Term 3, Week 8, 7 September
Principal Message
Dear Parents and community members,
It was fantastic that could gather together last Friday for breakfast where we wished all the incredible fathers & father figures in our community, a very happy Father’s Day .
We’re sure they had a blessed & joyous time with their loved ones on Sunday .
Last week we held an online safety parent session presented by Brett Lee.
Brett Lee, our guest speaker, provided an insightful and engaging presentation, giving us all a lot to reflect on and put into practice. We are fortunate to have Brett Lee as a leading expert in this field, and we look forward to continuing our work with him and his team at Internet Safe Education.
The presentation focused on the importance of understanding that the internet is both public and permanent. Once something is posted online, it can never truly be deleted. Therefore, it’s crucial to protect personal details online, such as passwords and financial information. It’s also important to remember that people we know on the internet may be strangers, and we should be cautious about sharing personal information with them. Just like in the real world, we all have rules on the internet and computers, such as not engaging in cyberbullying or illegal activities. Lastly, if we have an online problem, we should talk to a trusted person, whether it be a parent, teacher, or counsellor, for help and guidance.
The following FIVE strategies for parents to consider when managing safe internet use at home mentioned last Wednesday:
- Set clear rules and boundaries
- Parents make the final decision
- Use Management Controls
- Stay up to date with your children’s usage and
- Communicate with your children
Brett Lee reminded parents of the importance of the eSafety website, which is a unique world-first tool for protecting all of us from offensive and bullying material online. We encourage all parents to familiarise themselves with this important resource.
Upcoming Dates
Please find below a list of dates savers below of events that are occuring this term.
- Sunday 10th September - First Holy Communion Sacrament Mass @ 5pm
- Friday 15th September - School Silent Disco @ 6pm
- Saturday 16th September - Chinny Charge (Unfortunately we didnt get enough interest for a St John's Team!)
- Friday 22nd September - Last Day of Term 3
School Silent Disco
Just a reminder that the school silent disco will be held in the hall on Friday 15th September - please see flyer at the bottom of the newsletter. It will be a great evening with sausage sizzle available and drinks to pruchase! The school forum has once again done a magnificent job organising this event!
Each student is to bring in $5 prior to the event for entry on the night.
We don't want this fee to be a barrier though, so if your family is experiencing financial difficulties, please come and have a confidential conversation with me or send me an email.
Kind Regards,
Dave Bermingham
Assistant Principal
Staff Development Day- Monday 4th September.
On Monday staff engaged in professional learning with a major focus on writing. We took time to review our 2023 NAPLAN data and identified the strengths and areas to focus on for our students. There are now 4 proficiency levels:
- Exceeding: the student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing.
- Strong: the student’s result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing.
- Developing: the student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing.
- Needs additional support: the student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes that are expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.
We also examined writing samples which scored in ‘exceeding’ and identified the elements required for students to achieve at this level. Staff identified targets for our Years 3 and 5 cohorts for 2024.
Linking to the data analysis, we reviewed proven practices and processes that will have a high impact on our student’s progress. We documented the agreed practices that all staff are readily engaging in to improve student learning, especially in writing. As we walked through the classroom it was clear that many of these practices evident. However, we really want to ensure students really know what they are learning and why; have a sense of how they are going; know how to check how they are going, understand how they can improve and know where they can go for help.
The leadership team, and eventually all staff, will embark on a process of learning Walks and Talks where will conduct discussions with students to get a sense of how students are going with these 5 questions:
- What are you learning? Why?
- How are you going?
- How do you know?
- How can you improve?
- Where do you go for help?
The data collected will help us gather evidence of teachers’ intentional teaching, of students’ improvement and a future focus for staff professional development. All students are at varying points in their learning journey but our ultimate goal is to ensure they are all growing and achieving to their full potential.
This week, I focused on visiting S1. It was great to hear students explaining their learning, showing me their success criteria, explaining how the narrative mountain helps to plan their writing and articulating that the walls in the room are like another teacher. Students showed me how you can go to the walls to help you with vocabulary and ideas for writing. The photos are visual evidence of writing being alive in classrooms!
S1 writing
SCHOOL INFORMATION
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU"
Our Birthday people:-
Theodore & Piper
CORRECT INFORMATION
Please make sure that the school has your correct contact info. If you have moved house! updated your phone! or changed email addresses! Please advise the school office via Compass, email; sjpmull@lism.catholic.edu.au or phone; 0266842386. We need to have correct information.
Absentees If you know that your child will be away from school for any reason, please let the office know. Compass is having some issues with this, please phone or email the school with this info.
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS PARENT ASSEMBLY
