Crafers Primary School

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

I cannot believe that we are in Week 3 already. Time certainly does fly by when you are having fun. It has been a wonderful start to the term with several school community events taking centre stage including a wonderful school Assembly hosted by our Room 2 students as well as special performances from our school band and choir members at our recent Mothers’ Day breakfast.

Our Parents and Friends committee have been extremely busy, hosting our Mothers’ Day Breakfast and preparing for our upcoming Walk Safely to School event. Meanwhile another group of parents have been madly supporting this year’s Pedal Prix team, training and practising in readiness for next weekend’s first race at Tailem Bend.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our hard-working volunteers for generously donating their time and expertise in providing wonderful experiences for our school community to enjoy. The pictures of each event tell a thousand stories and once again showcase our community spirit and love for the special people in our lives.

It has once again been a joy getting around to each classroom and seeing firsthand how our students have been quick to settle and begin their learning journeys in a supportive manner under the guidance of our wonderfully talented and dedicated staff. They continue to impress me by the way they interact with each other, make new people feel included and welcome through their genuine sense of warmth, compassion and care towards one another.

During the first weeks of Term 2, our staff have had the opportunity to reflect upon and discuss their personal and collective professional journeys during staff meetings in relation to school improvement, consistency in practice, and strategic ways to bring our school values to life. Professional development sessions have been mapped out across the term with an intentional focus on connecting our teaching practice to each goal in our Site Learning Plan. A detailed overview of our progress has been included in this newsletter.

The School Value we are currently focusing on is ‘Community’. Progress is well and truly underway with drafting of our next visual poster and social story. We are in the final stages of personalising our value points with Crafers examples highlighting our approach to learning and our interactions with each other, in classrooms and the wider school community.

Finally, many thanks to our families who represented the school at the recent Stirling ANZAC Day service and to our Student Leaders for their extended efforts in assisting with the Mothers’ Day Breakfast. Congratulations and well done to Miss Shephard, Mr Nielsen and members of our School Choir who are about to undertake their external assessment for this year’s Festival of Music showcase in September.

We are all proud of what is achieved in this wonderful school community and I am extremely grateful to be part of it.

Kind regards

Shaun Barber

Our Site Learning Plan (SLP) is a flexible document which is able to change, direct and reflect the progress being made. The overview document below will guide our work across the school this year, with clear priorities in Indigenous Perspectives, Numeracy, and Wellbeing for learning.

Across all areas, there is a focus on metacognition. Helping students understand what they are learning, why they are learning it, and how they learn best. This approach supports learner agency and helps students become reflective, resilient and confident learners

Staff have also agreed to form Professional Learning Teams for each focus area, enabling them to collaboratively drive learning improvement with structure, purpose, and intent.

Goal 1: Extend students’ knowledge and understanding of Indigenous perspective in all aspects of learning.

So far, we have:

• Attended training with Stephen Warrior learning about Aboriginal Culture.
• Lesson planning incorporating Aboriginal understandings.
• Strong evidence of perspectives being planned and taught in classrooms.

Next Steps: Explicit focus on goal and our journey as part of PD in Term 2 and Pupil Free Day (Date TBC), making stronger connections with local Indigenous, utilising staff and parent expertise, working with surrounding schools, cultural experiences and planned community connection. Matthew Summerton’s recent experience working at Indulkana Anangu School in the APY lands (Creates a ‘Sister School’ opportunity).

Goal 2: To improve place value knowledge, understanding and fluency across the school.

So far, we have:

• Resource folders and online applications have been updated, completed and installed
• Teachers have implemented the Fluency program across the school including daily number talks
• Lesson Structure Followed R-6- Warm up, Task/Discovery time, Reflection
• Tracking and monitoring student progress using screeners and data (Fluency/Yr. 1 Numeracy Check/PAT) to inform next steps

Next Steps: Explicit focus on goal, review of the data generated, and our journey as part of PD in Term 2, opportunity to focus on ‘Reflection’ as a staff and Mathematical Disposition.

