Weekly
news
Term 2, Week 1
Coming up this week
Date
Event
Thursday 28 April
NAPLAN Practice Testing
Friday 29 April
NAPLAN Practice Testing Year 2 Art Gallery Excursion Anzac Remembrance service
Tuesday 3 May
Parent Information Session Maths Mindsets
6:00 - 7:00pm
P&F Meeting
7:00pm
MISSION STATEMENT
To work under God in partnership with parents to provide an inclusive, nurturing and high quality education for every student.
VIsion
Flourishing through faith, belonging and the pursuit of excellence.
From The Principal
Growing as a Learning Community
When I tell people that I am a school principal, they immediately begin to talk about the joy of working with children. While that is a large part of my personal vocation, I find even more joy knowing that I am able to work and connect with entire families. Now that restrictions are easing, our school can even better live out the mission to be in partnership with parents and carers.
Using common words at home and at school to tackle anxiety
We partner together as a community of learners. This coming Tuesday night at 6pm you have the opportunity to learn about how the language we use with children can affect their long-term personal and academic success.
At the March P&F meeting, parents shared that they notice maths anxiety in their children. Ms Hamblin, our Wellbeing Coordinator and I will be running a workshop to begin addressing that. Our time together will focus around the work of Carol Dweck’s research (see video). We will include practical suggestions for reducing children’s anxiety in mathematics as well as in other areas of life.
The workshop will cover the following:
- Understand the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset
- Learn how our brains grow when we learn and the emotions we face during that process
- Leave with practical tools you can use straight away with your children
Please RSVP at [email protected] to bring your children, who will be supervised by staff and entertained by some of our Year 6 leaders. Snacks will also be available.
Also, you will be invited into a Private Maths Parent Facebook group. This group is a place where we will share resources with you and answer questions about maths teaching in an ongoing way.
What we’ve learned from YOU (and how we’re responding)
Additional opportunities for partnership
We know that 6pm is not an ideal time for parents to attend school events. We hope that the addition of child care will help ease some of that pressure.
Also, we are looking to replicate the event as a lunch event. Watch this space for more details.
Updated website landing page
Have you seen our new website landing page? At the bottom, you will see a bar that has quick links, providing easy access to the links parents have requested. We will be following up with an events calendar shortly.
A single space for information
To make your parenting organisation just a bit easier, we are working on a new app that will be piloted this term for rollout in Term 3. The purpose of the new app is to allow almost all communications (Flexischools, newsletters, absence notification, upcoming events, conference sign-ups and more) to run through a single place. Logins to Parent Lounge will happen via the touch button or face recognition, as it is for most phone apps on our modern devices.
Seesaw will remain as a separate app. The two apps will contain all the information and links that you need, eliminating the need for email communication (unless you choose email notifications).
Would you like to help pilot the app? Let us know if you’d like to test the app prior to full rollout by emailing [email protected]. Your feedback will help us make it even better.
Join the conversation
Please consider attending the P&F meeting that follows the Parent Information Session on Maths Anxiety. In this next meeting, I will be asking for feedback on end-of-semester reports.
Janet Moeller
Principal
Mark your calendars
School Chess competition
Wednesday 4 May
Athletics Carnival – Jubilee Park
Thursday 5 May
SIRU Stage 2/3 Rugby Union
Friday 6 May
CIS Netball – Sydney
Friday 6 May
From The DEPUTY Principal
Fostering Wellbeing in our Classrooms
Last term you heard Ms Moeller talk about our school focus on Wellbeing. In Term 1, we implemented fortnightly student surveys, which provided our students with a safe forum to share their opinions, thoughts and feelings about school. From the surveys, we followed up with friendship concerns, student worries and celebrated successes with students. We found this benefited all students, but especially our introverted students who had historically been more hesitant to share their feelings with teachers.
Building on that success: Classroom Circles
During the teacher professional development day, teachers learned how they can further help student wellbeing through the use of Classroom Circle Solutions. Below are just a few of the many things your children will learn through the use of this teaching technique:
- Label their own emotions
- Recognise that emotions are temporary and can and will change
- Recognise that emotions affect behaviour and have physical effects
- Be aware of their own positive qualities and values
- Demonstrate interest in trying new things
- Cope with stress and anxiety
- Exercise self-control and delay gratification
- Establish and work toward the achievement of positive and realistic goals
- Monitor and sustain progress toward goal achievement
- Anticipate possible barriers to the achievement of a goal and identify ways to overcome them
Mark your calendars for Tuesday, 14 June at 6 pm when I will be doing a Parent Presentation on Classroom Circles.
