I am very pleased to share with the school community some great news about our amazing students. Firstly, our whole school attended the EMUsicians concert on Monday, where two of our students did themselves proud as part of the band. Both these students were also recognised for their excellence by the EMUsicians themselves with Jagger Barnard being awarded the Player of the Year (and I have been told that his performance at the nighttime concert was exceptional) and Lila Harvey received the Player of the Clarinet Section. Please congratulate both these students on their achievements. Let's hope that we have some keen musicians step up next year to also benefit from being a part of the EMUsicians. Not only did our E-musician students perform brilliantly, but our entire student cohort were exceptional in demonstrating the most respectful, responsible, and caring behaviours. Many adults who attended the concert have commented to me about the outstanding behaviour from our students. Congratulations Havenview Primary School – you have excelled.

I am also thrilled to be able to share the PAT testing data with our school community. The goal set at the beginning of the year was for our school to improve the number of students achieving a measure of ‘met low’ or better. 75% of our students achieved this, with an increase of 13.7% from 2022 when 61.3% achieved at this level or above.

Importantly, the percentage of students with ‘medium’ or ‘high’ growth across the school increased to 76% This was an increase of 12.4% on 2022 data. This growth is testament to the hard work our staff have put in to improving the ways we teach and assess reading, and for our students in their dedication to their learning. I am looking forward to working with the whole school to embed and build on this improvement in 2024.

Today, we had our Christmas lunch! What a great way to celebrate the beginning of the Christmas season. A huge thank you to all those parents who worked extremely hard to make this opportunity happen for our staff and students. And to the Grinch for their attendance.

Finally, a reminder of the Activities Day and shared lunch on students last day on Thursday 21 December. If you have any queries about this day, please feel free to see me or contact the school in person, on the phone or via email.