Principal News
Why NAPLAN will help us to grow your child
At St Saviour’s Primary, we are determined to use educational data in meaningful ways; in ways that support student learning. Your willingness to support the program of NAPLAN testing is vital to its successful completion. Working together, we are best able to support and encourage the academic growth of the young children in our care.
NAPLAN might not matter – it’s what it measures that matters. NAPLAN is a measurement instrument. It is designed to measure students’ literacy and numeracy skills under controlled conditions. Let’s use the act of measuring one’s height as an analogy. We do not attempt to measure the person as they go about their daily activities, but instead place them in an artificial situation: shoes off, back to the wall, chin up, no slouching. The same is true of measurement in education. In reality, when we give a child a reading test, we know that he/she may never again encounter those particular reading passages or those particular questions. That is not the point. The reading passages we use and the questions we ask are merely opportunities to gather relevant observations about what is really of interest – the student’s underlying reading ability, which cannot be observed directly and must be inferred.
We use NAPLAN for comparison, not competition. NAPLAN shines a spotlight on school performance every year. Media commentary is often based on over-simplified comparisons of school averages (a statistic that is strongly correlated with students’ socioeconomic backgrounds). We conduct a careful examination of St Saviour’s Primary improvement against that of other schools so that we can better understand the value we add, reflected in the progress students make.
NAPLAN helps us teach in ways that are responsive to our students’ needs. NAPLAN provides schools with detailed data on the performance of their students; data that can be used to investigate classroom teaching strategies and the strength of school-wide programs. Our Middle Leader (Miss Prentice) has led groups of teachers in purposeful projects that have supported focused improvement in students’ reading and writing skills also working alongside teachers in class supporting literacy and numeracy. Our Learning Support Team (Mrs Murdoch, Mrs Smith, Miss Doljanin and Mrs Grundon) support those students who are progressing well beyond their peers and those needing additional support to meet learning targets, ensuring that curricular and co-curricular opportunities are responsive to their learning needs.
Staff Updates:
Welcome back to Mrs Anne Woodcroft-Brown (School Counsellor) after 12 months of leave. Anne’s contact hours have increased from 2.5 days to 3 days per week and she will be available for students and staff on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Parent Engagement Network -Information Evening
All parents are invited to attend an information evening about establishing our Parent Engagement Network (PEN) which will operate instead of a P & F and School Board. Earlier this term, I mentioned in the newsletter that I had met with the P & F executive and School Board members to inform them of the change to the Parent Engagement Network model for Catholic Schools. All members at the meeting were in agreeance of this network. It was decided that after the recent Leadership Forum where Toowoomba Catholic Schools launched the concept of PEN to all Principals, that we are now able to share the constitution and purpose of this new network. It is important to note the following from the PEN constitution: that the creation of a Parent Engagement Network has come about in response to requests to consider an alternative model to the School Board and Parents and Friends Association, acknowledging the changing nature of families and schools and evolving ways of working together. This Network continues to honour the place of parents and families in the life of our school through providing an effective avenue for parents and families to come together to be informed, consulted and learn in relation to school planning, policy, decision making and education programs and engage in activities, projects and events that build community.
I extend a warm invitation to all parents to attend a wine, beer and cheese night on 31st May, 5:30p.m. to hear more about the network and to have a tour of the new facilities. See details below. Please RSVP your attendance by Wednesday 25th May for catering purposes to ssps@twb.catholic.edu.au. Special thanks in advance to the P & F and School Board members for their organisation and support of this upcoming evening.
The PEN AGM will take place on Monday June 13th at 5:30p.m. in the school board room.
National Volunteer Week is a chance for all of us to celebrate and recognise the vital work of volunteers and to say thank you. Together, through volunteering, we are changing communities for the better. We are, Better Together.
We are very privileged here at St Saviour’s for all those volunteers who assist in classrooms, tuckshop, library, P & F, School Board, cultural and sporting events. The generosity of time, knowledge and skills is greatly appreciated by us all. Thank you.
Warm Regards
Madonna