Principal’s Newsletter article

Welcome to the final term of the school year, one which seems to be running out fast! After a busy term filled with absences of staff and students created by illness, we are looking forward to a healthy finish to the school year. Our teaching staff have included their reports on their intended programs for the newsletter, enjoy the reading as we plan for the rest of the year.

End of Term Three

The last week of term three was a busy one as we had two special days, our Sporting Colours Day and the Colour Run, a fundraiser for ‘Plant a Difference’. Both days were well attended and in particular the Colour Run after the delay during the term was a big success. Many thanks to all those who volunteered and also participated in the day, which thankfully was held in perfect conditions. To wrap up the day and term we finished off with our presentation assembly where students were recognised for their participation and achievements in our Sports Day, their attendance at school as well as their demonstration of the school values.

Camps

In Week 2 of this term we had two camps, encompassing all our year levels. Our Foundation to Year 4 students camped at Rawnsley Park, travelling from there to Dingly Dell and Wilpena Pound with Penny McCulloch, Victoria Barratt, Karmela Coulthard, Lisa O’Neill, Leonie McKenzie, Lauren Johnson, Pauline McKenzie and myself.  Our Year 5 – 11 students travelled to Tumby Bay for a variety of curricular and wellbeing activities under the supervision of Sharon Bates, Amanda Hilder, Cameron Redden and Esther Eager.

School Projects

The school recently had approved the fencing for our oval, primarily due to our issue with kangaroos becoming trapped and dying on our fence. We have now been informed that the fencing will also encompass the perimeter around the rest of the school site, including the Kindy, a great result for us with our efforts to make the site secure. The oval will be fenced with ‘Corromesh’, a 2100mm high boundary, surely big enough to keep out the roos! The rest of the school will be bounded by ‘Black Flat Top’ fencing, which is 1500mm in height. A part of this project will also encompass a reduction in public access points around the school, which is a common element in this process to produce practical and safe access to pedestrians and vehicles. A date for the project is still to be set.

In more construction news our application for internal fencing to create a safe area for play for our younger students has also been approved with the provision of Disability Access funding. This will incorporate fencing around our bus bay, also providing boundaries between buildings along the edge of the school oval. Once again the fences here will be 1500mm in height. As part of this project the school will also benefit with the construction of a toilet block in our admin building for our disabled students.

Education Management System

The school this term will be joining a long list of schools around the state who have already experienced the EMS rollout. EMS stands for Education Management System, and will replace our current EDSAS administration system with a system that will be online, enabling staff to do many tasks from environments other than school, much the same as other systems such as Daymap. This will especially result in the saving of staff time with digital alternatives to labour-intensive, paper-based processes such as reporting, timetabling, setting curriculum, communicating with parents etc. The organisation and communication of school events such as camps, excursions, presentation nights, fundraiser days etc will all be online. The EMS will also include a centralised, single student record that will exist throughout each student’s public education, automatically transferring all relevant student data, when students move between schools. A parent portal will be a part of the EMS which will enable parents to report their child’s attendance and absences, check their child’s timetables and attendance in real-time, view invoices and school fee information and make payments online and view reports and learning for their child. This is certainly a large project, where staff are at the moment preparing the transfer of data from EDSAS to the new system. In addition to this school staff are attending training in the various aspects of the EMS. The system is scheduled to ‘Go Live’ on November 11^th, and as various modules of the new system are designed and finalised they will be made available to staff, students and parents.

Key Dates this term:

Finally the school has had approved the provision of two pupil free days coming up this term:

• Monday November 14^th - a whole school planning day to prepare for 2023. This would include items such as the analysis of student data, preparing for the EMS, planning in programming for next year.
• Tuesday November 15^th - Australian curriculum professional learning day provided by, the curriculum lead for our partnership. Each year the package of Australian curriculum resource is updated by the department and this year there has been an expansion of resources two new year levels and learning areas so will be useful to give teachers some time to look at this.

Other key dates:

• Our Presentation Night on Tuesday December 13^th
• International Day for People with a Disability on Monday November 28^th
• Final day of term Thursday December 15^th.

Enjoy the term, I look forward to catching up with members of our school community in the lead up to the end of the school year.