Canteen Volunteers needed
Do you have a couple of child-free hours to spare? We could use an extra set of hands in our canteen. Please see the volunteer page on our website to learn how you can be an important part of our Healthy Canteen.
Update on the Greatest Shave
Congratulations to our students for raising money to fund blood cancer research. To date, they have raised $6364. Donations are still being taken at https://secure.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/registrant/TeamFundraisingPage.aspx?TeamID=136800
See the Prime 7 coverage of the event at https://fb.watch/cEnpJRXbLt/
ANZAC Day Update
More than 50 students marched down Morgan and Baylis Streets to Victoria Memorial Gardens during the Wagga Wagga ANZAC Day parade. Thank you to all who supported the march (parents included!) to honour those who serve and have served our country. Thanks also to our School Captains who presented a wreath from our school.
Families are invited to join our school Commemoration of ANZAC Day this coming Friday at 12.00 by the flagpole.
The P&F will be holding a Mother’s Day Stall on, Wednesday 4 May. If you are available to help please call Lisa Price (see information in photos)
Dylan Evans
Deputy Principal
SAVE THE DATE - SCHOOL FETE/FESTIVAL
SATURDAY 22 OCTOBER 2022
More information to come!!!!!
Curriculum Matters
NAPLAN Practice Testing
Unlike previous years, NAPLAN exams for Years 3 and 5 will be online rather than on paper. Our students will be practicing for these online tests the end of this week and the beginning of next week. This practice benefits both the school and the students. As a school, we can ensure that our technology is ready to go so that students have a seamless experience. The practice also helps students become familiar with the format and expectations of the exam.
Our history with NAPLAN
Historically, our students do very well on the NAPLAN when compared to state school, national schools and other independent schools. Are our students drilled with practice exams? No.
We do a few practice sessions as stated above, but we credit our good results to a combination of other factors:
- Our partnership with YOU. When we have concerns about children’s progress and contact you, you embrace the conversations and work with us to support children. This begins as early as Kindergarten.
- We use research-based practices. Our early years teachers all learn and implement strategies so that children are confident readers.
- We continually monitor student progress. Teachers are continually assessing students and communicating with you if they are not seeing the progress we would expect.
- We use previous NAPLAN results to refine our teaching practices. If we notice changes from year to year, our learning leaders reflect on our teaching practices and resources in order to celebrate successes and target areas for growth.
Our philosophy of NAPLAN and other exams
NAPLAN does not assess all of what makes children exceptional and unique. The people who score these tests don’t know that a child loves to sing, is good at drawing or can teach others how to program computers. They have not seen the way a student dances with grace or speaks confidently to a large group. They do not know that a child participates in sports, helps Mum and Dad or plays with younger family members. Those qualities cannot be tested.
The scores from NAPLAN will tell us how a child did on a particular day, but they cannot tell us everything. They cannot tell us that they have improved on something that a child once found difficult.
While the NAPLAN data can help us pick up trends in our students’ learning, they are only one of many measures that we use to make sure all students are learning. We pride ourselves on being an inclusive school that nurtures the growth of all students academically, physically, emotionally and spiritually. We don’t want students simply to learn, we want them to thrive.
Emma Grant
Learning Innovation Coordinator
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OSHC
OSHC Easter raffle was a wonderful success with Kai Charlton being a very happy camper as the raffle winner.
I would like to thank everyone who supported the fundraiser, we were able to raise $80 for Angel Flight and on our McDonald lunch fundraiser day we raised $62 for the Wagga Ronald McDonald house.
These holidays have been filled with so much fun. I’m not sure where to start, maybe with the limbo competition during our trivia day, freckle making and scavenger hunt at the Licorice Factory, pour painting, dancing our socks off at Triple Threat Dance Academy or the Easter egg hunt.
The children all worked together these holidays and showed each other support and team work.
We look forward to another wonderful term together building on these skills.
Rebecca Cameron
OSHC Coordinator
Other Information
