Principal’s Update – Week 2 Term 1 2024

Off to a great start!

The 2024 school year has commenced smoothly, despite the soaring temperatures of Week 1. This year, we welcome Mrs Shannon Holmes to the Year 4 class, Mrs Nicole Weis as Junior Specialist Teacher, and Ms Meg Klaver as Associate Principal (substantive). In the office, Sue Hutchinson is on long service leave this term, and we welcome Tori Glover and Nadine Krauskopf as school officers.

Currently, we have 463 students on our roll. This is an increase of 12 students since the end of 2023. Our classes are at capacity from PP-Year 2, so no out-of-area enrolments will be taken in these year levels. Likewise in Year 6. We have some space in Kindy classes.

Uniform Update

As you may have noticed, we have not yet rolled out our new uniform. As communicated last year to parents, we are unable to implement a new school uniform without reducing the current stock of the existing uniform at Nell Gray, our uniform supplier. I am hopeful that our stocks will be low enough during the year to be able to start introducing the new uniform in late 2024, or at least for the start of 2025. I will be meeting with the supplier in due course to map out the transition to the new uniform. Of course, there needs to be a long lead in for this and it would be unreasonable to expect all students to be wearing the new uniform all at once. To reduce wastage and additional expenses, parents are welcome to use the superseded uniforms for as long as they fit.

Department Policies

A reminder to parents; the Department of Education’s Student Mobile Phones in Schools policy states:

“Students from Kindergarten to Year 6 are not permitted to have mobile phones in their possession during the school day.”

“For the purposes of this policy, ‘mobile phones’ includes smart watches, other electronic communication devices, and associated listening accessories, such as, but not limited to, headphones and ear buds.”

“All communication between parents and students, during school hours, should occur via the school’s administration.”

This means that students are not permitted to send or receive messages to/from parents during school hours, using the iPads. Students are required to hand in mobile phones to the office for safe storage before school.

Student Leaders

Our Year 6 students have been learning their leadership roles over the past two weeks. In addition to student councillors and faction captains, there are many other ways that our Year 6 students help with the smooth running of our school. Here are our leaders.

Student Councillors	Luka, Scarlett, Edward, Emilia, Joshua & Nikietah
Kaarak Faction Captains	Eddi & Sophie
Yonga Faction Captains	Ellyse & Jake
Karda Faction Captains	Jayden & Mila
Literacy Leaders	Kyla, Taylor, Abbie & Charlotte C
Media Team	Charlotte D, Denby, Amalyn & Dane
Stage Crew	Jessica, George F, Marta & Kiera
Video Recorder	Matthew
Flags	John & Ollie
Recycling	Alice, Max, Chase, Thomas, Harvey & Heidi

Congratulations and thank you to our Year 6 students who have volunteered to take up some of these roles.

Term 1 Assessments

This term, there are two major assessments that our students need to participate in. Over the next four weeks, Pre-primary students will be involved in On-Entry Testing. During this time, teachers will spend one-on-one time with each child in their class to find out about the literacy and numeracy skills and understandings their students start school with. The teacher will use this information to plan and target teaching programs to suit each child’s learning needs. The one-on-one time spent with students will also provide the teacher an opportunity to observe the behaviours and processes each child uses in responding to questions.

Parents of Pre-primary students can expect information about the On-Entry process from class teachers shortly.

Our Year 3 and Year 5 students will be undertaking NAPLAN later this term, from 13^th-25^th March. NAPLAN assesses the literacy and numeracy skills that students are learning through the school curriculum and allows parents/carers to see how their child is progressing against national standards. The earlier testing time of NAPLAN allows us to work with data earlier in the school year.

Throughout the school, all students will be undertaking Progressive Achievement Testing (PAT). PAT is a standardised assessment tool used in Australian schools to measure student progress in reading comprehension, mathematics, and vocabulary. The tests are designed to track student progress over time, providing teachers with valuable information on student learning and areas for improvement.

Numero Club 2024

Numero Club will be commencing next Thursday morning, 15^th February. Numero Club will be held each Thursday morning from 8.00am for Year 3-6 students, in Room 6 with Mrs Watkinson. Come along and learn a cool maths game, while improving your problem-solving skills!

School Board

Our School Board is a positive, proactive group who work together to ensure that Duncraig Primary School is a dynamic learning environment. There is a vacancy for a parent member to join our board. Board tenure is for three years. If you are interested in joining the board, or would like more information, please contact Nicole.Borbas@education.wa.edu

COVID

It’s still out there! Even in the first couple of weeks of the school year, we are already receiving reports of students and staff testing positive to COVID. Unfortunately, it is becoming a fact of life. Please treat COVID as you would the flu. There are no mandated quarantine times, so while your child is feeling unwell or is symptomatic, please keep them away from school. Reporting COVID is no longer a legal requirement, however, we really appreciate it when parents let us know because the early detection of diseases can help us mitigate the spread, especially for students and staff who may be immuno-suppressed.

Some diseases, such as chicken pox, measles and mumps are reportable. Please let us know if your child develops any of these illnesses.

What does my child learn at school?

There is a wealth of information about the Western Australian Curriculum and it can be found here: SCSA Parents and Community | What Will My Child Learn? As always, class teachers are best placed to explain what that will look like in the context of their classes.