FROM THE PRINCIPAL
Dear Parents and Carers,
At the Community Council meeting this week we spoke about many important things including the school’s targets for 2020. Some great questions were asked about measuring progress. We have many measures of student achievement including: teacher designed pre and post testing, standardised tests including NAPLAN and Pat Maths / Pat Reading, teacher / student conferencing (reading and writing), mapping learning progressions….
You will have seen the 3 goals that are named in our school’s 2020 improvement plan on posters around the school and in the newsletter in Mrs Perryman’s AP news. In short our goals are for progress in literacy and numeracy, for differentiation in planning and teaching to meet the needs of all students, and for improvement in engagement of all learners in their learning.
So, what is our target? We are aiming for 100% of students to improve in these 3 areas. We, like you, expect your child – no matter their starting point - to make a minimum of 1 year’s growth for one year’s learning in our school. This will look different for every student, and the tools named above will be used as assessment to evidence the growth. We have expectations that our end of year assessment data will demonstrate that we have students making more than one year’s growth for the year of learning! Thank you for your support in this! We continue to recognise you, the parents and carers as the primary educators of your children and thank you for the gift of your children in our learning community for their schooling!
This week we have begun the season of Lent with our reception of ashes at the Ash Wednesday Mass, you will have seen your children come home on Wednesday with an ash cross on their forehead.
During Lent we enter a time of reflection and personal action toward repentance and changing our patterns of behaviour toward self-improvement. To prepare for Easter during Lent, Christians often act in three particular ways: fasting, alms giving and prayer. In the 21st century these acts may have people pondering… what? why? how?
With our children this week we have begun our preparations for Easter with our personal dedication to give up or take up. Everyone has been asked to consider something that we enjoy -and will be a challenge to do without- and give this up (screen time / tv / chocolate or lollies / treats at the canteen / takeaway dinner …) and we donate the money from this to the poor. Or we consider taking up something to continue our journey of self-improvement and something which may improve the lives of others (we do extra chores at home without being asked, we share something with our siblings, we extend our kindness and consideration in other ways).
Lent is a time for personal reflection and prayer. Please find time to pray with your children or make a new pattern for night time prayers in your family.
You may see the Easter preparation message repeated in this and coming weeks in our newsletter. As Catholic school leaders, Mrs Perryman, Mrs Grant and I all share the story of our faith, especially at important times in our church year.
Blessings,
Jo