Dear Parents,

Thank you for coming along to this week’s ‘Meet the Teacher’ evening. It’s a great opportunity to get a feel for what is happening in your children’s classes this year and the aims and expectations of the teachers. Sessions like this also help you to make connections with the teachers so that you know who your child is talking about when they are sharing stories at home, whilst it also does the same for the teachers, allowing them to make connections when your children are talking about their families.

Thank you also to those parents who joined us at our Opening School Mass last week. It’s always a special experience when we gather together as a community to begin the new school year and the presence of parents adds to this, particularly for those students who received their badges and blessings for their student leadership roles.

Our Kinders have settled well and they are all especially excited this week to tell anyone they meet as to what class they are in, since this week saw them go into the two distinct class groups for the first time, as opposed to one large group.

Focus areas for 2020

As I mentioned at our ‘Meet the Teacher’ evening, our key areas of focus this year are:

Writing and Vocabulary development

A goal is to further improve student outcomes in writing. Upon analysing student writing samples and other data sources we recognise that this is an area that we can work on to make a difference. One way we intend to help bring about this improvement is through the support of pedagogical mentors to work with our teachers.

The Pedagogical Mentors are highly effective, skilled classroom practitioners who will work with school’s leadership team to act as a catalyst for change, and who will work with fellow teachers to build their capacity to improve student learning.

All Pedagogical Mentors will be supported to implement a coaching approach in their role and will also be supported with ongoing Diocesan professional learning and networking opportunities to assist them in this role.

Here at St Joseph’s we have two Pedagogical Mentors for 2020, Mrs Leanne Skinner and Mrs Nicole Charnock.  We are very fortunate to have such keen and capable staff who are excited about undertaking this new position.  Both Nicole and Leanne will work with class teachers and the leadership team over the course of this year, focusing on Literacy, and writing development in particular. 

Positive Behaviour for Learning

The purpose of this focus area is to help create an environment that, in a positive way supports children to learn, allow others to learn and provides a safe environment for our whole community. Please read Renata Powell‘s, Assistant Principal section, that explains more about PBL at St Joseph’s.

Faith formation for students staff and parents

This is the third focus area for us this year. This differs from our formal religious education teaching with the children, as it is about deepening our personal spirituality and sense of faith. Over the next two years all grades will participate in a spiritual retreat, our staff will begin the first year of a planned three year faith formation program and for the parents we will be providing an opportunity each term for you to join Helene O’Neill for a faith nurturing experience in a childfree and stress free environment.

Professional Learning Teams

This is where the staff will collaboratively work together together, using evidence to improve student learning.

Class Parent Network

The Class Parent Network complements the role of the P&F Association drawing parents more fully into our school community. Its purpose is to promote a pastorally supportive environment between home and school. The class parents are a support person for the class teacher, parents and new families to the class. The Class Parent Network can also support our families who are in need of assistance through illness, bereavement, new baby etc.

Class parents also co-ordinate simple social events for their year level, such as play dates in the park in the holidays or a parents dinner or family game of barefoot bowls. It is a great way for parents to meet and for you to get to know the families of your children’s classmates, with whom you will be sharing the journey in a special way.

Ideally each class has two class parents and in turn these class parents form a team, liaising with their own group of parents and teachers, as well as with the P&F and school leadership team.

Being a class parent requires minimal time and work and you will be supported in the role. If you are interested in volunteering to be a class parent please complete the form using the link below

Growth Mindset

On Wednesday evening I also spoke about how a goal for our staff, as well as our students, this year is to further develop our Growth Mindset. Carol Dweck is the professor and researcher, whose book I read a little from. She defines mindsets as:

Fixed Mindset “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.” (Dweck, 2015)

Growth Mindset “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” (Dweck, 2015)

Whether a student holds a fixed mindset or growth mindset significantly impacts their learning experience—from primary school to high school. Students that hold a fixed mindset give up when they can’t solve a problem and admit defeat. This can be detrimental to students’ future efforts and leads to limited student growth. With a growth mindset, students continually work to improve their skills, leading to greater growth and ultimately, success. The key is to get students to tune into that growth mindset.

One way we can help our children develop a growth mindset is through praising them using language that doesn’t just make them feel on top of the world for a minute or two but that has more long lasting effects.

This means that it is best as teachers, parents and coaches to avoid praising talent or intelligence and rather praise what they have accomplished through their practice, efforts, study, persistence and good strategies. 

Here are some examples that I promised I would share with you from Carol Dwek’s book, “Mindset - How You can Fulfil your Potential” (pp177-178):

I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that maths problem until you finally got it. You thought of a lot of different ways to do it and found the one that worked!

I like that you took on that challenging project for your science project. It will take a lot of work– doing the research, designing the model, getting the parts and building it. Boy, you’re going to learn a lot of great things.

I know school used to be easy for you and you used to feel like the smart kid all the time. But the truth is that you weren’t using your brain to the fullest. I’m really excited about how you’re stretching yourself now and working to learn hard things.

That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.

That picture has so many beautiful colours. Tell me about them.

You put so much thought into that piece of writing. It really makes me understand things in a new way.

The passion you put into that piece of music gives me a real feeling of joy. How do you feel when you play it?

And for those students who worked hard and didn’t do well:

I liked the effort you put in, but let’s work together some more and figure out what it is you don’t understand.

We all have different learning curves. It may take more time for you to catch onto this and be comfortable with this material, but if you keep at it like this you will.

Everyone learns in a different way. Let’s keep trying to find a way that works for you.

Remember - praise should deal not with a child’s personality attributes but with his or her efforts and achievements.

Security

In regard to safety for all your children we ask that you please close Union St gate behind you when entering the school.  This is particularly important of a morning.  If you use Kiss and Drop instruct your children to shut the gate after them, even if it was left open when they came through. 

With the Farquhar St gate, it is unlocked at 8:25am each morning and locked again at 9:05am.  As the boys' toilets are quite close to this entry point we will not be unlocking them until the gates are locked at 9:05am.  Please remind your boys that if they need to use the toilet before school that they should go to the new toilet block in the Quad playground.

Soccer Boot Request

Please read the DARA flyer attached to this newsletter. A request is being made for any preloved soccer boots that no longer fit your children to be donated so refugee kids can have the opportunity to play soccer and be part of a team.