Principal's Report
Parent Teacher Discussions
Thank you to all parents and carers who participated in our Parent Teacher discussions this week. This is an additional meeting due to no comments on reports in Term 2. We hope you found this additional meeting informative and highlighted the progress your child has made over the term.
The next formal communication about your child’s learning progress will be Week 9 of Term 4 in the form of end of year reports for Prep-6 students and a Celebration of Learning for Kinder students.
Progressing Towards our School Improvement Plan
We have continued to make great progress towards our goals and targets in our School Improvement Plan.
Writing Priority
- Teachers have been refining their understanding and implementation of Bump Up Walls to extend students’ writing. This included a combined professional learning afternoon with Ridgley Primary on Wednesday 31 August.
- In Week 5, Prep to Grade 6 students participated in POD writing seeds. Teachers then moderated students’ writing samples on a rubric to monitor their progress from previous terms.
- In Week 9 our Grade 3-6s will participate in EWRITE as another means to monitor growth.
Inquiry Priority
- All grades are currently undertaking an inquiry on ‘place’. It is interesting to see the progression as students move from their known/local environment, to state, national and then world level.
Maths
- Our Burnie Counts inquiry is very exciting. This term has seen the launch of the Burnie Counts Facebook page which is a great resource for parents. If you are not already following the page, I encourage you to do so. There is some wonderful information to inform you of the Big Ideas in Number and experiences you can do at home to support your child with their number knowledge.
- All teaching staff have engaged in professional learning on Place Value and Additive Thinking alongside the other Burnie Counts schools.
- Mr Jones our Numeracy Coach has also led a session to up-skill our Teacher Assistants on Trusting the Count.
Other Assessments
- Last month the Preps did their post Marie Clay Letter ID to track progress
- The Grade 1s are in the process of undertaking the DoE Phonics Check
- We have continued with the twice a term Student Wellbeing Check-ins with Grades3-6. This has been a great way to monitor students’ wellbeing across the year and then put actions in place to address need.
- Between 8th September and 22nd September the Grade 4-6s will be participating in the state-wide Student Wellbeing Survey
Somerset’s Little Big Shots
Over the last two weeks, approximately 60 students have participated in SPS Little Big Shots. The students have been very keen to showcase their talents and share some of their outside school interests. This year we have been entertained by: baton twirlers, dancers, singers, gymnasts, and a whip cracker.
Little Big Shots is a wonderful opportunity for our students to enact our values of BELIEVE/COURAGE, DREAM and GROW. I am always amazed at how courageous students are at getting up in front of an audience to perform in addition to demonstrating resilience when things don’t always go to plan.
Our value of RESPECT is displayed by the audience giving appreciations and encouragement, in addition to our student judges’ thoughtful and considerate feedback.
Our finalists will be announced next week and they will perform in a whole school assembly on the last day of term.
Shining Stars
Congratulations to Miller and Mia for making it through to the next stage in the Darwin combined netball and football teams.
Miller and Mia both played in the Devon vs Darwin tournament on 2nd September. From this they were then selected in the squad to compete in the Launceston Exchange on 16th September.
Mia will play in Spreyton for Darwin and compete against the Devon and Launceston teams. She said it was awesome getting selected as there were lots of people in the two original Darwin teams. Mia likes playing Goal Attack or Goal Shooter as she enjoys getting the shots in.