Principal's Report

Teacher Professional Learning

This week Stephanie Davies and I finished off a Leading Literacy course that we have participated in over the year. It has been a valuable course in providing us with a way to plan our professional learning for 2019. We have learnt about current research in writing, reading, spelling and speaking and listening. This learning will enable us to focus on our priority of writing in 2019.

Professional learning is extremely important in our profession as we continue to learn more about the best ways to teach and the different ways that students learn. Professional learning is deliberately planned each year to cater for the learning needs and priorities at our school. As teachers we participate in professional learning each week at school and then access other experts throughout the year.

School Wide Positive Behaviour

Beginning next year we will become a part of the departments School Wide Positive Behaviour program. This builds on the work that we have already been doing with Positive behaviour, Berry Street and Respectful Relationships.

Promoting wellbeing at school can substantially improve social and emotional outcomes of young people.

School-wide positive behaviour support (SWPBS) is a whole-school framework which provides school professionals with an approach to promote improved behaviour at their school.

SWPBS has been developed from evidence and data, demonstrating the most effective ways to prevent and respond to problem behaviour at school. Research has shown that SWPBS is successful in reducing problem behaviour, improving school culture, and increasing academic performance.

 This is a journey that we started on as a school two years ago. The support of the Department of Education now means that we have greater access to reources and experts to further embed this in to our school culture. As a school we are looking forward to the rest of the journey.

Classes in 2019

In 2019 we will be moving to a model of 5 grades. I feel it is important to keep the community informed of the classes. This is a discussion that we spend a lot of time on as a staff and is constrained by school budgets and the number of children in each year level.

We celebrate the fact that we are a small school and that some people do prefer that option. Our school review this year has shown that we have made significant impacts and gains in the wellbeing and learning at this school. No matter the make up of our classes we will continue to do so. We continue to have a focus on keeping our class sizes as small as we possibly can.

Below I have listed the classes that we will be looking at for 2019:

Prep - Mrs Sarah Davidson

Year 1/2 - Mrs Shemsa Nicol

Year 2/3 - Ms Danielle Donovan

Year 4/5 - Ms Stephanie Davidson

Year 5/6 - To be confirmed

 We will continue to have the following specialist classes, PE, Performing Arts, Japanese and Visual Arts.

Ms Rebecca Wilson will be supporting student and teacher learning out of the classroom. Please know that all of these decisions are made with the best interests of students in mind. We work long and hard to get to know our students and the way they learn best and will continue to support the individual learning needs of all of our students.

We will begin transitions for 2019 in the coming weeks. To assist students to transition comfortably to their new learning spaces and classes. If you have any questions about 2019 please do not hesitate to contact me.

We still need people to assist at the election BBQ so if you have time available we would appreciate your help.

Have a great week everyone.

Tabitha