Dear Parents 

BEING LATE FOR SCHOOL 

Some of the teachers have mentioned to me concerns over some children often being late to school. This graphic provides some interesting information. 

Some points consider: 

• Being late for school has a negative impact on your child’s learning.  
• Being just 10 minutes late every day adds up to an hour a week of lost learning.  Over a year this adds up to one week of school missed in a year!  
• Being late for class often means important instructions are missed and the class is interrupted. Your child may feel uncomfortable and on the outer with peers.   
• Children need to arrive on time ready to settle into their school work. 
• Arriving at least 5 minutes before the bell allows your child to interact with their peers and teacher and get themselves ready for their busy day. 
• Attending School regularly and arriving on time helps prepare children for the real world, where it is expected that they turn up to work every day and on time. 

LOLLIPOPS 

The current trend at school appears to be lollipops! We ask that you do not send lollipops to school with your children. Health concerns aside, they are also a work health and safety issue! Children have been seen running around the playground with lollipops in their mouths, and the thought of the possible injuries is concerning. Children with lollipops will be asked to put them in the rubbish bin. 

OUTSTANDING WORK 

Over the last few weeks, I have had many visitors to the Front Office or have popped into classrooms and have seen some amazing student work. Some very detailed writing, creative art works, amazing spelling results and some great reading. Special thanks to all the teachers and children for working so hard. 

SEMESTER 2 REPORTS 

Your child’s teacher is in the process of preparing Semester 2 reports, which will have comments this Semester. There is a great deal of work and energy that goes into the writing of these documents, and I thank the teachers for their efforts. What really impresses me is the observations from teachers how much growth and development they are seeing in their students, not just academically, but socially, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Whilst no formal parent-teacher interviews occur at the end of the year, please feel free to contact your child's class teacher directly should you wish to discuss anything from this year. Reports will be available on Compass from Monday 11 December 

Cheers 

Brad 

Catholic Education 

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Week 6. Teachers are busily writing your child’s end of year report which this year includes comments. This provides a valuable opportunity for teachers to say what grades cannot. Please feel free to contact the school or your child’s teacher to seek clarification or to organise an interview after receiving your report. Next week we will be taking part in our yearly intensive swimming program. Students in 3-6 are encouraged to wear their swimmers under their uniform as they will head down to the pool first. All students are asked to wear their sports uniform for the entire week. If this is an issue, please contact me.

Last week I mentioned how our school’s CATALYST journey has contributed to the school’s pleasing growth in the (PAT) Progressive Achievement Testing. I wanted to share a few graphs with you. I appreciate that data can be construed in many ways, but good results are almost impossible to fake. Below are comparisons in Maths for 3-6 students from 2022 to 2023. The red star indicates the growth in number of students in the 135 to 144 band.

The following are general indicators of the abilities and skills that students at 135 to 144 band typically possess.

Students are able to work flexibly with all four operations with multi-digit numbers and integers (including negative numbers). They recognise the inverse property of the addition/subtraction and multiplication/division operations and are able to use these efficiently to solve problems. They are also typically able to employ the associative and distributive laws to identify equivalent expressions.

Students are able to interpret and use complex ideas of place value in decimal numbers, including by rounding to a given degree of precision, ordering decimal numbers and representing these on a number line. They are also able to identify and use an appropriate formulation to carry out arithmetic operations with fractions, decimals and percentages, and use proportional reasoning in contexts with more than two variables.

Students are typically able to work out the size of a percentage reduction given the original price and the sale price.

Students are able to recognise and use a simple non-linear relationship (for example, a quadratic sequence expressed in a table of values). They can formulate algebraic expressions to represent relationships in real-life problem situations (for example, formulae for area and volume calculations). They can use knowledge of number properties (for example, commutative, associative and distributive laws) to manipulate linear algebraic expressions, equations and inequations (for example, to expand, factorise, simplify, substitute and solve). They can interpret graphical representations of functional relationships derived from familiar contexts (for example, find the distance travelled in a given time from a distance–time graph).

Students are able to use measures expressed as rates, ratios and proportions in a range of contexts (for example, speed, fuel consumption, scale factors in maps and similar figures). They can also apply spatial reasoning and knowledge of properties of shapes and objects (for example, perimeter, area, surface area and volume) with irregular and compound shapes in a range of contexts.

Students are able to recognise and use the angle relations in polygons, and with lines and points in a plane. They can also derive and recognise trigonometric ratios (for example, in unit circle and in right-triangles) and apply shape transformations (that is, reflection, rotation, translation and enlargement/reduction) to compound shapes and packaging design (for example, where specific markings on a net need to be matched with specific faces on a folded box). They can also apply spatial reasoning and knowledge of properties of shapes and objects (for example, relationships between side-length, and relationships between angles, and similar and congruent figures).

Students can retrieve data from a variety of statistical representations, including line graphs, box plots, stem-and-leaf plots, segmented (stacked) column graphs, frequency tables of grouped data and two-way tables. They can calculate and use the mean, median and mode for ungrouped data in a variety of contexts. They can also compare two sets of data to solve problems or draw conclusions.

Students are able to use a wide range of techniques such as tree diagrams, Venn diagrams and two-way tables to represent and explore possible outcomes of chance events and experiments, including compound events.

The purple star indicates the number of students who have moved up from the bottom band to a higher band. These are fantastic results and a true testament to the hard work of our teachers and most importantly our students.

Have a great week everyone and remember my door is always open!!

Regards

Damian Collins

Assistant Principal

Attendances

Serenity

In partnership with families, we are dedicated to educating children who are:

Serene - The virtue of SERENITY is a state of calmness when you trust in God, even in hard times. Living in this kind of space makes it easier to tackle challenges and handle conflict without becoming depressed or anxious. This makes sense because Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you…do not let your hearts be troubled…”

A Prayer for the virtue of Serenity

“O God and Heavenly Father, grant to me the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other through Jesus Christ, our Lord, 

Amen.”

Term 4, 2023 Class and Whole School Mass Timetable

    

Lilly Robertson, Darcy Nicholson and Elka Cuthbertson

who celebrate their birthdays during this week.

We hope you enjoy your special day.

Any parents, grandparents or carers who have assisted the school in any way are invited to a Thank You morning tea on Tuesday the 28th of November at 11am. 

Students in class have spent a great deal of time already preparing for this year’s play which is promised to be better than ever!! Next week’s newsletter will outline the costumes each student in each class will require. The expectation is not that you will need to go out and buy anything new, your child’s costume should be something you have at home. If you don’t have anything that is suitable please contact the school. We are also looking for some creative parents to help with making props and backdrops and painting and working with glitter. If you can help please contact your child’s teacher.