It has been a somewhat slower pace this week after the end of the fete and the long weekend is like a welcome friend for us all I am sure.

Congratulations to all of our wonderful families who helped make the fete so successful. I thanked many last week but my appreciation is truly felt this week.

Active Streets program

Late last year our school was selected to benefit from the Active Streets for Schools program over the next four years. Active Streets is an infrastructure program – supported by educational resources – to make it safer and easier to walk or ride to school.

More children walking or riding to school has numerous benefits, including increased health and wellbeing, less congestion and safer school communities. Some of the elements delivered through the program include:

• Infrastructure improvements around schools, for example new or improved footpaths, crossings, better signage or traffic calming measures (e.g. speed humps)
• Educational resources (including a map for each school)
• Wayfinding pavement stencils
• Promotion of part way drop off and collection points
• Communication materials

A key aspect of the program is engagement with school communities to tailor the program to suit our needs. In the coming weeks the school community will be invited to provide feedback about the school’s map and invited to participate in a survey, which will allow you to highlight potential infrastructure improvements around the school to support walking or riding to school. We encourage the school community to embrace this opportunity and engage in the program.  

More information is available on the Transport Canberra website.

New School Bus Routes Term 2

Please be aware that ACTION have new school bus routes to and from school beginning in Term 2. Please go to the following link to see how this may impact on your family (https://www.transport.act.gov.au/getting-around/new-network/schools).

Daily 5

Every morning this week I have been visiting and observing in classrooms across the school to look at our implementation of the Daily 5 Literacy practices supporting students in becoming independent and empowered literacy learners.

I am very much in awe of our wonderful teaching staff who have, in the midst of an extraordinarily busy beginning to the year, established these fantastic practices in their classes. Many of our older students are self-directing their literacy learning every day, spending time reading 'good-fit books', writing creatively or about another area of their learning and participating in 'Word Work' that is part of their SoundsWrite or SoundWaves program. Our junior students are doing this with a little more guidance and structure but are amazing!

Between each of these, teachers provide explicit, short and focused teaching episodes about a variety of skills and understandings that help students develop comprehension, accuracy and fluency while expanding their vocabulary.

With what I have seen already, I can't wait to see what our students will be achieving by the end of Semester 1. We have a fantastic staff team!

I hope you enjoy the long weekend!

Matthew Garton (Principal)