Windermere for sale!

It was interesting to read a story in the Ballarat Courier late last week about the sale of Windermere Primary School. The school has been 'unstaffed' for the last few years but the buildings are still there and intact. The Principal of Yuille Park P-8 was in the paper complaining that his request to take over the school site as a dedicated rural school annex was rejected out of hand in favour of a sale. His complaint was that a state education site dating back to the 1850s was going to be lost for good if it was sold. 

According to the government the land was offered to other government departments but apparently they weren't interested. That is the problem. The whole process lacks transparency. It is not just Windermere but also Smeaton and Learmoth. ( Both of these sites have been put forward as rural campuses before) These schools that have served their communities honourably since the gold rush have been closed quietly and without the fanfare they deserve. As far as the wider education community are concerned they are open one minute and closed the next without any explanation or any effort to attract enrolments. ( I know better than anyone how fickle enrolment figures can be. We were down to 5 students three years ago and now we have 13. These things happen in small rural communities and some patience and extra support might be required. That isn't easy when the regional office has been de-populated.)

I hope Yuille Park has some success but I doubt it. 

Making Wands

The grade 6 kids went outside and found some sticks that they thought looked like wands. They polished them up with sand paper and then painted them.

They also created a 'monster behind the door' picture and put some 'safety tape' across the door.

We also made a Diagon Alley shop model which turned out well.( The same house will be recycled into Dick Whittington's house for the grade 1-2 kids)

We had a prison break in the sandpit today for some reason. They were busy today digging tunnels everywhere. ( as if the rabbits aren't bad enough!)

We have a bit of a wetlands happening in the paddock at the back of the school. I counted 5 different water birds frolicking about at lunch time.

Dental Visits

We had a visit today from a dentist and dental nurse from Ballarat Health Services. I requested their visit. they talked with the kids about looking after their teeth and the process of losing their baby teeth and the need to look after the teeth that come through next.

We had a visit from what looked like black cockatoos today. Swarms came over in relays for about an hour. They were very noisy. They sat in trees around the school and then flew off. I've seen plenty of White and grey cockies but none like these before.

Grade 6 students today finished either Harry Potters potions or Hogwarts text books.

Tales From Moominvalley

This is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Finnish author Tove Jansson (or Janssen) who is best known as the author of the quirky Moomin books. This is a LINK to my TPT unit for The Tales of Moominvalley.

This week I'll be finishing my unit on folktales and I will add that unit to TPT next weekend.

Poor student attendance has an impact ( Surprise surprise)

The WA Times has an interesting story about the impact on student learning by school absences:

Missing just one day of school has negative consequences for a student’s academic achievement, the first major study linking poor attendance to lower NAPLAN results has found.

And school attendance patterns established as early as year 1 can predict how often a student will show up to class right through high school, according to the research.

On Monday, the harmful effects of that absenteeism will be exposed by the results of a study to be presented at the Australian Council for Educational Research’s annual conference.The average public school student in NSW misses almost three weeks of school each year. Australia is alarmingly slack when it comes to school attendance, with high school students skipping more days of school than almost any other developed country.

An analysis of the attendance records and NAPLAN results of more than 400,000 students from Western Australia found any absence from school leads to a decline in academic performance.

The study dispels the belief there is a safe level of absence students can get away with before their grades will suffer.

“We were able to show that actually every day counts and days that you’re missing in year 3 and year 5, we can detect that all the way through to year 9,” the report's co-author, Stephen Zubrick, from the University of Western Australia, said.

“A 10-day period of unauthorised absence in a year is sufficient to drop a child about a band in the NAPLAN testing.”

Year 3 numeracy achievement in 2012 declined by 1.6 NAPLAN points for every unauthorised day of absence in the first two terms of that year.

The most startling finding,  Professor Zubrick said, was that students arrive in year 1 “with their school attendance careers already in their pockets”.

“For most children, year 1 sets the pattern for what school attendance will look like in the future,” Professor Zubrick said. “You’re learning more than reading and writing. You’re learning to show up.”

Absence was found to have a greater impact on writing than it did on numeracy and reading.

Principals and teachers would not find this data surprising. We were told many years ago that 12-14 days absence from school has an impact on student learning. After just one day is surprising. You can see patterns develop from quite early on and you can see the impact of it. NAPLAN data was used to help generate these findings but it would be interesting to see what the impact of poor attendance is on rural students and what rural data on attendance looks like.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/skipping-school-for-just-one-day-affects-naplan-results-study-finds-20140802-zzjmr.html#ixzz39HWUkI00

The story can also be read in the Guardian

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2714576/Every-day-counts-Perfect-attendance-early-year-one-positive-NAPLAN-results-long-run.html

Starting tasks on Harry

We started work this week on Harry Potter tasks. Some of what we completed were put up on display and are pictured below. They included Harry Potter swap cards, ( I remember when the movie first came out they sold chocolate frogs with swap cards in them) wands, Diagon Alley sweet shop as well projects on boa constrictors.

I waited 3 hours ( wasted time on Pinterest and downloaded some apps for work - they don't have an app for Dick Whittington and his Cat?) until the ice melted and then popped up to get some red-tape completed. it turned out nice and sunny ( I took a photo at the same place I took one near our school sign when it snowed yesterday. Victoria- snowing one day- sunny the next.)

Icy

I was heading off to school as normal ( if you can call it normal on Saturday morning) this morning at 7:30 when I noticed ice on the road outside my home ( in suburban Ballarat) I drove up the road and noticed cars driving very slowly along the main road . When I got to the roundabout near the Arch of Victory my car literally slipped around the corner without much control. Not surprisingly I crept back home. Photo of ice on the road outside my house below. It was then I noticed puddles had iced over. I'll try again after lunch- those toilets won't clean themselves!

Snow

Very chilly at work today. It was snowing when I arrived at 7 but it wasn't until recess time ( around 11) that it started to snow seriously ( settling on the ground) and it snowed again at lunch time. 

The kids were a bit unsettled to say the least. ( I know those of you reading from some parts of Europe and the US will find this amusing but we're not really high enough in Ballarat to get much snow and today's 'dump' was the best we've had since 2008) 

Below are a few photos I took at recess time.