Raelene Taggart

Clinton Jury

26th November 2018

1

Glenelg Primary School is a large primary school of 808 students on a small block of land on the corner of Brighton Road andDiagonal Road. Whilst it is a busy corner, the grounds have been landscaped to provide a range of natural play spaces andcreative play areas. The students at Glenelg come from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, with 32% School Cardstudents and 195 students with English as an Additional Dialect. There are 11 Aboriginal students in the school.A big focus for the school in 2018 was the development of practices to support and challenge each child in reading at theirlevel. Teams of teachers from the school also worked collaboratively to develop learning experiences in STEM that challengedstudents and inspired them to be actively engaged in learning. Teams have worked to transform learning designs and improvelearning outcomes and measure the change in attitude- particularly in girls in STEM. Parent communication from classroomteachers was high and the showcase of learning evening on STEM was well attended.

Once again we have celebrated many highlights as individuals, small groups, and as a whole school community. These werereported regularly in the school newsletter. Glenelg Primary School is a vibrant and dynamic learning community that fostersthe pursuit of individual excellence. Our work in Performing Arts demonstrated in performances and presentations, our qualityteaching and learning programs and our commitment to improvement are valued by the school community. Support forintervention to support children's learning programs has continued to be a focus at GPS. The children from every classthroughout the school receive a range of supports in all school activities. The Stretch and NAPLAN support programs this yearhave identified the high achievers and sought to further engage and extend them.

Student voice continues to be highly valued at the school and Senior School Leaders, Peer Mentors and Ambassadors take anactive role in planning all that is undertaken. The school culture of support and encouragement has ensured a smooth transitionfor new staff and students. The Glenelg Kids’ Council has students from every year level and they have been involved inmaking decisions about things that affect them. Student decision making and feedback in curriculum and assessment is a focusfor all staff and activities to build the level of decisions in which the students are involved continue to develop and grow.

As a Governing Council we are pleased to represent the parent voice in the governance of Glenelg Primary School. At a timewhen probably our most precious commodity is time we are grateful to the many parents who give just that in support of theirSchool.

It's been another very successful year - our excitement for our new building grew (and diminished!) in a short space of time butwe look forward to that being built in the medium to long term.

We were pleased as a site to be the trial location for a Department IT trial increasing the speed of our devices and bringing arange of new services to the school and we were also invited to be a part of a STEM evaluation. New thinking and problemsolving for our School which brings many opportunities for our students.

Sports Day was once again a huge School Community day for Glenelg Primary - students and their extended familiescelebrated a wonderful day of fun, games and competitive spirit!

On behalf of the parent community I say a huge thank you to our teaching faculty, our support staff and volunteers - withoutyour continued support and enthusiasm for Glenelg Primary School our children would not be able to be the best version ofthemselves.

2

Our priority this year has been to improve student-learning outcomes. Teachers tracked and monitored each student’sprogress. Teams of teachers reviewed student progress and collaboratively planned student learning. Smart targets for studentlearning were established and monitored. Target success has been measured by student achievement in NAPLAN, PAT R,PAT M and A-E assessments.

Another priority has been to build the capacity of our students to articulate and stretch their thinking and learning. Teachershave undergone training in Cultures of Thinking and Thinking Routines. Students are using a variety of thinking routines inclass to articulate what they are thinking and learning. This has led to increased student collaboration and engagement withtheir learning and other learners.

All teachers were involved in sharing and reflecting on their professional practice. Teachers were expected to show evidence ofhow they task design to improve the quality of teacher instruction and the learning experiences they provide. This involvedprofessional development and building in the expectation that every team must focus on teacher questioning, feedback, studentvoice and transforming tasks to differentiate for all learning needs. Implementing a process where every teacher must observeanother teacher’s practice was particularly useful in analysing how these elements were used in in the classroom setting.Reflections and feedback were part of this journey which will continue in 2019. In terms of wellbeing; programmes andcounselling continue to be an integral requirement in this role. Lunchtime activities, one-to-one counselling and liaising with theDfE Wellbeing Practitioner continues to be of a high priority in this school.

2018 saw some major advances in our delivery of digital technologies. At the start of Term 2, we rolled out Sentral as ourlearning management system. Sentral allows us to consolidate a number of tasks into one package. Staff received an inductioninto using Sentral for attendance, student information, family information, reports, diagnostic data entry, daily notices, schooldocuments, resource bookings and calendars. More features will be added to these as we become more experienced in thesoftware. Sentral was also set up to be accessed securely from outside the school and gave teachers the ability to do academicreports from home. Staff have embraced the new technology.Early in the year, we replaced our aging curriculum server with two new Dell Power Edge 740 servers and at the same timere-located these in a new rack mount cabinet.In Term 3, we became part of a department trial of a new Internet connection and filtering system. The trial gave us significantlyfaster Internet (500GB) and an effective, easy to use filter system.During the year, we also purchased 32 new laptops and new mobile trolleys. We also purchased about 80 iPads for classroomuse. A number of classroom interactive projectors were also replaced.During Terms 3 & 4, we took part in a STEM research project funded by the department. The aim of this was to increase theconfidence and engagement of girls in STEM. The project collected significant data that will be summarised early in 2019.

