We are now at the halfway point of Term 2 and from now on, things really start to get busy! We have National Simultaneous Storytime today (Wednesday) and CRAZY SOCK Day on Thursday. This week is also Under 8’s day and on Friday, our Early Years classes are celebrating this with a wonderful Parent engagement afternoon. Our Seniors have their parents coming along to the Senior’s café on Friday this week and again in Week 8. SPORTS DAY is Friday 20^th June, in Week 9.

We are so pleased to have parents coming along to our events and engaging with their child’s learning. The relationships built between home and school are invaluable. Check your parent calendar for the events occurring over the rest of this term – come along to any events you can – you are VERY welcome!

I am away on personal leave from Wednesday 11 June, Week 8 through to Friday 20^th June, Week 9 returning to school on Monday 23 June for the last week of term. During my leave Phil Whatt will be Acting Principal and for Week 9, Shellie Pursey will return to Gympie Special School as Acting Deputy Principal. I know I will be leaving the school in very capable hands during this time.

Staff and students are very busy engaging in assessment activities over the next few weeks in preparation for reporting. Report Cards will be emailed out at the end of the Term. We look forward to celebrating the gains and improvements that our students demonstrate through their learning.   I have been meeting with individual teachers discussing some of the progress our students have made this term. It’s been exciting to hear about individual student progress and I know several students will be moving up to their next curriculum level in Semester 2. What a fantastic achievement! Our staff and students hard work is really paying off with our data and results!

Our current AIP focus on implementing structured literacy to improve our student’s reading outcomes is also beginning to show results. I have been impressed with the lesson observations I have been privileged to watch. We have an excellent team of dedicated teachers and teacher aides who are using a wide range of strategies and resources to engage our students in their phonics learning.

Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) has been implemented across our school. This a structured, evidence-based approach to teaching reading that focuses on the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes). It's a "bottom-up" method where instruction starts with individual sounds and builds them up to words. This approach helps students learn to decode words by blending sounds together. Staff have already engaged in multiple professional development sessions to build their skills and knowledge, and as they apply this knowledge in their rooms with their students, we are seeing the results in our classrooms.

I am pleased to announce that Amy Buick, one of our Secondary teachers has recently been permanently appointed to our school. Congratulations Amy!

One of the highlights for me this term is the reduction of physical aggression behaviours across our school this term. The hard work our staff put into supporting and managing behaviour of concern and the skills, strategies and resources they use to support student engagement and minimise behaviour of concern has been very evident. Student behaviour has shown a wonderful improvement and that is really worth celebrating. Well done to our staff and to our students! I’m looking forward to celebrating these excellent behaviours at our ARDY Prize Shop this Friday and at our end of Term celebratory Rewards Day in Week 10.

Wishing you all a wonderful 5 weeks ahead as we progress through the rest of this term

Ms. Sarah Lester

Principal