Have you seen our new office building? This week we have officially been handed the keys to our newly refurbished office building. This is a lovely new space and we have been working frantically to get it set up and fully operational. For families who haven't yet done so, be sure to pop in and say hi. This will mean that 5S can now officially move into their 2023 class in Y Block which is where the temporary office was set up. And speaking of new, our new fence is also very much under way with our fencing contractors confident the fence will be completed by Monday 20th February (weather permitting). This is great news and a day we certainly look forward too. I do want to take the opportunity to say thank you to everyone for their patience during our construction period – there have been some frustrating periods but you have all been very caring and considerate.
Mareeba SS is widely recognised for our Inclusive approach to education, ensuring that every day every child is learning and achieving. This year, the staff at Mareeba SS will continue to embed our Mareeba SS definition of Inclusion: 'At Mareeba SS, Inclusion is acknowledging, respecting and supporting our diverse school community to grow and succeed'. Each of our classrooms have our definition displayed and staff are regularly educating students of this and the associated behaviours as developed through consultation with our school community.
Last newsletter I spoke about the importance of our day 8 numbers. This year MSS has registered 772 students by day 8 which is the number of students we will be resourced on for the 2023 school year. This is very close to our predicted 777 which means our staffing will remain the same. A big thank you to our families and staff for supporting our learners to have a positive start this year.
Annually, Year 3 & 5 students participate in the Australian wide NAPLAN testing. This week our students have been participating in the NAPLAN practice testing sessions. This year, the NAPLAN testing blocks will be held at the end of Term 1 starting Wednesday 15th March. For our first time NAPLAN families, NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy against the national standard, and compared with their peers throughout Australia. This data is also used by us as a school to assist with tracking and monitoring the success of our programs. Looking at the 2022 NAPLAN data, it was very pleasing to confirm:
- Our school mean has significantly grown for ALL NAPLAN STRANDS for Year 3
- Our school mean has significantly grown for spelling, grammar and punctuation and numeracy for Year 5
So what does this actually mean? Compared to our Nations mean, MSS has significantly increased with examples such as:
- Year 3 numeracy where MSS increased our school mean by 13 scale points and the nation dropped 3 scale points – this is closing the gap.
- Year 5 numeracy our school mean increased by 14 scale points while the nation dropped 7 scale points. Again, we are increasing while the nation is decreasing and closing the gap.
Other great patters and trends the data shows:
- Our Indigenous learners have done a fantastic job, where our year 3 Indigenous learners had a mean scale score that was above the nation with the year 5 Indigenous learners achieving a mean scale score similar to the nation.
- Our female students are producing a mean similar to the nation and again this trend is found in a number of strands.
While this is our school data, I also want to acknowledge that we had a number of individual students who achieved fantastic results in the top 20% ….
- 7 year 3 students were in the top 20% for spelling
- 5 year 3 students were in the top 20% for grammar & punctuation and numeracy
- 11 year 5 students were in the top 20% for grammar and punction
- 7 year 5 students were in the top 20% for reading, spelling and numeracy
These are positive results for our school and our students and we will continue to strive for this again in 2023.
Whilst your child's classroom teacher should be your first point of call for questions or queries, there may be times you require a meeting with your child's Deputy Principal/Line Manager, for students with a disability, our Head of Special Education or for matters regarding Behaviour Management our Head of Department Behaviour:
- Deputy Principal Prep & Year 1 – Nadine Apps
- Deputy Principal Years 2&3 – Nyree Burton
- Deputy Principal Years 4-6 – Michael Nielsen
- Head of Special Education Prep – Year 6 – Pina Carroll
- Head of Department Behaviour Prep – Year 6 – Cherene Trimble
Finally, don't forget our first P & C meeting for 2023 is tonight at 5:00pm in the staffroom. Everyone is most welcome.