Dear Parents and Caregivers,

I hope you have enjoyed the holiday break with your children at home.  We seem to have had some lovely weather.  It has been great to see some of the children in the playground, on their bikes, skateboarding, scootering or using the basketball hoops.

Welcome back to term four.  We just have a few updates before the term starts.

HATS

A reminder that term four is a term where the children need to be bringing and wearing a hat when they are outside.  The school brimmed hat becomes a compulsory part of the uniform.  The children will be given a three day grace period in the first week to have their hat, after this they will be asked to stay in the shade areas at morning tea and lunch if they do not have a hat.

2021 START and END DATES

The 2021 school year will start on Thursday 4th Feb.  We plan to have Teacher only days during the week before children return to school.  Our final day in 2021 will be Fri 17 Dec.

STAFFING / CLASS PLACEMENTS

During the holiday break we appointed eight teachers to either fixed term or permanent teaching positions.  We look forward to Alice, Amy and Charlotte taking up permanent positions and Chantal, Lavinia, Paige, Susie and Suzy continuing in fixed term positions for 2021.  We now have our teaching staff for 2021.  The next phase will be to start placing teachers in teams and children in classes for 2021.  Next year there will be movement in the school due to;

  • Retiring teachers
  • Changes of pod partners
  • Two teams reducing from six teachers to five
  • Movement of teachers between teams
  • Physical space changes
    • at this stage we will not be using Rms11, 12, 13 as everyday learning spaces
    • we have been asked by the MoE to use two rooms we thought were being demolished as learning spaces in 2021

We have considered all of the above aspects carefully and have come to the decision that we will be regrouping the majority of children in 2021 due to these changes.  This will predominantly affect the Y3, Y5, Y7 children who in previous years have been taught by the same teacher for two years.

Our process for placing children will continue to be the same;

  • Seeking information that is important from parents
    • We will keep our survey open until Monday 19 October – https://forms.gle/m4G7izLTuf9QbYQQ9
    • We ask that you let us know aspects that will be relevant for your child’s placement, rather than selecting a teacher
  • Asking children to identify three / four children that they think they can learn well with in the classroom
  • Teacher recommendations of groups of children

At St Martins School we strive to create mixed ability classes, using the following definition for placing children: groups of children working at similar levels – with consideration of ages, social aspects and behavioural needs.  We work hard at getting combinations right for each year, the process for class placements is completed over a number of weeks for the majority of term four.

If you would like to have a chat about any aspects above please come and see either myself, Alice D or Jenny.

Y8 LEADERS

We have discussed with the Y7 group of children the leadership opportunities for 2021.  These include head boy / girl, deputy head boy / girl, student council and house captain roles.  The process we follow for selecting students for these roles is;

  • Gathering initial student interest in the roles
  • Gathering information from all Y7s based on who they believe would be good leaders in their year group to represent them
  • Completion of specific application forms
  • High Flier Teacher nominations of students
  • High Flier and Senior Leadership Team consultation

We have completed the first two aspects and will move into the more formal application process this term.  We gather all of this information together to form a leadership team that is representative of the year group.

We look forward to seeing everyone back at school on Monday to start our last term of 2020. Enjoy the last few days of the holiday break.

Regards,

Andrew