Firstly, I would like to start with how wonderful it is to be back at school. My time off was delightful. I spent my Long Service Leave with my family changing nappies, volunteering for parent help, running my big kids to dancing, soccer, hockey and to the 473 birthday parties they are invited to each week and I loved every minute of it!  It is so nice to be back though, and just in time to welcome the DoE External School Review team to come and spend two days with us. Their purpose was to talk to as many staff, students and parents as possible to give our Leadership Team feedback in two different areas that we have prioritised.

1. How effective are the school’s processes, systems, and strategies to support teachers to plan and differentiate curriculum delivery?
2. How effectively is the school creating learning environments and designing tasks in which all students are engaged, challenged, and have input into their learning?

Over the next few weeks the staff and I will look closely at the data and feedback they have provided and I look forward to sharing their findings with the School Association and the community very soon.

As part of our approach to communicating our progress with families, we will be sending annotated samples of learning for each student home before the end of Term. These will be sent to each family on SeeSaw and will be for English and Maths. If your child has a Learning Plan, the annotated sample will reflect one of their personalised goals. We encourage families to discuss the samples with your children and to celebrate the learning on display.

This week we held our very successful Swimming Carnival. Our student’s behaved and participated like little champions both in and out of the water. I received some lovely feedback from the pool and from some parents about how amazing they all were. Here is a direct quote from a parent that absolutely made me burst with pride:

“ ….the amount of support shown to the kids who went in this event but did it tough was very heartwarming. One girl stopped in her 2nd lap to check that another girl was ok in her 1st lap. This was just one example. Another young girl held the lane rope the entire 2 laps but never gave up and the screams of support and delight were awesome! I’m sure I wasn’t the only emotional one”.

At this time of the year we start thinking about classes and structures for the following school year. In doing this, we ask that any parent who has any information that can contribute to supporting class placements for 2023 to please email the school by the end of Term 3. A reminder that we don’t take teacher requests, however if you have any friendship or support requests that relate to class placements we will do our best to accommodate.