Welcome to Week 5! - I was on leave last Friday, but by all accounts it was a great day at school! Congratulations to Year 1 who had their first assembly with a live audience in the hall since beginning school, and well done to the school netball team on their success as well.
Our thoughts continue to be with the families in our school community who have close connections to India, and any other areas of the world suffering at this point in time.
National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) - Congratulations to all Year 3 and 5 students for their efforts last week. The students approached the assessments calmly and confidently throughout the week and should be congratulated. Well done to Miss Lavis for successfully coordinating our first year of NAPLAN online.
Old Books, New Books, Other Books - Tomorrow, we will have a special visit from the QBD mini bookshop; a van full of wonderful books for sale. Today, students have provided a list of books they love to their home class teachers, so we can restock our library with the wonder and delight of their favourite books and authors.
Many parents have also recently asked me whether we take donations of old books at our school – YES, we do! These books can benefit our library, our classrooms, and many families in our community.
Nowadays, with so much information available to us in various formats, it is important to ensure we provide our children with the time, space and opportunity to get lost in books on a regular basis. This can involve reading to them, with them, or simply allowing them to read independently. Routines certainly help, as does having access to great books they enjoy. Encouraging your child to participate in the Premier’s Reading Challenge is one way to do this. Yes, they might say “no”, initially, but they are usually just testing to see if we as teachers and parents are really committed to our request. Mrs Biar is the main contact at school if you need support getting started with this. The ability to effectively read and understand enhances all aspects of our lives, and therefore, should be a priority for our whole school community.
Attendance News - Congratulations to our students, parents and carers for the improved whole school attendance rate we’ve achieved over the past three years. 2018 - 92.9%, 2019 - 94.1%, 2020 - 94.8%. A 2% increase, equates to an additional 600 days of school being attended across our student population for the year. This is a great achievement, with the school now being above the state average for the past two years. Our current attendance rate this year is 92.1%.
A major area for improvement at our school, is decreasing the number of students who have an attendance rate lower than 90%. As of today, 42 students (28.5%) are in this category. If this pattern continues, these students will miss more than 20 days of school this year, almost three terms (minimum) over their primary school years, and five terms from Kindergarten to Year 12.
I will continue to work closely with our Assistant Principals, classroom teachers, Learning Support Team and families, to ensure every student has the opportunity to reach their full learning potential.
The Everyday Maths Hub - The evidence shows that when parents and carers engage with schools on mathematics and numeracy, students' engagement with and attitude towards maths is enhanced.
The Everyday Maths Hub has been designed to support families to:
- develop and support positive attitudes towards mathematics and numeracy at home;
- empower their children to think critically and creatively;
- find and solve problems;
- notice and wonder about the mathematics in the world around them.
https://education.nsw.gov.au/parents-and-carers/learning/maths/the-everyday-maths-hub
Nathan Fisher
Principal
