Greetings West Dover Families

A few items of note this week.  We would like to welcome our new families to our school.  Each week we have some new families who have just moved to the community and who are joining our school.  Our work around english as an additional language is important work.  Children are encouraged to speak their home language at home, as research shows us that English as an Additional Language students benefit from a strong home language as it helps English language learners to have a context for the English words they are using at school.  It is important to know that your children will become fluent English speakers often much faster than their parents as children at school are living in English for almost 7 hours per day.

Our teachers are busy working on a piece of our School Development Plan.  Our goal this year is around improving assessment.  This past couple of weeks Teachers have been working at creating proficiency based assessment experiences for their students.  Proficiency based assessment allows teachers to determine if a child's understanding and skills are at a basic, good, or advanced level.  When you are able to access your child's report card towards the end of the month, it is important to know that children are assessed using a proficiency scale and that proficiency is determined through a body of evidence that teachers gather over a term.  It is always ok to check in with your child's teacher about how they are doing in school.

Looking forward to another fantastic week of learning

Roy Strum

Principal