Dear Parents/Carers, 

Here we are with our final newsletter for Term 3.  I hope as many parents/carers as possible have taken the opportunity this week of a parent/teacher interview with their child's teacher. Those conversations can have quite an impact when home and school are well aligned. 

Traffic and Parking
In the last weeks and months, we have spent considerable time advocating with council and Education Queensland for arrangements that will see us operate our zones safely whilst ensuring that staff and families are working within the law. I was certainly frustrated last week when parents/carers were issued with infringements by Queensland Police without any prior conversations about how to problem solve the area. However, I have had some success this week and yesterday I met with a senior sergeant from Boondall Traffic Enforcement Unit who is willing to work on our behalf with Brisbane City Council, our State Member of Parliament and with Education Queensland to come up with some solutions to improve the area. 

The law is such that the yellow line needs to be there 10 metres either side of the lights to ensure that area stays clear. The law also says that parking or stopping on a yellow line can incur an infringement.  I have obviously pointed out that there is little choice for cars if there is a lot of traffic as they approach our zone and that these cars are not stopped or parked but paused and moving forward fairly constantly. Additionally, for cars to avoid the yellow line and go around the block, the roundabout etc just increases the risk at the roundabout and in the back streets. I will continue to keep the community up to date.  However, the zone will work best when: Year 4 to 6 parents/carers arrive between 3 and 3.10pm whilst Prep to 3 parents would be best arriving 3.10 to 3.20 so we can spread the traffic out. I must say since I issued this advice earlier in the week, we have had few cars on the yellow lines.

NAPLAN and A to E 
NAPLAN is a point in time test given on one day at two junctures (Yr 3 and 5) during a child's primary education. The best use of this information is on a whole school or year level basis to guide our curriculum delivery particularly in literacy and numeracy.  My philosophy is if a child does well it is a valid result, however, at times a child may not do well as expected and that's the danger of emphasising a test that is delivered on one day as the be all and end all. There are so many factors that can impact on a child's result in a test such as this.  Therefore, certainly our school's focus has been and will continue to be on improving our students' A to E results as this is the work that teachers and students are focusing on each day. 

In saying that, as a school we have received the results and the reports of individual students will be sent home by the end of this week. 

Key: G&P: Grammar and Punctuation  U2B:Upper 2 Bands 

        NMS: Above National Minimum Standard

Below are our A to E (Report Card) results. The colours show A/B percentages and C or Above as compared to the rest of the state. Dark blue is the Upper School Achievement Category and light blue is the middle category. The lower category is red. Therefore in four of the 6 categories our school is in the upper category in comparison to the state and in 2 areas we are in the middle category. Our school goal is to have 90% of students with a C or above and 50% as an A or B. 

IPAD INFORMATION EVENING: Wednesday October 13 via Zoom
(Current Yr 2 to 5 parents 6.00pm-7.00pm)
This is a date claimer for an evening information session for parents/carers who do not currently have their child in the IPad program here at school and would like to find out more about it. Next year, we intend to trial Year 3 students bringing an IPad to school if they already have one at home and it is compatible with our system. They will not use it to the same extent as students in Years 4,5 and 6 hence why we are suggesting that parents/carers just allow their child to bring an IPad along to school if they already have one. There are a number of roles and responsibilities for parents/carers, students and staff who are part of the program and it is important that we share this information prior to parents/carers making a decision for their child. 

Have a good week,

Kathy