Start of winter

After a few days of mild weather last week we have had our first really cold day for the year here at Glen Park. It was overcast, wet and cold all day.
Tomorrow we start NAPLAN testing. ( Numeracy, Language Conventions, Reading and Writing) Because we are a small school our results aren't published publicly on the My School Website so we can't use the data (which is usually very good) for promotion purposes and we don't get the results until September! therefore the data is a bit old to be of use to us. The On Demand and Torch tests I do a the start and end of the year is far more useful to me.I Also have issues with the writing test which doesn't relate to how we teach writing to our students (The topics for the persuasive writing text is also usually lame)
I prefer the approach they take in Finland where they randomly select a few schools to do the testing and the results aren't publicised.
Below are some photos of our garden beds (Our veggies are starting to 'take off') and my kookaburra buddy who preferred the shelter of our trees rather than his usual fence post.

PS A special welcome to Brandee who has joined my small but special group of followers.