Congratulations to our latest recipients of the Early Years Excellence Award at assembly this week. It is fantastic to see that many of these recipients are students who have shown terrific growth in their learning. These are students who have been able to apply the learning dispositions of persistence and resilience to their every day classroom tasks and who are now reaping the rewards of their efforts. Good learners are those who are excited by new learnings and acknowledge the effort required to achieve goals. Most children cannot simply jump on a bike and ride off straight away, or dive in a pool and swim 50 metres without working hard towards that goal. Academic goals are exactly the same. 

Curiosity and creativity are another two of our College learning dispositions and we have a particularly exciting day coming up that fosters both of these. On Thursday, 19 September, the Prep – Year 2 children will host many of the younger children in our community for our annual Under 8’s Day – Festival of Fun. Learners who are curious are learners who are eager to know more about things, and creative learners can engage their imagination in various ways. The Festival of Fun will be a wonderful opportunity to provide experiences for our early learners that foster both curiosity and creativity, whilst also providing an opportunity to engage with our wider community. This day cannot take place without the support of our parent body, who are requested to accompany small groups of students around so that teachers can facilitate activities. Please notify your teacher if you are able to help out on the day. 

All teachers are currently planning progress interviews with families for the students in their classes. If you have not yet made an interview to meet with your child’s teacher, please attend to this promptly. In the past, interviews for P-2 have occurred in conjunction with report cards being produced. Research has indicated there is far more benefit for students, parents and teachers to meet to discuss progress and goal setting for the next cycle of learning, and as such, we will be conducting interviews for all of the Early Years in Term 3 rather than at the end of Term 4. We thank you for partnering with us in this important future planning activity. 

Katrina Walton

Assistant Principal Early Years