Wonderful to see some nice weather, it has been a nice change and has certainly helped our Prep-2 students enjoy their Water Awareness Program this week. A huge thank you to the School Association for their funding of this program and also to all staff whose flexibility has enabled our students to enjoy this fantastic learning opportunity.

In the last few weeks staff have been working with students to complete PAT testing. PAT means Progressive Achievement Tests, these are multiple-choice tests designed to help teachers determine achievement levels of students in Mathematics and Reading Comprehension. PAT testing is also important because it identifies the progress a student is making from year to year and enable our school to measure the impact we are having on student learning. I look forward to sharing some of the PAT data as it become available.

Our focus Value for Term 4 is Courage, Havenview Primary is impressive with the courage shown by our students and staff. Courage means accepting opportunities and embracing challenges and this fits with the fantastic work our staff are doing around success criteria. Our teachers have been working on ‘bump it up walls’ which students can refer to when completing their work. I encourage all students to embrace the challenge of looking to how they can ‘bump up’ their work at every opportunity. A reminder our Values Poster Competition is now open please encourage your children to get the template from their class teacher and get creative around what courage means to them. The competition will close for judging at the end of week 5.

Our focus expectation for week 3 and 4 has been ‘We are respectful and caring’, an expectation that is fitting with the current industrial action. I would like to say a huge thank you to our wonderful school community for being so respectful and caring of our staff during the trying times that industrial action brings. Just as our school is a part of a much bigger system in the Department for Education, Children and Young People many of our staff are members of a bigger organisation in their Union. The decision to take industrial action causes stress for our staff as their Union requires them to strike and they are very aware this causes disruptions for our students and parents/carers. I am pleased to say our staff have felt supported by our school community and are working hard to minimise the impact on opportunities and student learning.

Once again please remember if you have any concerns, thoughts or suggestions I am willing to listen so please make contact.

Regards

Duncan Murfet

Principal