Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back for Term 3 and the first newsletter of the Term. In week 1, our staff participated in our Galgabba Community of School’s Staff Development Day at Swansea High School. The focus of this day was Aboriginal Education and our staff were upskilled on Cultural Safety in schools, culturally responsible teaching and protocols and family histories. Staff were fortunate to hear Executive Director Aboriginal Outcomes and Partnerships, Karen Jones, who talked about ‘What The Data Tells Us’ and its implications for all staff, students and community members.
MAJOR WORKS
This Term our school is continuing extensive major works. Both A and B Block renovations are nearly complete and in the coming weeks all classes will be back in their lovely new rooms. We appreciate the students, staff and community’s flexibility while these works have been undertaken.
STATE CROSS COUNTRY
On Friday 21 July, Hamish D. represented Blacksmiths and the Hunter at the NSW PSSA All Schools State Cross Country Championships at Eastern Creek. The event saw a strong group of talented kids throughout NSW. Hamish competed in the Primary boys 12/13’s, 3km race against a pool of 80 competitors. He gave it everything to finish 44th! Congratulations on an outstanding result.
NAPLAN 2023
Parents of Year 3 and Year 5 students have received their child’s NAPLAN results this week. NAPLAN test results are now reported using proficiency standards. Together with the move to an earlier NAPLAN in March, these changes meet an initiative of the 2019 National School Reform Agreement.
The proficiency standards represent a challenging but reasonable expectation of student achievement at this time of testing to deliver better information for teachers, parents and carers.
Achievement in NAPLAN is now reported against proficiency levels instead of the previous numerical NAPLAN bands.
Students’ results show how they performed in each of the NAPLAN assessment areas against 4 new proficiency levels:
Exceeding: The student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing.
Strong: The student’s result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing.
Developing: The student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing.
Needs additional support: The student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily. We are incredibly proud of our students’ NAPLAN results in 2023, particularly in our focus areas of reading and mathematics.
AUTHOR VISIT
Last week, Blacksmiths PS kicked off our Education and Book Week celebrations by welcoming Jess Black who has published over 40 children’s novels.
Jess shared what inspires her when writing novels, the importance of drawing from your own life experiences, how everyday events can be incorporated into your writing and that no one on earth has your unique story to tell.
Thank you to Mrs Newman for organising Jess’ visit. Students were thoroughly engaged with many insightful questions.
NAIDOC CELEBRATIONS
Last week Galgabba COS students attended Swansea HS to celebrate NAIDOC celebrations.
Students participated in cultural activities including dance, art, weaving, ochre painting and Koori games.
Thank you to Swansea HS staff and students for your organisation of an engaging, inclusive day for all.
BOOK PARADE/EDUCATION WEEK
A big thank you to our school community for attending our open classrooms and Book Parade this morning. It was great to see such a large crowd attend. The students enjoy seeing their loved ones in the classroom and attending these events.
All the students looked amazing in their costumes and we were blown away by the quality of public speaking on display. Our annual book fair has been postponed until Term 4 due to current renovations. More information will follow later in the Term.
Kind regards,
Luke McIlvenie | Principal
