Parents and Carers as Partners in Learning:
We’ve had a great start to the year with students settling into their classes and getting on with their learning. It has also been encouraging to see how invested our parents and carers are in their children’s learning and wellbeing. Many parents and carers have linked in with their child’s teacher and support staff to make sure the start to 2020 has been strong.
I encourage parents and carers to continue this valued relationship as partners in learning at our upcoming ‘Meet the Teacher Evenings’ this week. A reminder that parents and carers are invited to the following ‘Meet the Teacher’ sessions to learn about what your child / children will be learning in class this term;
- K-2 Meeting: Wednesday 19.02.2020 @ 3:15pm-4:15pm,
- Yr 5-6 Meeting: Wednesday 19.02.2020 @ 4:30-5:30pm, and
- Yr 3-4 Meeting: Thursday 20.02.2020 @ 3:15pm-4:15pm.
Feedback from P&C:
It was great to meet our P&C team last week. We are blessed to have such a committed group supporting the school, advocating for what is best for our students.
At our meeting, P&C members asked the school to look at ways to strengthen communication with parents. As part of this request, we are currently reviewing how we communicate with our broader community with the objective of forming a clear communication strategy. This strategy will clarify how we intend to use Facebook, our SkoolBag App, school emails and the school’s website to promote stronger connections.
While some teachers have used Class Dojo and / or Seesaw to communicate with parents and carers in the past, for consistency, I have asked teachers to only use these platforms with their students to promote learning in the classroom and not as a platform for communicating with parents and carers. If at any point you need to make contact with your child’s teacher(s), please ring through to our front office to make an appointment.
Our next P&C Meeting is on Wednesday, 18th March, at 6:00pm. If you would like to contribute to the school with a group of like-minded people who care deeply about our students, then I encourage you to come along to our next meeting!
School Pick Up:
We acknowledge that the congestion at the front gate at the end of the school day is an issue. Staff this week have discussed solutions to resolve this. Advice will be sent out to parents and carers later this week with details around our new pick up procedures that will commence from Monday, 24th February 2020.
Future Aspirations for Swansea Public School - Community Conversation:
We are keen to get feedback from our parents and carers about their future aspirations for our school. To kick things off we are asking parents and carers to complete a simple survey. Parents and carers will be asked to identify three things they like about Swansea Public School, and to identify one thing, that if changed or addressed, would make our school even better. We value community feedback so when the survey goes out later this week please take a moment to fill it out.
High expectations for happy and high achieving students
As I said in our last newsletter, great things don’t happen by themselves…they happen by design. The following information relates to our commitment to maintaining high expectations to promote happy, high achieving students;
School Fees - School Book Packs:
For structured learning to take place, our school coordinates book packs for each year group every year. The cost of these book packs are covered by the payment of school fees. In the past we have withheld book packs until school fees are paid. To ensure all students have a strong start to their learning in 2020, we have distributed all workbooks to all students, regardless if their fees have been paid to date or not. We have made this decision to make supporting student learning our priority. We would appreciate the payment of school fees as soon as possible, so these reimbursed funds can be directed to other learning initiatives we have allocated funding for in 2020.
Attendance:
Our attendance motto is SHOW UP, STEP UP and STRIVE. We are making improved attendance a priority in 2020 to strengthen our students’ sense of connection, enhance their wellbeing and consolidate their learning. In 2019 our average attendance rate for Term 1 was 92.73%. We are putting the challenge out there to our students, parents and carers to help us beat this average in Term 1, 2020.
Uniform:
It’s great to see our students wearing their new school uniform with pride. Wearing uniform sets the culture for the school and is a visual to the community that we are a connected family. At present, the P&C are working hard to ensure we have new jumpers available to purchase in the coming weeks. As soon as we know more we will get information out to parents and carers.
Closing
In closing, I’d like to thank our staff, students, parents and carers for pulling together in our collective effort to ‘strive to do well’; based on the strong start to this year, I anticipate great things to come for Swansea Public School in 2020.
Regards,
Brett Carr
