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Students taking part in the RAA Street Smart incursion in Week 9.
Good News Story
Every Government school in South Australia has a School Improvement Plan. 2022 is the first year of the new 3 year cycle. Our school has goals in reading, writing and maths improvement. We are working towards students knowing their learning levels and the next steps required for improvement. Every student has set 2 reading goals, a midyear and an end of year goal. These will be displayed on our data wall. This week we have had some students meeting their goals already:
- Oliver came to share his progress on Friday and he had already exceeded his mid-year reading goal.
- Layla came up to the office yesterday to share her reading growth and she had moved from Level 9 to 26…her end of year goal was level 21.
- Isla also shared her reading growth with a Lexile level of 414L. This, too, exceeded her mid-year and end of year goals!
PRINCIPAL UPDATE
Welcome to our Week 11 Blog.
The good news story about reading goals highlights one small part of our School Improvement Plan. Our goals for the next 3 years are:
1. To increase the number of students achieving in the higher bands in Reading.
2. To increase the number of students achieving in the higher bands in Writing.
3. To maintain and increase all students in the higher bands in Maths.
The key data set that we are required to use to measure our targets is NAPLAN and this assessment is held annually for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. In order to set our targets we needed to analyse different assessment results across a 2 year period. However, we didn’t have any previous NAPLAN results for this year’s Year 3 and 5 students to draw on. We used other assessments including PAT Maths, PAT Reading and Brightpath writing results over time to set our 2022 targets.
Each of our targets are centred on the higher bands. NAPLAN results are reported within bands and to reach the Standard of Educational Achievement (SEA) Year 3 students need to reach Band 3 and Year 5 students need to reach Band 5. The higher bands start at 2 bands above the SEA i.e Year 3 = Band 5 and above, Year 5 = Band 7 and above. Our NAPLAN results in 2021 are represented in the table below:
The Standard of Educational Achievement (SEA) is set by the Department for Education and has been formulated over time through research and data analysis. We have a chart (see below) that we refer to that has the SEA and other benchmarks for the key assessments that we undertake across the year.
It is very important to remember that every child develops at their own pace and not everyone is at the expected level at the same time.
End of Term Message
This is our last couple of days before Easter and the 2 week break. This has been another extraordinary term and one that has highlighted to me the importance of trust within a community.
Trust is one of those emotive and tricky spaces that underpins a healthy and functioning community such as ours. We have had to trust that others have followed guidelines, told the truth, followed through and had the best interests of all in mind.
In the role of Principal, I needed to trust that my staff were all following the protocols and maintaining the standards expected for teaching and learning; and where COVID was involved. I needed to trust that families were acting on advice and following the protocols, and that symptomatic children were being taken for PCRs and not being sent to school unwell. I also had to ensure that we followed the expectations of families who didn’t want COVID discussed, masks worn or vaccinations mentioned to keep the trust of families.
It’s been tricky and on the most part we have been successful in managing it all.
I would like to recognise the flexibility and resilience of the staff team who have had the students and their learning as their main focus despite what the world was throwing their way. We do have a remarkable team here who care very deeply about your child’s success.
Thank you to the families who have rolled with the changes, understood the complexities and done their bit to continue to make our school the great place that it is. We continue to build partnerships and look forward to what the next term can bring.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the amazing students we have at Porties. They are giving, caring and learning focussed. Our students are polite, talented and kind. Every day the students lift my spirits just by being who they are. Thank you for trusting us with your children.
Stay safe and have fun over the holiday break.
Take care,
Marie
Enquiries: contact the school.
