Dear parents,

The staff are looking forward to Monday morning and having all of the children back at school engaged in face to face teaching.  We do have a small number of students who have compromised health and they will continue to be supported by the school while they work from home.  There may be a degree of anxiety amongst students however staff will do all in their power to reassure students that the school is a safe place to learn.  Should you be concerned about your child’s anxiety please either talk to your child’s teacher or contact the front office for a referral to our school counsellor.

Normally, at the end of term two, parents receive written reports for the first semester.  There will still be reports however the process for this year will change. Due to students spending a considerable amount of semester one engaged in remote learning, we currently don’t have the work samples to allocate a grade.  Work samples or assessment pieces need to be completed at school so we are sure it reflects the child’s knowledge and understanding.  For each achievement standard we are trying to assess, we need several samples of work.  These are then moderated against the same work samples from students across the year level to arrive at the grade allocated from A – E.  One major change is that this year is that there will be no written comments.

Kindergarten students will not be graded using the A – E scale but will have a three point scale using the descriptors Competent, Developing and Experiencing Difficulty.

Over the next few weeks teachers will assess student’s understanding in English, Mathematics and Religious Education. These are the only subjects receiving a grade this semester. This data will allow teachers to carefully plan what they intend to teach in semester two.

All reports will go home in week eight of this term with parent-teacher interviews taking place in weeks nine and ten. A timetable allowing parents to select the session they wish to attend will be sent home well before the interviews. These are important meetings as it allows the teacher to share with the parents the strengths and areas of development for each child.  It also allows the teacher and parents to look at how they can both support the child.

The report will also contain information about each child’s ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’ as outlined in the Australian Curriculum.

Enrolment

A reminder to parents that the enrolment period closes on Friday 22^th May.  If you have a younger child who is commencing school in 2020, or have friends at preschool and childcare who are interested in enrolling at Mother Teresa School, please let them know.

Maths Problem

Next week, as all students are back at school, we will revert to one problem. It deals with attendances. This is for the older grades.

Day one of Term Two saw 31 students turn up to school. Yesterday, which is Thursday of week three we had 296 students. We have 696 students enrolled at Mother Teresa School.

What was the percentage of school students who turned up on day one? What was the percentage of school students who turned up yesterday? What was the percentage growth in the number of students from day one to yesterday?

God Bless

Peter Hughes