3

4

5

The school has continued to show strong growth over the year 3 to 5 period and over the year 5 to 7 period. We believe this issupported by the intervention programs we are running and the focus this year on keeping students in the higher band. Thisfocus is something we will continue to build upon and will hopefully be more noticeable in 2019. Glenelg Primary spends timeanalysing data from NAPLAN, PAT and A-E data, and this is identifying trends to be addressed as a staff and individual studentneeds to be tackled. The number of students in the NAPLAN high bands continues to rise across the board except in year 5reading. This is currently being looked at carefully by the current year 4 teachers.

Teachers from reception to year 7 are working to move students into the high bands in NAPLAN testing and aiming to improveour number of students reaching SEA to 85% . The work on data analysis and running records in reading have supportedstrong numbers in the higher bands, but ongoing work needs to be undertaken in numeracy to lift the scores in this area. thearea identified as the most in need is in number. The QIP for 2019 addresses this and actions are being formulated.

The other work that will be investigated in 2018 is a focus on strategies to keep our top performing students in the top twobands - particularly year 3 to year 5. This entails talking with students about their abilities and ensuring a growth mindset tokeep them in the top performing groups. The reading results are much stronger than the maths results and the development ofa numeracy plan will focus on this data. The percentage of students in year 7 is continuing to fall in the top bands over the lastfew years and perhaps not achieving to their potential across the board. the format of numeracy learning in years 6 and 7 will elooked at for further development.

A focus group for each of the NAPLAN year levels was established to support students before the May testing and then workedwith year 2, 4, and 6 students in preparation for the 2019 national assessments. The focus with the year 2, 4 and 6s has beenon the students with high potential to keep or support students to move into the top bands.

6

The attendance at school is the highest it has been in several years. This is linked to the ongoing work by classroom teachersand support personnel to follow up absences and remind families regularly of the need to attend to engage and grow children.the lower attendance can be attributed to a few families where children rarely attend. The range of measures (case by case)utilised to improve this included phone calls, home visits and contact with DCP/online reports. We also worked with thesefamilies using DfE behaviour personnel, the ACEO and the Child Protection Worker.

The school continues to monitor and manage the behaviour code of the school. The 'Rethink' process using RestorativeJustice practices continues to be a focus at class and school level. This assures parents that they are informed of issues andinvolved in resolutions when needed. As a staff group we believe that this shared responsibility is essential for themanagement of a large school.

From a school population of 808 in 2018, there were 3 ‘take homes’, 19 days of suspension and 10 days suspension pendingexclusion. The school also has 2 full time RAAP students with 1:1 teacher funding that require significant intervention. Issueswith children were addressed collaboratively with DfE personnel with planned interventions for the future.

The survey results of parents, staff and students continue to be scored in the 4-5 range. That is, there is an agreement that theculture of the school is positive, that decision making is shared, that feedback on performance and student achievement isstrong and that the school buildings and facilities are well maintained.

High expectations amongst all groups are very important at Glenelg with the data scoring children 4.7 in expectations ofteachers, staff scoring 4.6 and parents scoring this aspect at 4.5. We know that high expectations help to lift outcomes and wecontinue to have high expectations of our school community. Children continue to feel safe and report the learning program atschool to be challenging, with scores consistently around 4.5 in these areas. This is the basis of the school climate and assistsus to continue with our improvement agenda.Student behaviour management was identified last year and was addressed by staff and through Kids' Council this year. Theresponses indicate that staff feel supported with behaviour and that students have seen an improvement in how staff addressissues - up to 4.3 on a 5 point scale. The regular bully audit identified issues on the school oval and play areas have beenisolated and addressed to try and help sort this issue. The school community were involved in identifying ways that we canensure everyone is satisfied with the management of behaviour and the reporting to parents on the behaviour. The studentsmarked this area as an area of improvement and this was supported through the MDI data.

Feedback has been a focus area at Glenelg again in 2018 and it is encouraging to see that all parties continue to score wellreceiving feedback about learning. This area will continue to be a focus as student involvement in decision making regardingthe curriculum continues to be fostered to a higher level. This is a growth area for the school and one that we believe will bewell supported and assist us in continuing to improve learning outcomes.

7

Parents, grandparents and volunteers apply regularly to be screened so that they can participate in the school and be part ofintervention programs. Staff screening is also monitored very carefully to ensure all people in the school are clear for work withchildren. Following screening RAN updates are offered and parents are kept informed of their mandated requirements as avolunteer in a school.

In 2018 there were 90 applications submitted, 12 not completed and 76 approved and 2 pending. The process is managed inthe school by the Deputy Principal.

8

-

18,934

262,209.94

52,757

111,262

Fo

cus

onle

arni

ng

and

inte

gra

ting

with

othe

rsim

prov

ing

Ach

ievi

ng

goal

sse

t

Th

ism

oney

supp

orte

dth

eem

plo

yme

ntof

129

hour

sof

SS

Osu

ppor

tthr

oug

hout

the

year

.T

his

time

wa

sal

loca

ted

toM

ini-L

it,M

ulti-

Lit

and

Qui

cksm

art

Mat

hs.

Lear

ning

exte

nsio

nfo

rst

uden

tsar

ound

benc

hmar

kal

sofu

nded

.

Gle

nel

gP

rim

ary

only

rece

ives

0.2

time

for

800

stud

ents

!T

he

wo

rkun

dert

aken

isim

port

anta

nd

issu

pple

men

ted

byth

esc

hool

'sw

ellb

ein

gpr

ogra

m.

Co

unse

llin

gfo

rst

uden

tslim

ited

bytim

e.