From The Principal
Dear Parents, Staff, Students and Friends of Nativity School,
Congratulations to our Sports Day Winners, Yorke. Sincere thanks to Renee Sawyer and Brett Middleton, Campus PE Teachers for their organisation of this event and to all the staff, students and families who helped to make a great day. Jai Williamson, Yorke Captain recalled, “Ït was fun to be a leader on Sports Day and see everyone working together.” Yorke Vice Captain, Ash Hall, added “Everyone tried their best and encouraged each other.”
It is fantastic that our students have made inclusion and encouragement to always do your best hallmarks of their leadership.
Last week I joined all the Catholic School Principals to participate in a workshop with Lyn Sharratt author of the book “Clarity”. This book outlines 14 Parameters present in high levels in systems and schools with increased student growth and achievement. These parameters clearly link with our current work on visible learning and our school focus on using student learning data to ensure continuous improvement for every student at Nativity School.
This year our school has a Quality and Performance team comprised of myself, Sharyn Black, Andrea Broadbent, Scott Baldock and Lucinda King. This team is focussed on supporting teachers to improve pedagogy in classrooms through whole school collaborative planning, co-teaching models, modelling and providing feedback to teachers to inform best practice in learning, wellbeing and inclusion.
In 2021 The Quality Performance Team will focus on:
• Learning data and the students the data represents;
• Structured Literacy and Numeracy times for primary students that are evidence based, high impact instructional strategies;
• Assisting teachers to link curriculum understandings and their classroom pedagogy; and
• A case management approach to monitoring individual student progress.
One of the data sets we will use in this group is NAPLAN. This is an annual assessment for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It tests skills in writing, reading, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy. The NAPLAN tests are administered in schools across Australia in May every year. This year the NAPLAN Online assessment window starts on Tuesday 11 May and finishes on Friday 21 May 2021. All students in 3,5 and 7 will sit their NAPLAN Online assessments during this time at school. More information will follow as we near the testing dates. Meanwhile if you have any questions about NAPLAN, please have a conversation with your child’s teacher. My thanks to Angela Pike and Scott Baldock for co ordinating these assessments.
Finally, a reminder that on Thursday 11th March the Student Leadership Team have organised a prayer and reflection activity for all classes in support of Project Compassion. All students are asked to bring a gold coin donation to make a coin line for Lent in a demonstration of faith, love and generosity. Thank you for your support of others during the Lenten season. Next term the student leaders will be looking at how we can be more ecologically aware as a school community with rubbish disposal and introducing a new classroom bin system as a response to our call to ecological conversion from Pope Francis (Laudato Si’). This will be another inspiring call to action and an opportunity to reflect on the impact that small actions can have in making a big difference.
God Bless,
Erika
