Principal's Update - 20th October

Welcome

Dear Families,

Spring brings with it many changes, the weather being one of them. We’ve had some ups and downs and glimpses of summer in the last week, as well as some reminders we’re not there yet. 

Amongst the changes going on we are pleased to be able to announce that we have finalised details and approval with our building project and are now awaiting planning permits and relevant documentation to begin works. We are still looking at a 9 month building project and expect to be completed towards the end of 2024. We have an upcoming site meeting in 2 weeks time and following this expect to be able to give families more details around the operational implications of the build, such as pick up and drop off locations and times.

Staff Professional Learning

Last Monday staff gathered together with teachers from St Augustine’s Maryborough for our final session with CORWIN education looking at Visible Learning and teacher impact. This work lays the foundation for our development over the next 5 years and comes from one of our 3 key goals from school review last year - Investigate and implement High Impact, Learning Progressive pedagogy that brings our purpose to life. Our work with CORWIN on Monday looked at Teacher Mindframes and how we measure the impact of our actions on the learning within the classroom. This further supports the work we have done this year and last, looking at learner agency, learner qualities and how we build feedback loops into our teaching to ensure students have a clear understanding of what they are learning and their next steps.

The next element of this goal is already well underway and involves looking at current practice and how it aligns with the latest research. Over the last 5-10 years there have been significant developments in the field of educational research, particularly in literacy education. You may have seen some snippets of this in news and media of late. One of the shifts in this space is the move to structured literacy from what is commonly referred to as balanced literacy.

Structured Literacy

Structured literacy, as the name implies takes a more explicit, systematic approach to the teaching of literacy, focussing on the act of decoding, phonics and fluency which leads to comprehension. Tasmania have recently legislated that all schools must move to an approach based on structured literacy over the next 3 years and other states have similar works on the way. The approach has been used with great success in the Catholic Diocese of Canberra with their Catalyst project and within the Ballarat Diocese with a group of pilot schools known as the SunLit Project. St Columba’s has been researching and investigating this model of literacy learning throughout the year, with a number of school visits and staff undertaking additional study through Latrobe Uni, SPELD and working with the Ballarat READ group.

Cognitive Science in the Classroom

Alongside this work in literacy we have been looking at best classroom practice and what some of the implications from recent advances in cognitive science mean for the classroom.  Whilst we are still in the early stages of this project it is already having an impact on our thinking and discussions around learning. An additional element for our school is how these new findings and understandings can align with our school’s vision of Engage, Empower and Inspire. Many of the schools moving to a structured literacy model have a much more traditional approach to education and classroom design when compared to ours, and our existing work in this space is something we are very conscious of not losing as we move forward. We want High Impact learning approaches, whilst also being Learning Progressive and holding on to the importance of play and experiential based learning that is central to our beliefs. This is an ongoing piece of work for staff that we will explore in more detail at the upcoming closure days in November.

Digital Technology Plan

Alongside this we are also working on the implementation of our next 5 year digital plan. This year has seen the upgrading of our school server, security and wifi capacity throughout the school, supported by the DOBCEL tech team. After meeting with the school advisory council to discuss models of implementation, we are continuing our work with Apple Education and DOBCEL to put our digital transformation plan into place beginning next year. This will see students from Grades 4-6 having access to 1:1 iPad’s and students in the lower levels working with class sets of devices before also moving to a 1:1 model over the next 3 years.

As part of this work we have engaged with Coby Reynolds to support the staff and students in the effective use of devices in learning. Coby comes to us with a wealth of experience in digital implementation having worked with a large number of schools both locally and internationally in this space. We are looking to host a parent information night with Coby on Tuesday 12th of December (full details and time TBC).

Sustainability Group Update

Starting next Monday October 23rd until November 30th we will be initiating a battery recycling drive. 

Please bring batteries to the school office where they will be taken to recycling points around Ballarat. 

Why should we recycle batteries?

• It helps protect the environment by preventing the harmful release of toxic chemicals into landfills. As batteries start to break down in landfill these heavy metals can leach into surface and groundwater.
  
  
• Battery recycling offers a safe and environmentally responsible solution for end of life batteries.
  
  
• Recycling batteries conserves valuable resources such as metals, reducing the need for mining and extraction, which can be environmentally destructive.
  
  
• Places that recycle batteries in Ballarat include Officeworks, Bunnings, some Aldi stores and Ballarat city council Phoenix building. 

After the battery recycling drive concludes we encourage families to recycle batteries at these places.

Posi Socks

A reminder that St Columba’s is once again involved in the Posi Schools program for Term 4 this year and Term 1 next year.  The Posi Schools program is a wonderful initiative designed to provide students with valuable skills to kickstart positive habits for life! By participating in the program, we supporting our children to think positively and and be successful in the future, whilst also providing support directly to our wider community. To cover the production of the socks, we are inviting each child to pay $10 to purchase a pair of socks, with each pair purchased a pair will be donated to the school to distribute to the St Vincent De Paul Christmas Appeal or Winter Appeal next year. The socks are worn to school by the students every Friday.

If you hve not already done so, please log in to the Quick Cliq app to complete payment of $10 per student for the program's cost, the socks, and the socks to be donated.

Year 6 (2024) Polos

A reminder to current Year 5 parents that it is that time of year where we need to organise the Year 6 polo tops for 2024.

Orders need to be made via Quickcliq (navigate to the events section). Orders will close on Friday 2nd November.

Please indicate the number of each type of shirt. It can be a good idea to select shirts of different sizes to allow for growth over the year.

If you wish your child’s name to be listed as something other than their given name, e.g. Johnny Smith instead of John Smith, please specify in the notes section on Quickcliq.

Important Dates for Term 4

Kind regards,

Bambi Afford & Shaun Mohr
Co-Principals