We are well and truly into the swing of things at Gympie Special School this year with teaching and learning our strong focus. For our Prep students our focus is on starting school strongly, with a great transition form home, ECDP and/ or Day Care into the more formalised setting of the Classroom. It has been wonderful to watch how well our Prep students have settled into their new routines. We continue to build on the foundations laid in the Early Years through our Years 3 to 6 classes, building on knowledge, expanding communication and developing further literacy and numeracy skills. In our High school sectors, both Secondary and Senior continue to develop and strengthen students’ skills and knowledge with a focus on future pathways. We are working on getting our students ready for the future and for some of our young people this means work experiences or further learning. We want to ensure that every student has a future pathway.

2023 Next Step Year 12 Completers Survey

In the coming weeks the Queensland Government conducts a post-school destination survey of the previous year’s Year 12 students. All our students who completed Year 12 last year will soon receive an invitation to do the Next Step survey. The short five-minute survey asks graduates about the study and work they have been doing since finishing school. The results from the survey help our school improve our senior programs and prepare students for work and further study.

We ask parents, siblings and friends to encourage our graduates to complete the survey. If their contact details have changed, please assist survey interviewers with their updated details or forward the survey to their new address so they can participate. Graduates may receive an invitation by mail, email or phone. The survey can be completed online or by phone. For more information about Next Step, visit www.qld.gov.au/nextstep.

Annual Implementation Plan

Last year, we had our four- yearly School Review. The report from the Review (which is available on our website), highlights suggestions for continual improvement for our school. From this report, we document our four-year strategic plan for 2023 -2026. From our four-year strategic plan, we make decisions around the actions which will drive our Annual Implementation Plan (AIP). The AIP outlines the improvement targets, timelines and responsibilities for these actions and how our school budget will support this work. 

The 2023 AIP strengthens agreed practices across our school through building a shared understanding of the priorities, actions and strategies within our explicit improvement agenda. To ensure this we will be:

• Identifying, strengthening and documenting whole school approaches and processes to communication, reading and writing, pedagogy, new staff induction, professional learning, collegial engagement.
• focussed on improving staff data literacy and capability to ensure all curriculum decisions are informed by student data. This will ensure we implement targeted intensive interventions to provide individualised differentiated teaching and learning.
• Refining and embedding our student services approach to support our individual student case management.
• aligning our curriculum to the new version 9 Australian Curriculum - this year we are focussing on English and Mathematics.
• strengthening and building further partnerships with external organisations
• developing a multi-layered approach to staff and student well-being.