Moolap Primary School

RESPECT – RESPONSIBILITY – INTEGRITY - SAFETY

MOOLAP NEWS – ISSUE 15 | FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER 2020

PRINCIPALS NEWS

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Can I please ask that all families complete the parent survey. It is such an important tool for us to measure our

progress and to help us set goals for our work in the coming year. We need one parent per household to complete

it. So far 40 parents have completed the survey (many thanks!), which is 25% of our parent community. We’d dearly

love to beat our highest ever response of 65 parents from 2019 and be able to receive feedback from a majority of

parents in our community. Please click on the link below, or copy and paste the text into your browser:

1. This link will take you directly to the survey: https://www.orima.com.au/parent 2. Select the School and Campus name - Moolap Primary School 3. Enter the School PIN: 350947

On Monday we participated in the first day of our school review. The review looks back at our last 4 years of progress

and compares this progress to what we had hoped to achieve. Our core review panel consisted of our reviewer, John

Hunter; Peter Farago, School Council President; Alan Davis, Senior Education Leader for our region; Leanne Dowling,

Principal of Geelong South PS; Emma Castelow, Education Improvement Leader for the region; and myself. Joining us

during the day were our school leadership team: Mina Spiteri, Greg Seach, Lauren Bayly and Cam O’Neill. There was

also a time for the reviewers to visit classrooms to speak to students about their learning and to look closely at some

of our teaching practice in reading and maths. A group of students from years 4-6 also met with the reviewers to talk

about their experiences at school.

I thought I would share with you some of the comments made throughout the day based on a review of our data and

observations made during classroom visits. A full report on the review (2 further days to go) will be made available

to the school during November, but here are some of the thoughts that I recorded during the day:

Our visitors were really impressed with their visits to classrooms and there were many common threads apparent in

our discussions about practice.

Students were very settled, had clear routines. The group noted positive classroom environments across the school.

Students were familiar with learning goals and spoke about their learning progress. It was very clear that our teachers had clear learning intentions and expectations of student work during their lessons.

There was a range of effective teaching strategies evident: teacher modelling, questioning and feedback. Lots of positive feedback strategies were discussed, as well as students working in small focus groups.

During the past two years we have worked really hard with students on setting individual goals in reading and

maths. It was really pleasing to see these in action across all of our classrooms.

Our school leaders presented our student learning data to the review team. It was evident that the school had made

terrific improvement in our reading data, with some outstanding student growth noted. Moolap PS is tracking really

well, in fact, above similar schools across our region and state in student reading ability and growth and also with

supporting students who are capable readers to extend their skills. This was a result of several years of work in

developing consistent reading practice and encouraging positive attitudes to reading in our students. As parents, you

have supported this improvement by reading with your child or encouraging them to develop a purpose and love for

reading.

Moolap Primary School

https://research.orima.com.au/parent/pages/View.php?source=SurveyClosed


After lunch the reviewers spoke to a group of our students. In summary:

Students were very committed to our school values and spoke about how the school values were embedded in their learning

Students believed that teachers at the school supported them and were good to them

A strong focus on learning was evident in classrooms

Students really like it when we have whole school events and activities, particularly when they get to work in cross-age groups. Unfortunately, rules around COVID have prevented us from doing it this year.

A strong sense of social justice, including commitment and learning from our work on indigenous studies was evident.

Students would like to learn more about world issues and were interested in how we could stop students littering around the school.

Monday will be our next review day, where the review team will work with a range of groups to further investigate

areas of our practice. This will involve another student focus group, talking to staff, further classroom observations

and a parent focus group. If you are interested in participating in a small parent focus group for approximately one

hour on Monday (at 1pm) to chat about our school, please make contact with the front office. We look forward to

working further on our review and then setting our goals and actions for our next 4 year period.

As part of our school goals in maths this year, our teachers collect data on student attitudes (or dispositions) towards

their maths learning. We think that students will be more capable in their learning if they see a purpose in maths,

enjoy learning new skills and taking risks with solving problems. Just before our curriculum day, we (Mr O’Neill and

Mr Knight) asked a group of year 5-6 students to assist with interpreting the data. The students also provided us with

some really useful suggestions for teachers to use as part of their maths sessions, such as adding more maths games

and providing time to practise goals and skills. These suggestions were shared with staff on our curriculum day,

including our whole school aggregated data. We were then challenged with incorporating new ideas into our planning

during the day.

