PYP Evaluation Completed This Week

This week McKinnon Primary School has been completing the final stages of our International Baccalaureate (IB) Evaluation. Each IB World School is regularly evaluated to ensure that the standards and practices of its IB programme are implemented to a high level. The evaluation process aims to improve the implementation of the PYP by identifying strengths and weaknesses and determining areas for future focus.

We welcomed the IB School Evaluation Visiting Team of Vanessa Pfoehler and Helen Morchel into our school as they completed a variety of virtual tours and online meetings with groups of both staff and parents to assist them in completing the evaluation process and supporting McKinnon in our goal of improving student outcomes.

Thank you to the whole school community for your input and the huge amount of passion, knowledge and dedication that is evident in our school every day through our teaching and learning and developing our students to be lifelong, internationally minded learners.

A special thank you goes to the parents and to the members of the School Council who attended meetings with Helen and Vanessa to discuss McKinnon’s teaching and learning.

Finally, a big congratulations to Chris Barker who has led our school through the evaluation process. Chris has overseen the whole process and provided guidance to staff in the completion of our self-study, which has been a six month process.

Year Three Camp

We were so lucky to be able to send our Year Three students to camp last week. They had a great time at Camp Jungai. A big thank you to our team who travelled to Camp Jungai to support our Year Three students; Mrs Tuyau, Mr Azer, Mr Kefaloukos, Miss Butta, Miss Karabatos, Ms Khatib, Mr Barker, Mrs Saba, Ms Vriends, Ms Goncalves and Lara. Our students are so lucky to have staff who are willing to put in the extra effort to ensure we have a rich camping program at McKinnon. A special thank you to Mrs Tuyau for organising and Mr Kefaloukos for working together with the rest of the team to make this happen in a very short timeline.

2022 Parent Payments 

We are very proud of the educational programs, learning opportunities and activities that are on offer at McKinnon Primary School. We are focussed on providing your children with a comprehensive, fully resourced and up to date education in a clean and safe environment. We also provide rewarding educational experiences in programs such as camps, sport, excursions, incursions, swimming, library program etc. We strive to provide great memories for your children to fondly look back on. We plan for all students to access the curriculum and in all cases there are opportunities for support and extension as required. School Council has recently completed its annual review of the Parent Payment Policy. Parents are welcomed to pay their 2022 parent payments commencing 13th December through Compass or over the phone at the beginning of the 2022 school year.

Transition

As we look ahead to next year we are very mindful to ensure a smooth and supported transition for students as they move on to their next year level. As a part of this process, we have begun our transition program. The first transition session involved talking about what the big events are in the year level. The second transition session involves the teacher from the above year sharing some of the routines specific to the year level and finally in the third session the children will meet their 2022 class teacher and visit their new classroom.

Foundation Transition

Foundation Transition has one more week left, with students meeting their 2022 class teacher next week.

Thank you to the Foundation teachers for running the student sessions and Andrea Truckenbrodt, Chris Barker and Suzanne Khatib who led the curriculum/wellbeing sessions for the parents and finally thank you to Rebecca Newboult, Parent Club President and Natasha Hosein who shared the many opportunities parents have to be a part of our community. A big thank you to Lee Beattie for leading these sessions and the whole Foundation team for making our new Foundation students feel very welcome.

2022 Home Group Notification and Class Placement

On Tuesday 14th December, the students will meet their 2022 home group teacher and classmates. As a staff, we have focused on creating the most connected learning communities by ensuring teams are placed as close as possible. We are currently finalising teacher placement and will confirm this in the near future.

The 2022 Year Level Locations

Please see the school map for the location of each year level in 2022.

Year Six Graduation

As we come to the end of our school year, we are looking forward to celebrating with our Year Six students as they come to the end of their primary school years. We have a number of events planned for the students to celebrate their final year at McKinnon. This is a very special time for our Year Six students as they look towards their exciting time of transition to secondary school.

Semester Two Reports

All students will receive their Semester Two reports on Friday 10th December via Compass. If you wish to receive a hard copy of your child’s report please inform the office by Wednesday 8th December.

Returning Library Books & Loaned Musical Instruments

Returning books is as important as buying new ones so now is the time to check under your beds, on your bookshelves and generally around the house to make sure all books are returned by the end of the year.  If you have borrowed a musical instrument, we also need it returned to the school office before the end of the year for servicing.

ICAS Assessments Completed

ICAS Assessments have now been completed for all Year Three to Six students who had registered for this. Congratulations to all students who participated. ICAS certificates and results should be made available within 4 weeks.

We thank families for their understanding in what was a very difficult program to implement given the restrictive constraints we faced this year. The implementation process will be reviewed to ensure a more streamlined process for next year that has minimal impact on the day-to-day teaching and learning that takes place at school.

Medication Held On Site – Preparing For The End Of The School Year

For those children who have medication held at school and in preparation for the end of the school year, all medication will be returned home with your child on the last day of school.  If your child has medication at school and he/she will be finishing up before the end of the school year, please let First Aid know so we can return the medication to your child on their last day of school. We ask that you review and action all plans and medication before returning it back to school next year.

Have a lovely weekend,

Simone, Suzanne & David

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