Principal's Pen
Dear Parent and Caregivers
PARENT TEACHER INTERVEWS
It was wonderful to see the bookings mostly full for last night’s muster style parent teacher interviews in EPAC. A huge thank you to those parents who were able to attend the evening to find out how their children have settled into the new school year, and how they are travelling towards Semester One assessment and reporting periods. The evening went very smoothly thanks to the excellent organisation of our Head of Department - Mrs O’Malley and the support staff who prepared the venue and did all of the behind the scenes work. Thank you also to our wonderful teaching staff for giving up their evening to conduct their Semester One interviews. As you can appreciate on top of a full work day to stay focussed and interview for 4 hrs is challenging but they all managed it with a smile and I am guessing are pleased that they were mostly all done in one hit.
Staff received positive feedback from most parents around the evening and the ease to book interviews and to do multiple interviews with multiple teachers in one evening rather than coming back up to school several times during the fortnight as they usually did.
I have created another survey monkey to gain feedback from the community around the event so that we can continue to improve the concept into the future to make it the best experience possible for all involved. Please click on the link below to answer 5 questions about the evening.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PLZV6RM
WELLBEING
This week on assembly I spoke to the students about the importance of using the character strength of perseverance which is a strength needed to put in your best effort and to sustain that effort in the face of challenges or obstacles. This character strength sits in the group of strengths within the virtue of courage.
I talked to the students about how coming into the business end of the term, students will need to use perseverance to complete their learning and assessment tasks and to ensure they do the best they can.
NEW BUILDINGS
It was great to meet with the project team who are working on the preliminary designs and concepts for a new 6 classroom building for Enoggera State School to be built ready for the 2023 school year. This is a very exciting time for our school as we will get some new modern learning areas to take us into the future. The preliminary drawings we have seen will position this building in the centre of the school to adjoin to the existing E Block. This will mean relocating the playgrounds and sandpit currently in this area, and then eventually the demountable buildings would be removed as they are currently situated on a wall with heritage significance. It is hoped that down the track some more space will be acquired by the school to enable some more green space and play areas and additional car parking to be built.
This will mean that the big project for this year, which is the building of a roof over the multi-purpose court can go ahead now without the concern that it may need to be moved in the future. This will mean that this project can now be altered and will go to tender shortly.
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST BULLYING
This Friday 19th March, is the National Day of Action Against Bullying which is a big focus in schools all around the country. Staff have been provided with a range of resources available to support conversations and activities around the focus but it would also be nice to see our students support the day by wearing something orange to school on Friday. This could be an orange shirt or orange ribbons or even orange socks.
NAPLAN 2021
Another reminder about 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 in the last week of term on Wednesday 31st March 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. Those students who have Disability and have regular adjustments and special considerations in regular classes may be able to have these same considerations in the tests. These may include additional time, extra rest breaks etc. School staff will be sending home forms to confirm these considerations by the end of this term.
INCLUSION
One of our school priorities this year, as mentioned previously, is building an inclusive mindset within our whole school community to welcome students with diverse learning needs into our school. Recently our school leadership team undertook some work with the Principal Education Officer-Inclusion from the Department around the signposts for school improvement around inclusive education. The results of this work will help to guide our action plan for this year and into the future. Our staff are also undertaking a range of professional development courses to build their skill sets in catering for the needs of diverse learners in the classroom, but we will also be doing some work with our students and wider school community to build their empathy, understanding and resilience.
Till next time,