Thank you to all members of our school community for supporting student participation in Show Your Colours Day

last week and our annual Book Week dress-up day. Students were really excited to be part of the special days. We

hope you enjoyed watching the dress-up parade video that was shared on Thursday afternoon. We raised $173.80 on

Show Your Colours Day, this has been donated the Cancer Council.

During our first newsletter of the term, you will recall that we are prioritising three main areas throughout the

term: student learning, student wellbeing and transitions. Our students have really settled back in to learning very

well this term. We have been able to get straight onto our plans in all areas of the curriculum. At our last curriculum

day (as mentioned above) our staff worked on extending our knowledge and skills as part of our Moolap Maths

Model. This work involved planning for student investigations in Maths. During this term your child will be involved

in small investigations that encourage them to further extend their skills in different areas of maths. Our staff even

ran their own investigation, which involved designing a paper aeroplane that could either perform tricks or fly the

longest. Unfortunately, my paper plane suffered engine damage and flew backwards, somehow! Mrs Parsons

managed to make her plane fly forever! Staff then planned out their classroom investigations for implementation this

term.

Our students have been taking a Kindness Challenge as part of student wellbeing this term. Each week there is a

focus that encourages kindness in all forms: kindness to self, others and the world. Our students have also made a

kindness patch for a quilt that will be displayed in the school. We are also encouraging students to perform ‘random


acts of kindness’ to others throughout the term. As part of our School Wide Positive Behaviours (SWPB) approach,

we will also be recognising students who are displaying our school values in a different way- by sending a special

postcard home. During this year our students were invited to submit a design for our postcards and we have recently

received these from the printers- they look great! Teachers will each receive a small number of postcards to secretly

identify students who are displaying our values during the remaining weeks of the year. These will be mailed home

to families as recognition of their work, which should be a nice surprise. Please note, that just like our remote learning

certificates, not all students will necessarily receive a postcard this year, but it will be an extra special

acknowledgement for those who demonstrate our values in a genuine and repeated manner. `

Finally, we received confirmation from the Department of Education to inform us that we are now able to organise a

graduation event for our Year 6 students!! Unfortunately, the rules are strict around its organisation and we will not

be able to have parents and families at the event. This is disappointing and not how we normally like to run graduation

as we are used to our parents taking charge of the event and using their creative energy to make the evening a fun

and memorable one. Our teachers will be talking to the students about what we can do and will no doubt host a

special event that is memorable to our students and will commemorate a key transition in their schooling. Students

really deserve a fine farewell from primary school after such a difficult year!

This year we are supporting the Drysdale RSL for the 2020 Poppy Appeal. A limited supply of $1 Poppy, $2 Poppy and

$3 wristbands are available at the office.

Have a great week!

Kind regards,

PREP UPDATE

The Preps have started a maths investigation all about helping the Fairy Godmother get Cinderella to the ball. This

week we investigated patterns and designed a dress for Cinderella to wear using patterns.

Mr Peter Knight - Principal


GRADE 1/2 UPDATE

In grade 1/2 we have been learning how to use interesting vocabulary to write poems about colours and emotions.

We have also been learning about Australia and where we live in Inquiry.

Tyler

Bea

Isabella

Liam R

MATHS CHARACTER DESIGN TASK

During remote learning, Grade 3-6 students were given an opportunity to design a

character for our junior students to help them explain their thinking in numeracy. All

students who chose to enter did a fantastic job and staff had a difficult job choosing just

one winner!

Our winner is Tyler Marange for his design of ‘Reasoning Roo’. This character can now be

used at Moolap Primary School to encourage junior students to think more deeply and

explain their thinking when learning in numeracy. Well done Tyler!

Students now have the opportunity to design 3 more characters for the other maths

proficiencies. Entries close on Monday November 9th. Please see Google Classrooms for

more information. I’m looking forward to seeing the new designs! - Mrs Laura Blackwell




GRADE 5/6 MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY

The grade 5/6 students have been focusing on Measurement and Geometry in our Maths lessons. Students have

enjoyed the opportunity to practise measuring angles and exploring 3D shapes through creative, hands on activities.

Students made models of 3D shapes, applying their knowledge of nets using toothpicks and modelling clay. They

were also given permission to write all over their tables...for the purpose of measuring angles with a protractor!

This activity was definitely a highlight!

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