07 Nov 2012
Planning is well under way for the 2013 school year. We have started planning a class structure, which includes our ability to use some of our additional special program's funding to support the ability to provide two additional classes above our normal staffing entitlement. This allows for an improved teacher to student ratio and means we will not have crowded classrooms and be able to give additional attention to students. Our National partnerships funding ceases at the end of the first semester, but by carefully planning of our expenditure, we can guarantee one of these teaching positions for the whole year. The other position will come from additional equity funding allocated to our school. We will also continue to employ our additional School Learning Support Officers in each of the kindergarten classes.
Our School Learning Support Team and our two specialist Learning Support Teachers will continue to identify, support and monitor student progress where special needs are identified.
We have brokered for two new exciting Literacy initiatives for next year as well as professional learning around a well-recognised Aboriginal Pedagogy.
Our PBL team will lead us into Tier 1 (Classroom settings) and explicit teaching will occur around our statement of purpose to be ‘Safe, respectful learners'.
Three executive staff also were recently introduced to a highly effective, national, strategy called ‘Kids Matter' which fosters positive mental health and a caring learning environment. This, when introduced successfully, better enables improved engagement, attendance and accordingly, better levels of student performances.
With lots of exciting new initiatives and enthusiasm we can look forward to another exciting year. All of this too, will be improved substantially, if we are able to achieve our aim and build stronger partnerships with parents and the wider school community.