PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Dear Parents and Carers
Last week our Year 6 students went on their Year Camp, at Borombola, outside Wagga. I am very proud of our students. By all reports, they engaged extremely well with the instructors and the activities and were excellent ambassadors for our school. They exhibited excellent leadership. Well done to all our Year 6 students, both individually and as a collective, and thank you to the staff and the two parents who were able to accompany the students, and the wider parent body for their great support.
Parent/Teacher Interviews
As I write, parent/teacher interviews are concluding. I hope that all parents have found their interview time informative, and a good source of information in terms of how children are settling in to a new school year. The teachers have spent much of the early part of this term establishing classroom routines, articulating expectations and assessing the children in terms of literacy and numeracy. If you did not make a time to meet with your child’s teacher, I encourage you to please do so.
Journey with Jesus
On Friday, our Years 5 & 6 students are participating in a ‘Journey with Jesus’ retreat. Maddie, our Youth Worker, as well as Fron Garrett-Rumba, our acting REC, will run this. It is designed to be a faith formation experience and will also focus on ways that we can live our faith: through acts of mercy, forgiveness and love. It promises to be a very good day. My thanks to Maddie and Fron for coordinating the day.
Compass Parent Portal
Please find attached an information flyer regarding the upcoming launch of our Schools Compass Parent portal. This flyer is designed to give you an insight into some of the information you will be able to access through this Portal. One notable feature will be the ability to lodge absence notes via the parent portal and give you access to real-time absence data for your child or children.
The Portal, once fully implemented will be a one-stop-shop for the School and Parents and will eventually replace SZapp as our major method of communication. Catholic Education is rolling out this Portal in all Catholic Schools over the next 2 years.
Soon you will receive information from the front office asking you to please verify your ‘Preferred email address’ which will be used to set up your login details for this Portal. Once all email addresses have been confirmed, we will begin the rollout of login details to parents. Look out for more information in future Newsletters to detail a timeline for the cutover and advise how and when the logins will be distributed. If you would like further information, please contact Sean Rutledge- sean.rutledge@cg.catholic.edu.au
NAPLAN Yrs. 3 & 5
ACT schools will participate in NAPLAN Online testing from 11-21 May 2021. ACT schools undertaking NAPLAN Online this year will participate in a practice/familiarisation test between 22nd March and 23rd April 2021. The practice test does not assess student performance and has been developed to replace one of the familiarisation activities that schools have traditionally undertaken. We will complete this practice test on Thursday, 25th March. The key dates for NAPLAN 2021 at Sts Peter and Paul will be:
- Tuesday 11th May - Writing - Yr. 3 Paper & 5 Online
- Wednesday 12th May - Reading Online
- Thursday 13th May - Conventions of Language- Online
- Friday 14th May - Numeracy-Online
As a parent, you can become familiar with NAPLAN Online tests by visiting the public demonstration site, http://bit.ly/naplanonline. The purpose of the site is to familiarise students with the type of items they will see on NAPLAN Online and related functionalities. This level of familiarisation is worthwhile to help students understand and be comfortable with the format of the test.
NAPLAN Online allows for tailored testing. This means that students are presented with sets of questions based on their performance during the test. This model provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their range of literacy and numeracy skills more effectively, and it is more engaging for students. Further information explaining tailored testing can be found at https://bit.ly/2PgG7rL.
If you have any questions or wish to discuss your son or daughter’s participation in this event, please contact your child’s teacher in the first instance. Further information on NAPLAN Online, including the public demonstration site, is available at www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/naplan-online
Privacy
The Education Directorate collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information to carry out its functions. Personal information about students and parents/carers will be used as part of NAPLAN Online testing and readiness tests. This information is required for students to participate in NAPLAN testing, provide reports to parents and schools, and undertake research and compile statistics using anonymised data. More detail on how we handle your information is available in the Education Directorate Privacy Policy available at https://bit.ly/2ZYzdtn
As part of undertaking NAPLAN Online, the Education Directorate works closely with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and Education Services Australia (ESA). ESA operates the NAPLAN Online platform, which will contain personal information. ACARA will collect anonymised information about each student who takes the test online from the Education Directorate.
Further information on how ACARA and ESA protect privacy is available through the ACARA privacy infographic https://bit.ly/3uA6YiR and ESA Privacy Policy www.esa.edu.au/other/privacy.
Principals’ Retreat
A reminder that today, Thursday and Friday I am away, attending the annual Archdiocesan Principals’ Retreat. It is one of the few times that all the Principals of the Archdiocese gather, as well as key CE personnel, including the Director of Catholic Education, Mr Ross Fox. During my absence, Sean Rutledge will very capably lead the school.
Have a wonderful week with your families.
Best wishes
Cameron Johns
Principal