Tuesday 23rd August 2022
Hello everyone,
This will be a short message this week, as I am teaching today – still my favourite thing to do! Today I have the Grades 3, 4 and 5 classes, and they are such a good group of students. They are independent, capable workers. The reason I am teaching today is that three of our staff are attending professional development on a variety of topics. It has only been lately that face to face professional development sessions have commenced again and it is a great opportunity to not only upskill the staff but also to get them out talking to and learning from other teachers. Consistently improving our practice by attending PD is a key to further improving our school.
Tickets are now available to purchase for our school production “Bug Boogie”. Please don’t forget to go to Trybooking to book seats. The information for this is below this report.
“Bug Boogie” is coming together well. The students have been practising at home and at school. I am sure that you have probably heard a bit about it or listened to the songs. Do you have a song stuck in your head? Every year, we hear the songs so often that I find that I am constantly singing one of them. This year it is “Ladybug Blues”.
This week I emailed Parent A (designated parent/guardian emergency contact for each student) with instructions about the annual Parent Opinion Survey which is conducted by the Department of Education and Training (DET). I am asked to select one third of the school parents for the survey, but I prefer to offer the opportunity for all families to comment on the school. The opinions you provide are then collated and returned to me. The survey is anonymous. If you have some time, could you please complete this survey?
Our Wellbeing program is being developed and enhanced almost weekly to ensure that we are tracking and supporting our student’s mental health and wellbeing. Last week we introduced a new program to the senior students called Skoedel. This is an app that allows our students to check in and let us know privately if they have any worries, anxiety, or concerns. The app gets them to identify how they are feeling and offers them support from myself or a teacher. The student can select who they want to talk to if they want to talk to someone. This is another tool in our kitbag, and we are looking forward to rolling this out across the school. A simple version will be available to our junior students in term 4.
Please remember that Friday is Book Week dress up day. The theme is “Come as what you would like to be or hope for when you grow up”. You are all welcome to come to assembly on Friday at 3pm to see our dress up parade.
As we race towards the end of the term and the end of winter, have a lovely week.
Kind Regards,
Trish