As we go past the midpoint of Term 3 it is fantastic to see that our attendance is starting to correct itself after being severely impacted by influenza and other illness. The department is about to launch a new attendance campaign that you may see on TV and social media.  We understand the importance of attendance and how it impacts upon student learning and encourage everyone to attend school as often as they can. Unfortunately we often see a period following student illness where then our staff become infected, so please be understanding as we try and manoeuvre our way through this next phase.

September is “survey season” in schools and we have begun our student and staff surveys. You will also see information in this newsletter and via our socials of how you  can also help us collect data with the parent survey. Surveying our community enables us to collect information to help us continue our improvement agenda.

We have been busy as a teaching staff continuing to build our knowledge of the Science of Learning. We have been looking at the cognitive science behind learning and the impact that has on our teaching- and specifically how to build student attention and stamina in learning. One of the things that appeared as a through line is the distraction of technology, distinct from the purposeful use of ICT to learn. At home when reading with your child we encourage everyone to make sure that TVs are off, phones, games and tablets are away (including parent devices), and that full focus is given over to the reading experience. We also would love for families to be reading together some of the amazing books that we have in our library and in our quality home reading section.