Week 7 is done and dusted and we just can’t believe how quickly the term and year is progressing. A big thank you to all who attended our breakfast on Friday morning. It was terrific to see so many faces connecting with each other over a coffee and snack. A big thank you must go to all the volunteers who helped out on the day. I know Jim our illustrious grounds person got a big surprise at 7:00am in the morning when the cooking started. Another example of our wonderful community engagement.
Pupil Free Day
Our pupil free day on Monday presented our staff with the opportunity to work with experts from the Department for Education. The focus of the day was the way we teach writing at St Leonards as well as providing teachers to improve their own skills and to moderate student work.
While our students were out playing in the sunshine on Monday, our staff were learning how to improve the quality of students’ writing. We did this by assessing and moderating a sample of writing from every student, based on the topic of ‘A surprise’. The expert presenters demonstrated some very engaging and informative ways to teach and learn about sentence structure, using a balanced approach of explicit teaching and playing games. There was a great deal of laughter and on-task chatter which we plan to transfer into classrooms to help move every student forward in their writing. It was a brilliant day of learning.
Our SSO’s worked with Kathy Baker on supporting our students to learn, then joined the teachers in the afternoon in master classes.
2021
We have started looking at our numbers and class configurations for next year. This can be a challenging time for all involved and the utmost consideration of student learning is taken into account. To help us accurately construct classes could you please let Mel know at the Office if you intend to leave St Leonards at the end of 2020.
Whilst we would love to be able to offer straight classes in each level next year, varying learner numbers at times may make this impossible. For instance, at this stage we will have 38 Year 7 students next year. Our industrial agreement states that our funding supports 30 students per class in Years 3-7 and 26 in R-2 classes, so we will have to consider how we structure these classes to meet our obligations
This scenario is reflected throughout the school. As a public school we have the responsibility to take all students within our zone so we are unable to cap our numbers as some private schools do.
School Events
As we all know, Covid 19 has wreaked havoc with our year. One of the downsides to this is not being allowed to have large numbers of people on site. We need to ensure we are compliant with SA Health regulations. Unfortunately this will have a major impact on some whole school events we have had scheduled. These include Sports Day and Celebration Night. We are currently finalising our plans and will let our community know shortly.
Dave Henty-Smith - Principal
Jo Meredith - Deputy Principal
Kathy Baker - Inclusive Education Coordinator
