What an exciting fortnight it has been!
Thank you to all of the wonderful grandparents that joined us last week. It was so lovely to see the school abuzz with families, smiles and joy. We hope you enjoyed your visit to our school as much as we loved seeing you here. It really was special.
Thank you to the parents and carers that joined our “Open Classrooms” last week too. Our view is to open classrooms twice each term for families to come in and join in learning time and lessons. Recent feedback suggested that parents and carers were unsure of the learning in classrooms and of their child. Coupled with student led conferences twice per year, formal written reports twice per year, the opportunity to meet with teacher when necessary, and seesaw photos, open classrooms increase the opportunities for parents and carers to understand and see their child’s learning. We hope that you find it beneficial. It is never an ideal time as we appreciate parents have work commitments, but with some notice hopefully you can visit at some point next year. It really is fabulous to see the children’s faces light up when their parent or carer visits, learns and plays alongside of them.
Thank you to the parents and carers that completed our one question survey recently in regards to sport shirts. It is the largest number of replies we have ever had to a survey and I have learnt, if possible, to keep it to one question only. The exception to the rule will be our Tell them from Me surveys, currently open, and our National School surveys, to come in a couple of weeks, as they give us a bigger picture of school life through feedback.
The survey results were in favour of bringing back sports shirts. There are a few more steps involved and it will be a gradual process. The sports shirts are part of a bigger vision. Mr Gilshenan presented the executive and the P&C a presentation that focused on the “SPS team – belonging” The whole package will reintroduce houses for sport. Currently sport houses are only mentioned when there is a carnival. And we think using sports houses regularly for school sport and PE, all students wearing our house colours and an incentive program will increase a sense of belonging in the students. On the back of the success of PBL tokens and all students contributing to the team by putting tokens in the pipeline and working towards achieving and end of term celebration day, a similar model will work with sport. The sense of team is strong at SPS and we want to capitalise on it. The shorts are another way of visually supporting the team. I have recently applied for an Orica grant to support our sport vision and was successful. This money will help us to set up a print run of the house shirts and hopefully make a sustainable long term plan where sports shirts are sold at a reduced cost to families, all thanks to Orica. Please know that students wouldn’t have to wear a sports shirt right at the beginning of the next school year. Once we have more information about the print of shirts, we will be able to map forward.
First things first, we would like the students to have some voice in the design of the shirt. We would like to incorporate some Aboriginal design to represent belonging to our school and connection to Worimi land. We will be asking the students to develop a design for each sports house shirt. This will be supported in class. Ultimately the community, students, staff and families will vote on a design for our new sports shirts. Some examples the 5/6G have already considered are here for you to see. But this is about all the students, so we will put it to them over the next couple of weeks.
This is a very exciting project for SPS and one that I look forward to seeing come to fruition.
TRIVIA NIGHT
Thank you to the P&C for the fundraising trivia night on Friday night. What a great night. Everyone got into the spirit of Halloween costumes, fundraising and supporting our school. I am very grateful for the hardworking P&C. They have had a bumpy start to their tenure this year but keep on coming up with ideas and ways to support the students and actioning them. It is a small group of volunteers who work hard for the whole school community.
We would love to see more parents and carers come to join our P&C, especially from the younger years of the school as our partnership will be for many years to come.
If you have any suggestions on how to make P&C more accessible to parents and carers, or ideas on how to increase the number of P&C members, we would love to hear from you. stocktonpublicschoolpc@gmail.com or Stockton-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au
Ms Jodie Holt
Principal
