Principal's Notes
Whole School Performance – All Around The World
Due to COVID restrictions we will be performing our whole school performance on three occasions over 2 days. Please save the date for the whole school performances; Tuesday 20th July, 11.30am & 6pm, and Wednesday 21st July, 6pm. More information will follow shortly. All students are participating in the performance and are busily practicing their class items.
Tell Them From Me Survey
Don’t forget to provide feedback on your experience of our school using the online survey. The surveys are an important part of our whole school evaluation and planning process. The survey will close this Friday, 11 June. As we value the role of parents and carers within our school community we would greatly appreciate your feedback. The information you provide will be used to maintain our commitment to working together in partnership to further improve student learning and wellbeing at St Benedict’s. The survey is anonymous and will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. You are able to access the parent survey on your computer or mobile device by using the URL below:
http://tellthemfromme.com/bgr8z
Reports
A team at Catholic Education have been working over the past year to develop our reporting system and there are major changes being introduced this year. We were advised at the end of last term that because of these changes individual student comments will not be used in the Semester 1 Reports. Dialogue is an important feature of reporting. At the half way point of Term 1 we had our Interim Reports sent home followed by Three Way Conferences. We also held our Learning Showcase at the end of Term 1. Catholic Education believe the Semester Report in this format encourages the continuation of parent engagement and conversation about student learning and whilst we invite parents to meet with teachers in Week 10 after reports, very few take up the offer. The new approach to Academic Reporting is a developing process. Teachers are currently offering opportunities for parents to meet and the take up varies from class to class. Further work will be undertaken in the coming months to determine how progress and achievement is best reported, based on what we know to be important information about a student’s learning and progress. With this in mind, we will re-evaluate the timing of the Three Way Conferences next year.
COMPASS Parent Portal
Last year we moved to a new online system for marking the roll and for recording sick bay attendance. Any students arriving late or leaving early are signed in at the front office by a parent/carer – their late attendance details are then automatically updated on the classroom roll. This week we hope to roll out the COMPASS Parent Portal. It is expected that parents access reports through this portal. As we are only rolling out the Parent Portal this week, we will be sending a paper copy home of the reports this semester as well.
Learning Showcase
Next Thursday 17th June between 2pm and 4pm we will be having our second Learning Showcase for the year. We are very excited to be welcoming parents and carers into the classroom for these. We ask that on entry to your child’s classroom you sign in using the Check In Canberra App. Each classroom will have a copy of the QR code to enable this. If you do not have the App, teachers will have a sign in sheet for you to fill in. If you have, multiple children you only need to check in at the first classroom. Please remember to social distance when you are visiting. Thank you for your support with this.
Term Three Starting Date – Tuesday 13th July
Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn has declared Monday 12th July as a pupil free day for all Catholic schools in Canberra. Students will commence Term 3 on Tuesday 13th July.
Leaving St Benedict’s
If you anticipate that your child will leave St Benedict’s at the end of this year, could you please notify the Front Office. We need to begin planning for staffing and class configurations for 2022. Thank you to those who have let us know already, this is very much appreciated. Naturally Year 6 parents need not respond to this request.