Principals Report
We are into the final term of our school year and the year has certainly passed by seemingly quickly in the face of the challenges we have confronted. The year has been a testing one, as we have had to adjust to the new reality for a while, which still lingers potentially in the background. I would like to thank all the staff at the school for the efforts that they have put in through these times as we have adjusted to a new way of doing some things.
The final term of a school year is always a busy one with a list of events (some already passed) worth sharing at this stage:
- Governing Council Meetings on October 26th and November 30th.
- Book Week with the book parade no October 21st.
- Book Fair on October 27th to 29th.
- NAIDOC day in Leigh Creek on Thursday November 12th.
- Pupil Free Days on November 19th and 20th.
- Our Kindy transition program will run on Thursdays progressively throughout the term.
- Presentation Night on Tuesday December 8th.
- Last day of term Thursday December 10th.
Our External Review which happened finally during term three has reached it’s conclusion with the completion of the final report. The report addresses how we have addressed the directions of our previous report from 2016 as well as setting three key directions based on the lines of inquiry that the review team looked into. The lines of inquiry addressed were based around ‘Effective school improvement planning’, ‘Effective teaching and student learning’ and ‘Conditions for effective student learning’. From this the following directions were recommended by the review:
- Direction 1 - Strengthen the focus on improved student learning through furthering effective structures to monitor impact and progress towards goals and practice actions against the success criteria of the SIP.
- Direction 2 - To enable students to be partners in their learning, strengthen teacher knowledge and action to embed student agency into the formative assessment and feedback processes between students and teachers, to impact on students’ capabilities and self-drive to improve.
- Direction 3 - To ensure a culture of high expectation from all students with their learning, embed teaching practices and structures within the learning environment that are student-centered, aspirational and improvement-focused.
I have presented the report to the Governing Council and the final stage of publicising this will be to post it on our school website with our other school reports.
As a follow up to the report staff now have the opportunity to commence their planning for the next school year and I have requested the above two pupil free days that will occur on Thursday November 19th and Friday November 20th. The first day will continue our professional learning from this year in LDAM (Learning Design Assessment and Moderation) which will involve a further look into formative assessment and reporting in line with the Australian Curriculum. The second day will specifically be about our planning for 2021, looking at our individual student data, setting up the processes to help students succeed in 2021.
From late in the second term and throughout the third term we have already been preparing for our school production of The Lion King. Students have already been involved in practicing, gaining roles, learning dance steps and singing the songs from this musical. This participation will increase over the third term as different classes take a role in different aspects of the production. I already have the feeling this is going to be a big event as students take on the engaging and challenging roles involved. As in previous years the production is a major focus for our students and staff at this time of the year. We look forward to presenting this at the end of term on Presentation night.
In this newsletter you will be able to read up on the plans set aside for this term by our teachers. Enjoy the reading and be ready to ask your kids how they are going with their work. I look forward to seeing parents more this term hopefully around the school, as always if parents have any questions they can contact me at the school through the front office on 86484003or my email daren.oneill253@schools.sa.edu.au