Firstly, thank you to all the families that came along last Friday and watched the year four assembly. It was great to see so many faces supporting our students, especially coming into a long weekend. Once again, I was proud of the students resilience and maturity. It is not an easy thing to get up in front of the whole community and not only talk but sing. The students once again stepped up to the challenge.

Secondly, there has been a change to the homework expectations in grade 4. This is aligned with one of the St Joseph’s goals of improving reading. I have increased opportunities for reading at school with reading rotations, silent reading daily after lunch and also reading a novel to the students. The home reading expectations have increased to get students to practise reading behaviours taught at home to help all students see improvement in reading this year. Please make sure you are completing the home reading form otherwise I’ll assume no reading has been completed at home.

Thirdly, it has been a big fortnight for myself and the students as the end of term  approaches with the reports going home in that last week of term. The students have been applying themselves to all the tasks I have set and have been demonstrating their knowledge very well. Attendance during this time is even more important than usual as students can miss important tasks that will affect their grades on reports. Where possible, inform myself and/or the office of any absences. That way, we can be prepared and come up with alternatives for your child to do while they are absent.

Currently our attendance is that 42% of students attend 95% of the time or more. This percentage has once again decreased from last week and we all need to be working together to improve this figure.

Lastly, we have finished studying procedures and are starting a new unit on poetry this week. The students will be examining different poems and constructing their own poem. If you or the students have any favourite poems, feel free to send them to school to share.

Miss Briody