Dear Parents,

The other members of the Auburn North staff and I hope you and your families are well.

BEST-EVER NAPLAN RESULTS

I hope like me you are absolutely delighted and proud to know that this year OUR school and our Year 3 and Year 5 students achieved our BEST-EVER NAPLAN results.

I also hope you read the article and saw the photograph of five of our Year 3 students that were published in Wednesday’s edition of the ‘Telegraph’ newspaper.

I spoke with a journalist from the newspaper for 20 minutes on Tuesday but only a little of what I said was included in the article. I understand why this was the case and I appreciate the ‘Telegraph’ choosing to include Auburn North’s excellent results in the article and a photo of some of our wonderful students.

Prior to the telephone conversation I knew the journalist would want to know the answer to the following question:

“Why does Auburn North achieve excellent NAPLAN results every year and especially this year?”

I asked the members of our excellent executive team if they could develop some information for me to refer to during the telephone conversation. As I have come to expect, the team devoted a good deal of time preparing just the right information.

When I spoke with the journalist, I used this information and my deep knowledge of our school to respond to her question. Please find below some comments I believe I made that were not included in the article:

“All members of our Auburn North FAMILY, that is our students, staff and parents are very proud of our 2024 NAPLAN results, which are our BEST-EVER results. We are so proud of our year 3 and year 5 students. However, we are prouder of the learning results our K-6 students achieve every single school day. The learning outcomes achieved by our K-6 students every day are every bit as outstanding as our NAPLAN achievements."

“Auburn North staff members believe there are many reasons why our K-6 students are very successful learners every day and why our Year 3 and Year 5 students achieved our best-ever NAPLAN results this year.

The reasons include our school culture and climate, our shared vision, our mindset, and our ‘3Ps,’ that are our Students, Staff and Parents.

All Auburn North students, staff and parents feel a strong sense of belonging and they know they are valued members of our school FAMILY.

Our school is very calm and we have nurtured an orderly learning environment across our K-6 school.

"We want our students to love school, love learning, and be sucessful learners."

"Our culture and climate are based on our school values that include kindness, fairness, honesty, friendship, and responsibility. All relationships amongst students, staff and parents are trusting and mutually respectful.

Our students and their wellbeing and learning thrive in our climate and culture."

"Our staff, students and parents teach, learn and parent together in perfect harmony to achieve our shared Vision. We want our students to become successful young people by developing outstanding literacy and numeracy skills, outstanding technology skills and outstanding 21st century skills such as critical thinking, and by living and breathing our school values."

"Another reason why our school and our students are so successful is because of our school community’s mindset or collective belief. Our students, staff and parents are highly aspirational and we all believe our K-6 students can achieve anything and everything."

"We see it as our duty to provide our students with the very best People, Programs and Practices (3Ps) to assist our K-6 students achieve excellent wellbeing and learning outcomes every day.

A school is all about People. I have taught in high schools and primary schools in five countries and been the principal of three schools. The members of the Auburn North FAMILY are absolutely delightful and they are why I have loved every day of my 24 years at Auburn North.

Our Auburn North students are the best-behaved and most respectful, motivated and appreciative students I have ever met.

Our staff members are the most dedicated, hard-working, dynamic, cohesive and happiest team of people I have ever seen assembled in a school.

Our parents are the most gentle, kind, interested and supportive parents I have ever met.

Coming to Auburn North every day is an absolute JOY."

"Some programs and practices that have been vital to assisting our K-6 students achieve great learning results include:

1. Developed an excellent distributed leadership team. This unified team includes the nine members of our executive team and our nine grade leaders. They participate in high-quality leadership and management programs to assist them further develop their knowledge and skills and they lead the development and implementation of exemplary teaching and learning programs.
2. To assist every teacher become the very best teacher they can become, our classroom teachers and specialist teachers participate in weekly training professional learning workshops. Our four assistant principals and two instructional leaders are ‘off class’ but ‘in classes’. They demonstrate teaching, team-teach with teachers, and teach small groups of students. Importantly, the leaders video teachers while they teach and the leaders and teachers watch the videos to further improve each teacher’s teaching skills.
3. Explicit teaching is the mode of teaching our teachers use in most literacy and numeracy lessons. Our teachers use our Auburn North explicit teaching Instructional Teaching Model (IM). This provides students with an excellent structure and support for their learning. We continue to improve the way in which the IM is used.
4. All students participate in differentiated, ability-based literacy groups for two hours every morning. Leaders and specialist teachers teach some groups in each grade, so students learn in small groups rather than whole classes.
5. Developed and implemented our K-2 ‘Phonological Awareness, Phonics and Spelling Scope and Sequence’. This involves explicit daily phonics and reading lessons. This will soon become a K-6 program.
6. Developed and implemented a new maths ‘K-6 scope and sequence plan’, lesson plans and assessment targets to accompany the new K-6 curriculum.
7. Provided the opportunity for parents to develop the confidence, knowledge and skills to be active participants in their children’s learning. These include our ‘Parents as Partners in Learning’ workshops and our Harmony House programs"

