Semester 1 reports
Semester 1 reports are now available to parents on Compass. Parents who may be new to the school’s reporting system may be unsure what all the “dots” mean when you read your child’s reports, so I thought it might be worthwhile giving you a brief explanation.
Schools are required to report to parents at least twice a year, however we also provide additional information to you as part of our continuous reporting cycles, which means you receive relevant and timely updates about your child’s progress. Within the report document, you will see sections that have black dots located on a grid. These dots represent the achievement your child is making according to the Victorian Curriculum. The levels are indicative of your child’s year level. For example, if your child is in Year 3 and the dot is in the middle of the Level 3 box, it means they are at the expected level. If the dot was at the edges of the Level 3 box, they are either 6 months ahead/below the expected level according to where the dot was placed.
You may also see a white open dot which indicates your child’s previous result according to their last school report, followed by a dashed line and a black dot indicating their current progress. If your child is also in, for example, Year 3 and you don’t see a white dot and dashes, it can indicate a few things. Either, your child is new to the school and the system doesn’t know the previous score, or your child may not have made sufficient progress to place them at the next level yet. If this is the case, it doesn’t mean your child has not made any progress. It may be that your child’s teacher has assessed their skills but cannot definitively say they are meeting the standards at the next level at this point in time.
If you have any questions about your child’s report, please speak to their teacher and I’m sure they can help answer your questions.
Preparing for the new Victorian Curriculum version 2.0
Earlier this week the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) released the updated Victorian Curriculum version 2.0. Our teachers have been learning about changes to the Mathematics and English curriculum since the beginning of the year, and now we will start familiarising ourselves with the other 6 learning areas (Science, The Arts, Humanities, Languages, Health & Physical Education and Technologies).
The curriculum sets out the knowledge and skills every student should learn during their first 11 years of schooling to become lifelong learners, confident individuals, and active and informed citizens. Each subject has a number of achievement standards that states what a child should be able to know and do at the end of each year of school. These standards are used by teachers to measure progress and report to parents.
Roughly every five years, the VCAA release an updated version of the curriculum that introduces new content, removes certain aspects and modifies statements. The latest version of the curriculum is designed to be easier for teachers to understand a child’s progression of learning. This helps them when planning units of work and assessing learning.
Part of our work over the next few years as we introduce the new curriculum is to review our planners to align with the revised content. We will also be looking at our assessment program to ensure we are getting the right information about where the kids are at according to the curriculum achievement standards.
If you want to check out the new curriculum yourself, go to https://f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au/
Visiting Primary School Nurse
Nicole Joyce, a visiting primary school nurse from the Department of Education, will be attending the school in August to conduct the Prep health assessments and to see other children as requested by teachers (with parents’ consent).
The purpose of the visit is to provide children in their first year of primary school with the opportunity to have a health assessment; to link children, families and school communities to services available in the community; and to provide information and advice that promotes health and wellbeing.
The confidential questionnaire will provide important information about your child’s health so the nurse can make an effective assessment. If your child requires further assessment, such as vision, hearing or speech assessments the nurse will see him or her at school.
A postcard will be sent home with a QR code which will link to the Student Health Questionnaire.
Parents are invited to contact the visiting primary school nurse if there are any issues they wish to discuss. The contact number is 0459 873 959.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Sammy L in Year 3 (featured on the cover of this newsletter). She submitted an acrostic poem to the Boronia & The Basin Community News Young Writers Initiative and was one of two winners for the month of June.
End of term
With Term 2 finishing on Friday 28th June, I hope everyone has a safe and happy school holiday period. Just a reminder that we finish at 2:30pm today and Term 3 begins on Monday 15th July.
Kind regards,
Mat Anderton
Principal