Dear Parents and Carers,
It is incredible to think we have almost reached the half way mark of the school year. This week we saw in the winter solstice, our longest day of the year, and the winter weather has certainly hit. We certainly encourage you to keep your child home if they are unwell, coughing or have a runny nose. Thank you for your support on this matter.
I would like to congratulate and thank all the students and teachers on a VERY productive and active term. There have been many wonderful learning outcomes achieved and excellent activities experienced by all. We all should be proud of our achievements.
Next week students will receive their mid-year report. This assessment is an important reporting tool that provides a summary of a students’ learning achievements in the first semester of the year. The important thing with any report or assessment is to:
- Look for the effort – this is what makes learning and progress possible;
- Find the strengths in the report, there will be areas working well for your child;
- Look for areas of focus for the future and the opportunity to set learning goals for the next semester.
I would encourage you to take time to sit down with your child and read the report together, discuss and celebrate achievements as well as establish strategies for improvement.
If you have any questions about the report, you can certainly make a time early next term to discuss these with your child’s teacher(s).
World Environment Day
To commemorate and celebrate World Environment Day on Friday 4 June, our students in 1SM and 3JS visited The Gums Reserve to assist the Landcare group with planting some trees and shrubs. This annual event for our school has continued to assist ‘The Gums Landcare’ group, a team of people with a real passion for preserving and growing our natural environment for our local community.
We are extremely fortunate and lucky to have such a reserve on our doorsteps, a special place we can all visit as well as being part of maintaining and teaching our students on how we can look after our local environment.
The students were also able to experience some fun and educational activities, learning about the native plants in the Gums and the benefits of these plants as well as discovering more about the introduced plants and weeds that can affect the ecosystem and health of the environment. We would like to thank the Landcare team (Gerry and Ian) as well as Sharon Gulley Frith for organising this event.
Disco
Congratulations to our wonderful P & F Committee for organising our school Disco on Thursday 10 June. The 2 discos were well attended by our students, each provided with a drink, pizza and a glow stick. The students had a wonderful time, thanks to DJ The Amazing Magic Mike. The night was very well organised and managed by a large group of volunteers, making it highly successful and a wonderful experience for all our students. Thank you to all the volunteers and a special thank you to the P & F team.
Star Program Professional Learning
On the recent Pupil Free Day, our staff joined the teachers from St Joseph’s School Hectorville to complete our final module on Assessment for Educators. Over the last four pupil free days our teaching staff have completed 5 learning modules.
The Assessment for Educators course is designed to support a whole-school commitment to reflecting on, evaluating, and improving existing assessment practices to improve student outcomes. The course has provided us with shared knowledge and understanding of contemporary research in assessment and the practical application of this research in our teaching practice.
The course has been part of the Star Program initiative for the Eastern cluster schools and has provided an opportunity for us to work with other teachers across the five catholic primary schools. We hope to continue our partnership and work together on developing a moderation program for teachers to come together throughout the year to discuss and review student learning and the assessment of their work.
Learning Fair
Early next term our school will be inviting all families to visit your child’s classrooms and see their learning. As we all know so well it has been a struggle over the last few years to allow parents into the classroom environment. We thought this would be a lovely idea, just before we start the building projects that are planned for the rest of the year as well as bringing some sense of community back for our wonderful school.
SAVE THE DATE:
The Learning Fair will take place on Friday 30 July and families can visit anytime between 4pm -6pm. All classrooms and the Resource Centre will be open for families to visit and your child can show and share their learning. Families will be asked to scan the Q R code on entry and will then be able to visit the classroom. The P & F will be organising refreshments and providing a BBQ.
We hope to see as many families at this event as possible.
News
Finally ,I would like to share some exciting news for one of our staff members. We would like to congratulate Emma & Dan Browne on the news that they will be having a baby toward of the end of the year. We are all very happy for Emma and Dan and I’m sure you will join me in wishing them well as they prepare for the arrival of ‘Baby Browne’.
Stay safe and I look forward to the next exciting semester of learning.
If you get a chance we have a visual display in the front office of the two building projects that will be happening in the next half of the year. VERY exciting times ahead for our community.
Kind regards
Adrian Grbin
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