Goal 3: Developing positive dispositions for learning as part of Wellbeing; e.g., Self-direction, self-motivation, goal setting, courage.

So far, we have:

• Engaged with the District Wellbeing for learning Project PD as a staff- Session 2
• Have self-reflection at the end of lessons
• John is running a series of Professional Development focusing strongly on explicitly teach positive learning dispositions, empowering students to understand their own learning strategies (Mathematics focus using the Teachers’ Companion as a structural guide)
• Ready to learn Bell and reviewing its current impact
• Whole School implementation of Brain and Movement breaks, class transitions, 3 phases of planning tasks (Get Ready, Do, Done)
• Respect Value - Sharing of visible posters and language across the school, Social Story
• Fortnightly updates and activities provided by our Change Champions ‘Katie and Kit’ and AIT ‘Kim’ to support our journey- They will share our progress with other schools in Week 10.

Next Steps: Explicit focus on goal and our journey as part of PD in Term 2, teaching coping strategies, a deep focus on our Community Value.

Join us for National Walk Safely to School Day this Friday 15 May as we walk together to Crafers Primary School!

Two meeting locations are planned so children and families can walk together to school. If you’re unable to walk with your child, teachers and Student Leaders will be present at each location to assist.

📍 Please meet in time to leave from one of the following locations at 8:00am:

• The Old Tennis Courts – Cnr Wright & Old Mt Barker Roads

• Crafers Bakehouse – Main Street, Crafers

☕ Crafers Bakehouse will be open from 7:00am, so pop in, say hello to Sarah and Tristan, and grab a warm drink before the walk up the hill. Sarah and Tristan have also generously donated breakfast snacks for our children to enjoy on arrival at school.

👮 We’ll also be joined by the Mount Barker SAPOL Crime Prevention Squad, who will be onsite with some fun activities for the children.

🍎 A big thank you to Romeo’s Foodland Stirling for generously donating fruit for students to enjoy on arrival at school.

We’re looking forward to seeing lots of families join us for this wonderful community event 🍂

A huge thank you to our incredible school community for making our Election Day BBQ & Bake Sale such a success. We’re thrilled to share that the BBQ & bake sale sold out and we raised over $2,500. These funds will support playground upgrades, our Pedal Prix team and the CPS Music Program.

Thank you to everyone who volunteered, donated baked goods and supported the day — your generosity and community spirit made it truly special. A special thank you to our band and solo performers for the fantastic music.

Thank you also to Woolworths Mount Barker for generously donating sausages and BBQ supplies. We received some lovely feedback from members of the public who visited on the day, sharing how much they enjoyed the atmosphere and praising our school community — a wonderful reflection of what we created together.

Please enjoy these photos from the day.

 

In some small group work I was doing with some students this week, we talked about managing our angry feelings. All people experience angry feelings, but children are often left with a false sense that feeling angry is bad. As adults, we use a variety of strategies to manage big feelings every day, however this is not inbuilt, and needs to be taught. It is our job to help our children recognise, understand and manage these feelings. Emotions are always with us, and therefore it is important that children learn from an early age to name their feelings and how to express them in socially acceptable ways.

Something you can do at home with your child is to help them identify strategies they can use when they feel their angry feelings bubbling up. For some children, this might look like moving their body (running, jumping, climbing), for others this might look like problem solving (talking with a friend or adult about what is making them angry), for others still this might look like removing themselves from what is bothering them or taking some calming breaths. Come up with a list of things your child can do at home and at school to help when those big, angry feelings arise- because we know they always will.

Two books I love that are great for sparking conversation and sharing insight around feelings are Big Feelings And What They Tell Us by Rebekah Ballagh and How Do I Feel? A Dictionary Of Emotions For Children by Rebekah Lipp and Craig Phillips.