Dear Parents and Carers,

This week we have our Three Way Interviews scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. It is an opportunity to have a ‘meet and greet’ session for fifteen minutes between the student, parent and teacher. All students have a different teacher this year so it is an ideal opportunity to start building relationships. Most parents have booked this online. If you have experienced difficulty in making this booking please phone Trish in the front office for assistance. In Term 2, there will be teacher/parent interviews only following the Semester One Reports. This is usually in the last week of Term 2. Parents are always welcome to make an appointment with their child’s class teacher at any other time during the year. Please do not feel confined just to the interview schedule we offer.

Schools have four Staff Development Days per year. We usually have one per term but this year we are combining two of them at the beginning of Term 2 to fit in with an international speaker James Nottingham, who leads the Challenging Learning project. Please be aware that Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 April will be Staff Development Days and therefore  pupil free days. The next Staff Development Day will be the first day of Term 3. Please note these days in your calendars. There will be no Staff Development Day in Term 4.

 The Challenging Learning project is a teaching pedagogy  that promotes meaningful communication. It offers students the opportunity to think and talk about their learning and to push for a deeper level of understanding. We use many strategies like ‘Odd One Out’, ‘Opinion Lines’ and ‘Opinion Corners to support deeper thinking. The ‘Challenge’ is not to make learning harder for students, but to make it more interesting by using quality dialogue, good questioning techniques and feedback. I will let you know more about the project over the term with regular updates in the newsletter. Feel free to ask me more about this initiative that we have been exploring for twelve months now.

Have a great week everyone.

Kind Regards

 Jannine