Hello Swan Reach,

As we begin term 3, it is highly pleasing to see the early impacts of The Resilience Project (TRP) GEM practices being demonstrated by students and children at SRAS. Their practice is being noticed by visitors who are giving feedback about how polite and respectful they are. Visitors are noticing them holding doors open, saying hello to them and their friendly manners. This is wonderful news and highly encouraging as we continue to implement this wellbeing initiative.

What are you noticing at home about TRP? There are a lot of inspiring videos and resources for parents and carers to access and share the exciting resilience growth in our youth and children. If you haven’t had the opportunity to connect with TRP parent /carer hub, the following link is a great place to begin to learn about The Resilience Project - https://theresilienceproject.com.au/2023-parent-carer-hub-inspire-hugh/

ENROLMENTS & WELCOME

SRAS continues to receive enrolments, which is wonderful and reversing trends of previous years. Of note is the number of children in our preschool – 14 and possibly 15 soon. SRAS projects that 8 or 9 of these children will remain at SRAS as Receptions in 2024.

SRAS warmly welcomes Sadie and Sebastian into the preschool. We also welcome Zac and Lilly, who join the R-2 class, along with Iris, who’ll be with us for several weeks. Joining our 7-10 HG are Renee and Logan. SRAS extends this welcome to the families too and we are pleased to have you join our schooling community.

PRINCIPAL
Mr John Robertson

2023 NAPLAN STUDENT RESULTS/REPORTS  

This week you will be receiving your child’s NAPLAN results.  We wanted to share some important information with you before reading your child’s NAPLAN report.

NAPLAN (the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) is a national test undertaken by all Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students, designed to provide information about student’s literacy and numeracy achievements and areas for improvement. NAPLAN tests are one aspect of our school’s assessment and reporting processes, they do not replace the extensive, ongoing assessments made by teachers about your child’s achievement. Your child’s teacher will have the best insight into your child’s educational progress.  NAPLAN results provide additional information, which can be used along with our other assessment and testing.

As a school we analyse NAPLAN data at a whole school, cohort (year level), and individual student level. This enables us to identify trends and to evaluate individual students’ skills in key areas of literacy and numeracy, providing valuable information about their strengths and areas for improvement. Teachers then plan their teaching and learning programs accordingly to support each individual student’s learning through quality teaching practice.

This year there have been changes to the NAPLAN reports to include new Proficiency Standards which commence from this year.  Your child’s NAPLAN report will show how your child is tracking against four achievement levels known as proficiency levels. 

The proficiency levels are:

• 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.

Therefore, “If your child is in the Strong or Exceeding category, it means they have demonstrated proficiency and that their literacy or numeracy skills are where they should be at this stage of their schooling. If your child has not yet achieved proficiency, then they will either be in the Developing category or the Needs additional support category.” (ACARA CEO, David de Carvalho)

When you read your child’s report, please take the time to celebrate the success that you see and/or identify areas for improvement. If your child is concerned with their results, remind them that NAPLAN isn’t a pass or fail test and there are no rewards or penalties for the result your child achieves. Rather, their report is a point in time snapshot of their achievements in the important areas of literacy and numeracy and their results will help their teacher to provide additional support in their learning.

Below are some of the ways that our teachers provide additional support through quality teaching practice to meet learner’s diverse needs:

• intentional teaching – building on strengths, interests, ideas and needs
• explicit teaching
• gradual release of responsibility
• modelling: I do it
• guided instruction: we do it
  • collaborative learning: you do it together
  • independent learning: you do it alone
  • graduated tasks: easy tasks to hard tasks
• inquiry based learning
• cooperative learning – working with others
• thinking routines – strategies that can be used repeatedly to promote and support thinking
• scaffolding
• providing materials that reflect a variety of cultures, environments and settings such as those experienced by students from non-English-speaking environments.
• stocking the classroom with a range of quality resources to engage learners of different abilities
• providing alternative representations of resources
• visual and technological supports.

If you have any further questions or concerns regarding your child’s NAPLAN report, thanks for contacting your child’s teacher.

DfE PARENT/CARER ENGAGEMENT SURVEY
– YOUR VOICE MATTERS TO SRAS

The Department for Education coordinates an annual survey to better understand the things we’re doing well, where we can improve, and what’s important to you as a parent/carer.

The information we collect from this survey is driving change for the department and SRAS.

During the week beginning Monday 31 July you will receive an email or SMS from the Parent Survey Team with a unique link to participate in the survey.

SRAS highly encourages you to complete the survey, which takes less than 10 minutes.

Your feedback will be used locally in our school improvement planning and more broadly to inform other key initiatives to improve education in South Australia.

Your answers will not identify you or your child. Only collated feedback will be provided to our school.

If you did not receive an email or SMS with your unique survey link, contact education.ParentSurvey@sa.gov.au and include our school’s name in your email.

For more information visit the Department for Education website.