Dear Families,

Here we are in week 8, already.

This semester’s reports will be reporting against the Mathematics 2.0 in the Victorian Curriculum. As previously stated, the language in the curriculum has changed and the standards have raised, meaning that your child’s mathematics report may look like there has been no growth but they have in fact made some progress. This will be addressed in Term 3 Family Learning Conversations (FLCs), but if this is of concern to you please reach out to your child’s classroom for clarity. The mathematics score is also now only one score which is an amalgamation of the Mathematics curriculum areas and scored in revelation to the achievement standards for each level.   This will also be explained in more detail during FLCs. There will also be a letter coming out at the time of reports to assist with this clarification. 

Victoria Donlan will be presenting to parents via a Google meet this week to assist with the understanding of our reporting process and system  and portfolios. 

Unfortunately as we head into the colder months, we continue as a school community, to be impacted by a range of bugs and viruses. We ask that any student presenting with any symptoms, be kept home to assist with reducing the risk of infection to other students and staff. We have had a number of staff and levels affected, leading to staff absences.  We acknowledge that this can be disruptive and is not our preferred option, as well as increasing the workload of teachers who are onsite working, we will always ensure appropriate student supervision and a duty of care to all our students.

Our new process for students who are heard swearing or speaking disrespectfully being required to spend 5 minutes of their playtime reflecting on these interactions whilst walking with a yard duty teacher. This has started and some children have been asked to walk with staff members to think about how their behaviour affects others and how they can turn this behaviour around when resuming play.

At St Catherine’s we are promoting Respect, Safety and Resilience as part of our Whole School Approach to Positive Behaviour (WSAPB). This latest initiative was implemented to assist with the promotion of respect and psychological safety. Our student Leaders have visited classrooms to assist with the education around this process. 

The whole school will be taking part in the program “KIds Roar”. This program covers off the protective behaviours and social and emotional safety which is part of our curriculum.  

We have just employed a teacher to take over the Auslan TCL release role which was being taught by Mrs Jessica Milosevic- Scalzo(better known to students as Mrs Scalzo). Jess is moving across to the Grade 5 team and Shakira Van Der Lee will be taking up the TCL release and a day in 4S5 as of week 9. 

We welcome Shakira to the St Catherine’s community. 

Warm regards 

Anna