Parent engagement survey
If you haven’t yet completed the parent engagement survey, please do so by the end of next week. All parents/carers should have received a direct link (unique to our school) to the survey via email or SMS. Your responses will help us with our on-going improvement journey.
Western oval play area upgrade
Our Western Oval play area upgrade is almost complete. There are some formalities that need to be completed with the department, but it will definitely be ready for student use beginning of next term. We have submitted a request for the developers to leave the temporary fencing in place until at least the upcoming school holidays so the natural elements can establish themselves. The working bee set for Sunday 18 October (8am to 1pm) will also provide an opportunity for volunteers to add some small finishing touches in and around the area before our 60th birthday celebrations in week 2.
PAT (Progressive Assessment Tests)
Part of our regular assessment cycle is to administer PAT (Progressive Assessment Tests) to every child from Year 2-7 in Weeks 7-8 of Term 3. These standardised tests developed by ACER (Australian Council for Education Research) provide all Australian schools with objective, norm-referenced information about students’ skills and understandings in the areas of reading comprehension and mathematics. The information we gather is used by teachers to establish individual learning goals and design learning programs to best meet student needs. At a whole school level, we use this information to shape and monitor priorities in our School Improvement Plan (SIP). Being a standardised test, we are able to reference student achievement against benchmarks known as the Standard for Educational Achievement (SEA), which help us identify which children need support to ‘catch up’ in some areas and those requiring additional ‘stretch’ in their learning.
Phonics Screening Check
This term we administered the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. This test checks how consistently children are able to decode (read) 40 real and pseudo words. The check is conducted for every Year 1 in South Australia, with teachers given additional training each year to deepen their knowledge of how to use this assessment to move learning forward for each child. On the back of targeted training and support for teachers this year and an evidence-based approach to intervention, we have seen a 19% increase in our students achieving benchmarks compared with 2019 data.
For more information, visit https://www.education.sa.gov.au/teaching/curriculum-and-teaching/literacy-and-numeracy/phonics-screening-check
With kindest regards,
Josh Vick – Principal