Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

Normally we undertake several processes in order to plan for the year ahead. We review our current achievements against the goals of the Annual Improvement Plan and Strategic Plan and use data from other sources to inform our priorities for next year. We would also analyse the feedback provided through the school surveys completed by students, parents and staff from the previous term and look at our NAPLAN data.

Staff would be involved at all levels of the review and analysis of data. We view this as an exciting opportunity to strengthen key improvement goals and to ensure students and student learning is central to all processes undertaken at the school. This year the planning for next year is somewhat different as Catholic Education has launched Catalyst, a professional learning program designed to strengthen our performance in Catholic schools across the Archdiocese. Catalyst is a program informed by the science of learning to help all schools realise our bold goals;

Every student is a competent reader
High Impact Teaching Practice is visible in every classroom

To achieve these goals, the Catalyst Program focuses on four key initiatives;

High Impact Teaching Practice – face-to-face workshops, coaching and online units to support improvement in teaching practice,
K-2 Literacy – professional learning in evidence-based early literacy instruction,
Curriculum – system-wide curriculum improvement through high quality resources, and
Instructional Leadership – professional learning to support the implementation of evidence-based instructional leadership techniques

The Catalyst program is to be completed over three years with schools identifying their priority areas and Instructional Leadership occurring every year. St Benedict’s will concentrate on the other key initiatives in the following order;

2021 – High Impact Teaching Practice,

2022 – K-2 Literacy, and

2023 – Curriculum.

Thank you for your ongoing care and partnership in your child’s learning.

God bless.

Rachel Smith
Principal