Dear Families,

It’s hard to believe we are already in Week 5. Today we celebrate the Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary into heaven. Students in 4 Blue prepared a wonderful prayer liturgy for the school to help us celebrate this holy day of obligation. I thank the students and Miss Dewey for putting this beautiful celebration together.

I would like to thank our outgoing Student Representative Council and congratulate our incoming SRC. I know the new council have already met are starting to think of new ways we can improve our school. I look forward to working with them for the remainder of this year.

Next week we will hold the school’s first Learning Journeys since COVID. This will be a wonderful opportunity to have a look through your child’s classroom and at some of the work they have been doing this year. Learning Journeys will be on Tuesday 22nd August from 3pm until 5pm. Some teachers will still be completing duties until 3.30, so if you come in early, please be aware that your child’s teacher may not be there until later. Families are reminded that this is not a time for a teacher interview as teachers will need to be available to support all families who are coming in to visit. If you would like to talk with your child’s teacher about something specific you are welcome to make an appointment at a time when the teacher is able to focus solely on you and your child.

NAPLAN results have now been released and the school’s leadership team has had an opportunity to look through this year’s results. We were very pleased to see that almost one quarter of our Year 3 students are reading at a level well above national expectations. We have also had very pleasing results in Year 3 spelling, where our school performed well above the national and ACT averages. This year we saw our first cohort of students who started the Initialit program halfway through 2020, completing NAPLAN. While we know that NAPLAN is just a snapshot of student learning, these results combined with other in school and system-wide assessment data, is showing that many of the programs we have introduced over the last few years are having a significant positive impact on student learning.

Some of you may have heard that Mrs Myles and I are currently teaching 4 Green. The nationwide teacher shortage has meant that we have not yet been able to secure a teacher to replace Mr Mackenzie while he is on leave. While we are both very much enjoying being back in the classroom, we know this has meant that we are less available to meet with families. I would sincerely like to thank those parents and carers who have worked with Lee and Steph to find times to meet with us at time outside of the school day, and for your patience and understanding when meetings are delayed. We are working very closely with CE to appoint a teacher as soon as possible.

Take care and God bless