Dear Parents/Caregivers,
WELCOME TO TERM 2.
We have started very quickly and successfully for another busy term!
Welcome to our new families and students.
We look forward to working alongside your children’s learning journeys.
CHARITY THANK YOU
The Lighthouse Leaders have asked me to say thank you to the school community for support of our charity KickStart for Kids through our casual day on the last day of Term 1. We raised $513.15 due to your generous support. These funds have now been forwarded and will support breakfast and lunch programs in schools for students who are less fortunate than our students.
NAPLAN ASSESSMENT PROGRAM
NAPLAN testing for all Years 3, 5 and 7 students will be held next week. Students complete online tests in all aspects except Year 3 Writing, (which is still done in the traditional paper format.) The NAPLAN data is just one of many data sets that schools use to monitor student development, analyse student learning needs and plan programs both for general learning and for support programs. With the way NAPLAN is often portrayed (eg in the media), families and students often find the time around NAPLAN stressful. I would ask families to please keep your approach to the NAPLAN testing days low-key. Treat the days as routinely as any other with your normal good sleeping and eating practices continuing. Don’t make anything of the testing program on the days themselves. This will help to keep students from becoming unnecessarily worried about the process. At school, while there are certain required structures we need to have in place for the testing itself that will certainly look different to daily learning practices, we keep the days as simple as we can for students to ensure they can be as relaxed about participating in the process as possible. Teachers who are supervising the testing are very skilled at ensuring students are able to readily and successfully engage with each test. NAPLAN results for 2021 will be available later in the year.
Those of you who have attended school AGMs will know that I speak about how we use the NAPLAN data in the site. We focus on improving our teaching practices, program planning and learning delivery partly based on analysis of our own NAPLAN performance from year to year. Alongside of this, we develop long term goals that are identified in our Site Improvement Plan, (you can see this in the school website). These goals address and include access to the most up to date literacy and numeracy programs and the latest thinking, and, teaching practices that are continually advancing to ensure the successful implementation of these programs. I would encourage you to read our 2020 Annual Report, which was shared at the AGM in March, as it provides further information about our work (and this can also be found on the website).
FRIENDLY REMINDER REGARDING REGISTRATION OF INTEREST
FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLING 2022
Parents of Years 6 and 7 students are reminded that the online application procedure to start the transition process for your child to move to secondary schooling in 2022 is due to be completed by Friday 21st May. There are a number of applications that are still to be completed. If you are having difficulty with the process, please contact the office team for advice. The latest Yr 7 to High School update from the Department for Education can be found here.
REQUEST FROM OUR FRONT OFFICE TEAM
As you can imagine, our front office team members are very busy with many and varied tasks throughout the day. This year, there have been an ever increasing number of phone calls from parents, often right near the end of the day, where office staff are asked to pass on “urgent” information to teachers such as wanting to pick up a child early, asking their child to meet somewhere else or go home with someone else. While we do understand emergencies arise, (eg late for pick up due to a flat tyre/accident/caught at a specialist appointment), generally many of the arrangements that parents phone about could be organised direct with children and their teachers before school. Unfortunately because of the many tasks that office staff do, it is not always possible to get a message through when unrealistic time pressure is applied. Because of that sometimes messages are missed and students may be left. While the office team try to follow up these requests in a timely manner, I request that you please let the teacher know before school about what is required in preference to ringing the office. If issues arise during the day, (other than emergencies like those listed above), please contact the office team by lunchtime. I thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
NATIONALLY CONSISTENT COLLECTION OF DATA
ON SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH DISABILITY (NCCD)
Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about supports provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).
Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:
· year of schooling
· category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional
· level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial or extensive.
This information assists schools to:
· formally recognise the supports and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools
· consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools
· develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs in order to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.
The NCCD provides state and federal governments with the information they need to plan more broadly for the support of students with disability.
The NCCD will have no direct impact on your child and your child will not be involved in any testing process. The school will provide data to the Australian Government in such a way that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information. To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy (https://www.education.gov.au/privacy-policy).
Further information about the NCCD can be found on the NCCD Portal (https://www.nccd.edu.au).
If you have any questions about the NCCD, please contact your child’s teacher.
COMING EVENTS
TERM 2 PUPIL FREE DAY – FRIDAY 11th JUNE
Staff will be training and planning curriculum and other elements of the Site Plan. If you need child care, the OSHC will be open that day. Please contact Sally Mitchell on 8381 7577 to book in.
PARENT/TEACHER/STUDENT INTERVIEWS – WEEK 9 TERM 2.
MORE INFORMATION INCLUDING BOOKING PROCESSES WILL BE OUT SOON.
PLEASE NOTE THAT END OF SEMESTER 1 WRITTEN REPORTS
WILL BE TABLED AT THESE MEETINGS.
With regards,
Anne Rathjen
Principal
