Dear Parents and Carers,

We are rapidly nearing the end of a term like no other. I wish to congratulate the staff and children for keeping the learning flowing during such an unsettled time.

Undoubtedly there will be further changes to our operations next term, and we will do our best to keep you informed in as timely a manner as possible. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at the school for clarification or support.

This Friday students will bring home their Semester 1 School Reports. These reports are written for and addressed to parents, not students. There are many ways that students receive feedback about their academic progress through the day/week from teachers. This report is a way of summarising student progress to date against the Australian Curriculum and in line with Australian Government expectations on reporting to parents.

Semester One Reports will look different this year due to the change in the way teaching and learning has been conducted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Catholic system has modified the format for the Student Reports from Kindergarten to Year 6 to provide parents with specific information about their child’s achievement and progress which I have detailed below:

The report covers work completed in both Term 1 and Term 2.

• Student achievement will be reported as an A-E grade for the three main core areas: Religious Education, English and Mathematics. 
• Other subjects may receive a grade if the teacher has sufficient evidence of learning. In subjects where a grade is not possible, ‘Not assessed’ will be displayed.  This means that, although the learning throughout the semester has been rigorous, it is not possible to make an overall judgement about the student’s achievement in relation to the reporting Outcomes or Achievement Standards against the Grade Descriptors.
• A new section ‘Engagement with Learning’ has been developed to replace the ‘Personal and Social Capabilities’.  The new statements are based on the Australian Curriculum: General capabilities, and target four key areas of learning engagement: Thinking, Communication, Responsibility, Collaboration. 
• The inclusion of the ‘Engagement with Learning’ statements means that the General Comment section of the report is no longer required; the statements give detailed information on your child’s approach to learning.

I encourage you to read the report before your child does and then choose to share those aspects that are relevant with them. When you look at your child’s report the first section to focus on is the Engagement with Learning. To me these are what make a person successful in life: recognises and expresses own emotions constructively with others, takes responsibility for and manages behaviour appropriately, displays self-discipline and sets goals, draw conclusions and designs course of action are all skills and attitudes that one can learn and apply to every area of life. Learnt during the childhood years these can shape one’s life far more than receiving A’s in each subject.

I suggest also talking to your child/ren about their strengths. Strengths are not always necessarily what a person is very good at with hard work. Strengths are the areas in life that one is good at and comes a little easier to them and they feel energised doing! It is good to keep telling children to keep putting their effort and love into their strengths and then find a way to use these to help them in areas that are more challenging. For example your child may be musical so may find it easier to remember their times tables in a musical way, thus making it a more enjoyable learning experience.

I encourage you to celebrate all that your child/ren have achieved in the academic and non-academic areas. Optional interviews are offered at this time. There will be a letter coming home with your child’s report on Friday if you would like to request a time to meet with your child’s teacher if there is a particular aspect of the report you wish to discuss.

Rachel Smith
Principal