From the Principal - Term 1 Week 6
I would like to start this newsletter with a very sincere apology for accidently missing welcoming one of our beautiful new teachers in my last article.
Special welcome to Aimee Liu who has joined our Maths team and is on the Grade 7 team taking Home Room 7 Weld. Staff and students alike have warmed to Aimee’s infectious personality and ever-present displays of kindness. Students have described her as bottled sunshine! Welcome to our school community Aimee and so sorry I missed you off last time.
NAPLAN 2023
NAPLAN testing for Year 7s and 9s has commenced this week and will continue the next few weeks. We would appreciate it if parents can continue the conversation we have been having at school about the importance of students doing their best, as the data we obtain from these tests is critical for us to guide how best to support your children in their learning journey.
Laptop roll out for Years 7 and 8
Over the last week laptops have been distributed to all Grade 7 and 8 students who have returned the appropriate forms. It has been wonderful to see the joy on the students' faces and see them engaging with their device in class, developing their capacity to utilise them to support their learning. Having a device makes an enormous difference to the accessibility to information for our students and also learning skills associated with various applications. Thank you to Angela Cooke and Josh Dickenson, our awesome IT team, for coordination of this program and also to parents for your support in returning the forms. If you have not yet returned forms, please do so as soon as possible so your child can benefit from this resource.
Attendance
We are very concerned about the attendance rate at this early stage in the year. Obviously, we have been through a challenging period these last few years as a result of COVID, however, where we should be seeing an improvement in attendance, we aren’t. Just one day a fortnight off school from Kinder through to Year 12 will mean your child has missed one-and-half-years of schooling! Just a reminder that the Department of Education requires a Medical Certificate to be supplied for every absence beyond 5 days. Given that employers also require a Medical Certificate when we as adults are absent from work, it is logical that we expect this for our students as we are preparing them for the real world. This is a requirement brought on through the implementation of the Education Act 2016.
Please support us in supporting your child’s learning by ensuring your child is at school everyday so they are not missing critical learning time.
Until week 9.
Kindly,
