Principal's Pen
Dear Parent and Caregivers,
We have continued to settle in well at Enoggera SS and our teaching and learning programs are in full swing including our differentiated and supported Guided Reading and Spelling Groups, which commenced this week. I continue to be amazed at the talents and efforts of both our students and our wonderful staff who go above and beyond every single day.
2021 Vision
It is that time of the year, when our strategic planning for the year is finalised to guide our focus, energy and budgets through the year. As part of our 4 year Strategic Plan 2020-2023 our 2021 Annual implementation Plan and our 2021 Investing For Success Plan will focus around the following areas for improvement:
- Continuing to refine our work around the Australian Curriculum and assessment moderation processes.
- Continuing to build staff capability around differentiation and inclusive education practices to strengthen student engagement in the curriculum.
- Continuing to build our student literacy skills (Reading and Writing) as measured through NAPLAN testing in Yr 3 and 5, as compared to Qld Similar Schools.
- Continuing to build our programs and opportunities for enrichment around ‘The Arts’ and ‘Digital Technologies’
- Collaboratively developing the schools wellbeing programs and supports as part of our ‘Student Learning and Wellbeing Framework’ and a ‘Staff Wellbeing Framework’.
Inclusive Education
Inclusion or Inclusive Education is a fairly new term aligned to the Department of Education’s Inclusive Education policy which supports a shared vision that all students in Qld state schools receive the support they need to belong to the school community, engage purposefully in learning and experience academic success. As mentioned above this is significant area that the staff at ESS are working through and continuing to build their skills around as we refine our policies and procedures to support all students in our school community.
Instrumental Music- Strings
Our Instrumental program in Strings, kicked off with a fantastic Beginners Music Camp last week where our new strings students who attended the camp were a credit to our school. Regular lessons kicked off at school this week with all students getting into routine re; lesson expectations and home practice expectations. This is an important program at our school and we are lucky that we are able to school purchase an additional teacher allocation to provide more students with the opportunity to learn an instrument at school. Currently our program is at capacity. We look forward to hearing from our instrumentalists at their first school performance later in the term.
NAPLAN 2021
As you may have heard in the media, NAPLAN will continue for students in Yr 3 and 5 in Qld schools in 2021. As our school was preparing to go online with NAPLAN testing last year before it was cancelled we will continue that preparation this year. We will conduct the practice tests for the students to practice the format and to check connectivity etc between March 22 and April 30 and the actual online tests will be conducted between 11-21 May, 2021. If your child is in Yr 3 or 5 and you have any concerns about your child sitting the NAPLAN tests this year please contact myself or our Head of Department-Curriculum- Mrs Amy O’Malley.
Parent Information Sessions
Thank you to those parents who were able to attend the Parent Information Sessions held yesterday evening. It was great to walk around and see positive numbers in most sessions and informative sessions happening across the school.
We appreciate that having them on one evening, whilst was helpful for some families, may not have been helpful for others and we have taken on board the feedback provided to the school already. I would ask that if you have any other feedback for us about these sessions please complete the survey below as this will be useful information to guide our planning for next year.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C3PHGWG
Parent Teacher Interviews
We are also planning to do our Parent Teacher Interviews in one evening on Tuesday 23rd March from 3:15-6:45pm. Information re; how to book through the booking processes using the SOBS program will be sent out in a few weeks.
Term Overviews
Following the information sessions, our teachers will be sending out Term overviews of the learning happening in each class this term. This will be an overview of the concepts to be covered and the assessment to be implemented.
City District Swimming Trials
Congratulations to the students who competed at the District Swimming Trials today. Whilst there were no major placings on the day, they all competed credibly and there were plenty of personal bests swum. They represented their school with pride and behaved impeccably. Well done to: Asha M, Portia K, Ellia S, Callum L, Henry Dolding, Kenzie P, Tyler C, Layla G, Shane M, Isla M and Avery P. Thank you to Mrs Jardine for all her organisation and also to Miss Penny for managing our school team at the carnival.
Till next time,