At the end of the conversation I believe I said something like "While our special school is a high-performing school, we can never become complacent. We must always keep moving FORWARD and becoming better because our students deserve nothing less."

CLASS REPORTS

For your reading pleasure, please find in this newsletter class reports from KS and 5C. I would like to thank and congratulate KS students and 5C students and their teachers Ms Sayan and Ms Chan.

Mark Harris

Principal

This year has been a truly remarkable journey in the KS classroom, brimming with exciting milestones and outstanding achievements! Our students have soared by doing their best and then a little bit more in every subject. Their growth in reading, math, and beyond has been remarkable, and it’s been a pleasure to see their dedication and enthusiasm shine through in all their achievements.

Literacy:

Get ready to dive into the exciting world of reading with us this term! KS is thrilled to begin reading Level 2 and 3 texts. We have been focusing on level 3 phonemes and using them to sound out and blend words during our supported reading lessons. Each day, our reading skills are progressing as we read more fluently.

KS has shown determination to produce outstanding sentences that reflect their writing goal for every lesson. In writing, we have been learning to write interesting sentences that include capital letters, spaces between words and full stops. We have written sentences about a variety of farm animals such as cows, pigs, ducks and many more.

It is amazing to see how each new word we master opens up new adventures in our stories and sparks even more creativity in our writing!

Numeracy:

In numeracy, we are having great fun with numbers as students master counting to 20 and counting backwards from 10! We are exploring how to create combinations of numbers that add up to 10. KS students have successfully used their ten frames and double-sided counters to uncover all the possible pairs of numbers that make 10. We are even recording our number combinations and proudly sharing our discoveries like true mathematicians!

KS Spotlight:

Kindergarten is a thrilling adventure where academic learning meets exciting physical and social development! This term, KS students have leapt into the world of gymnastics, diving into exhilarating and challenging activities that boost both physical and social skills. From balancing on beams to jumping onto mats with trampolines and crawling through tunnels, our students have shown incredible perseverance and skill. It’s been heartwarming to watch our friends gain confidence and cheer each other on as they conquer each new challenge!

We are looking forward to a tremendous Term 3 filled with happiness, discovery and endless opportunities of learning!

What has 5C been learning with Miss Chan?

Literacy

In reading this term, the 5C class began a new program where we delve into the vocabulary, comprehension and core concepts of a text.  Each week, 5C will be focusing on a different picture book to develop their vocabulary and reading and comprehension skills. This week we read ‘The Little Refugee’ written by Anh Do and focused on theme as the core concept. ‘The Little Refugee’ allowed 5C to learn about the importance of family and overcoming adversity.

In our writing lessons, 5C have been revising their knowledge on the structure of a narrative and the wonderful ways we can make our writing captivating to the reader.  This is so we are prepared to write fractured fairy tales, which is the focus of our writing program this term. 5C are so excited to use well known fairy tales as inspiration to compose their own stories with a twist!

Numeracy

In maths, 5C has been learning about additive relations. Not only are we building our skills to add and subtract, we are solving multi-step addition and subtraction word problems. These challenging word problems involve up to three-digit numbers where we are using the CUBES strategy to successfully help us understand what the question is asking us to do. 

Key Learning Areas - PDH

This term 5C will continue working with KM students in peer support. 5C have been teaching the students in KM how to use a mouse and a keyboard. Prior to our peer support lessons, 5C were given a variety of scenarios and learned how to be a great role model by showing effective communication and problem solving skills.

With a positive start to the term, 5C are looking forward to upcoming weeks. A few students from 5C shared what they are excited about in the upcoming term: 

• “This term I am looking forward to teaching my peer support student so they can be successful.” 
• "I am looking forward to Book Week since you can dress up in a costume from a book or a movie" 
• "I am excited about the Gold Badge assembly and the reward which is my favourite" 

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000