Building on the strengths of students:

At Good Samaritan we are revising our system of monitoring the progress of students with meetings called Case Management Meetings. These are regular forums where teachers present student work samples. It is a problem solving approach which focuses on the supporting the classroom teacher with instructional strategies to apply within the classroom. The information that is prepared for these meetings allows for the precise determination of the next steps of instructional strategies needed to meet the differentiated learning needs of students.

These meetings always begin with the strengths a student presents within the classroom. Often defaulting to what children can’t do can result in thinking about student learning within a deficit model. As parents, we too, may not look toward the strengths of our children but rather what they can’t do or aren’t doing.

What are your child’s strengths? Here’s a list to help you identify them. This list is not designed as a checklist and should not be used as such, but rather is a general list of attributes observed in children.

Adapted from www.understood.org

Out of School Hours (OOSH) Care in 2020:

Good Samaritan is currently looking at providing an OOSH service beginning in the 2020 school year. This service would be facilitated by CatholicCare with close collaboration with Good Samaritan. The service would operate based upon the systems and structures that are valued at Good Samaritan.

In order to ascertain the interest of parents in accessing such a service, the completion of a survey is required. This survey would take no longer than 5 minutes to complete and seeks to collect information including operating hours, days of operation and what parents would value in such a service.

Click here to complete the survey or follow the link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GoodSamaritan_OOSH

The survey will close on Friday 24 May.

When do students start to wear Winter uniform?

As the weather has started to cool, parents may be use their discretion in having students wear the Winter uniform throughout this week. However, all students will be expected to wear their full Winter uniform from next week. (Monday 13 May 2019)

Please be advised that students may wear a navy blue long sleeved T-shirt or skivvy under the Good Samaritan Sports polo shirt.

Parent Action: Parents are asked to ensure that students are dressed in the full Winter uniform from the week beginning 13 May 2019.

SPB4L:

This week we are remembering to value:

            Kindness and compassion

We can do this by:

• Showing care for ourselves
• Showing kindness towards others through actions and/or words
• Random acts of kindness

iPads & Apps:

At Good Samaritan iPads are used as tools used to help personalise learning for students. It is a portable multifunctional tool that can be a science lab, literacy tool, research device, film studio, art canvas, music studio, editing suite and a library. It is a tool that will be used at various intervals in classrooms throughout the school day.

The iPad provides the opportunity to personalise learning allowing for differentiation and

acceleration based on student needs. It also allows for greater collaboration between

students, teachers and parents.

At school, this collaboration may require students ‘mirror’ their work to the SMART televisions within the classroom. For classes operating in a 1:1 iPad environment it is important that their iPad is appropriately organised into what they use for working at school and for what they may use at home.

This means that student need to organise their apps within their device. The school recommends that all personal apps be housed within a ‘folder’ on the device which is not accessed during the school day.

Parent Action: Parents may need to support their child/ren in organising personal apps into folders on their child’s iPad.

Happy Mother’s Day to all our Good Samaritan mums!