be asked to do: