As we begin a new school year, we look forward to partnering with you in supporting your child’s learning and development. One of the key ways we do this is through effective assessment, which provides meaningful feedback on student progress. Understanding how assessment works at our school will help you support your child throughout the year, encouraging their academic growth and confidence in learning.

In Years 1 to 10, we use the NESA Common Grade Scale, which describes student achievement across five levels: A, B, C, D, and E. These grades are not based on a single test or assignment but rather reflect how well a student has demonstrated their understanding and skills in relation to curriculum standards. A ‘C’ grade, for example, indicates that a student is working at the expected standard, while an ‘A’ demonstrates an advanced ability to apply and extend their knowledge.

How Do Teachers Assess Student Learning?

To provide a clear picture of student achievement, teachers use a variety of assessment methods throughout the year:

• Formal vs. Informal Assessments – Formal assessments include structured tasks such as assignments and tests, while informal assessments involve teacher observations, class discussions, and practical activities.
• Summative vs. Formative Assessments – Summative assessments evaluate learning at the end of a unit, while formative assessments provide ongoing feedback to guide students in improving their understanding and skills.

The grades on your child’s semester report reflect their performance across both formal and informal, and summative and formative assessments. This ensures a well-rounded view of their learning, rather than relying on a small number of high-stakes tasks.

Fostering a Growth Mindset

Assessment should be seen as a tool for growth rather than just a measure of performance. By focusing on what they have learned and what they can do next, students develop perseverance and a love of learning. When parents understand this process, they can support their children by encouraging reflection, goal setting, and engagement with teacher feedback.

We value our partnership with parents and look forward to working together to support each student’s learning journey this year. If you have any questions about assessment, we encourage open conversations to ensure your child thrives.

We are calling on parents, grandparents and caregivers to join our Reading Army—a wonderful opportunity to support our young readers! By volunteering your time to listen to students read, you’ll be making a real difference in their confidence, fluency, and love of reading.

Reading aloud is a crucial part of literacy development, and having extra listening ears ensures that every child gets the practice and encouragement they need. Whether you can commit weekly or just occasionally, your involvement will be greatly valued.

If you’d like to be part of this rewarding experience, please complete this form, or contact me directly. https://forms.office.com/r/qyG0RKBWjW

Thank you for our fantastic response from parents for volunteers for our 6-Foot Track Camp, we always love partnering with our parents. Your support makes a world of difference!

With musical auditions complete, we are thrilled to begin rehearsals for Peter Pan! Our first rehearsal kicks off tomorrow, and we can’t wait to bring this magical production to life. If you have a hidden talent or a knack for set-building, we would love your help – Please contact us.

Thinking about Year 7 at OCS in 2026? Join us for Discover Year 7 Day on Monday, 17 March! This is a fantastic opportunity for students and parents to explore what OCS has to offer. Secure your spot by registering here: https://www.ocs.nsw.edu.au/discover-year-7-day/. We’d love to see you there! If you have a child currently in Year 6 at OCS, and your child will be attending the day, there is no need to fill out the form – we assume they’ll be there! Please let us know if they won’t be.

Stage 4 Mathematics students recently participated in the ‘Problems, Patterns, Pictures & Puzzles’ workshop, facilitated by the team from Inquisitive Minds. This is an engaging, fully-interactive incursion designed to develop students’ critical thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. Students were immersed in mathematical and logic puzzles, working in teams to solve problems of varying difficulty and abstractness. This year, our students were also given the opportunity to participate in an engineering and building challenge, with one of the teams — made up mostly of Year 7 students — creating a free-standing wooden block bridge with a span of 77 cm which is a top-10 record for NSW schools!

It has been wonderful seeing the children settle in so well in just a couple of weeks of starting Prep. Mrs Denham has started coming into Prep and doing music with the children. She will come in every Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, to ensure that all children will have the opportunity to participate. Music is important in the early years as it gets the children moving, thinking and inspires creativity.

The Prep teachers have begun the PreLit program. PreLit is a systematic, skills-based program that lays a sound foundation for children to learn to read. This evidence-based program includes Phonological Awareness and Language Development. If you would like to know more about this program and how we teach the contents, please have a chat to one of the teachers. We are also implementing the Positive Living Skills Program. This program supports young children develop a positive self-esteem and positive relationships with themselves and others.

Our school was built on a heritage of strong partnership between parents and the school, where open communication and parent involvement are both valued and encouraged. As parents, we are ultimately responsible for educating our children towards a relationship with Jesus and a Christian way of living and OCS will continue to faithfully partner with you on this journey. Former American President Lyndon Johnson once said “There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.”

OCS is a lot stronger through the involvement of parents and families and we can do significantly more with your help. Given the importance of parent partnership, parent engagement will continue to be a focus of school activities in the future. I encourage you to engage with OCS in whatever way that you can in 2025 by participating in school events and by praying for the school.

Last week we held our Dedication Service for our community. We have one every year, but this one seemed a little more special. It was almost like we had some extra things to be thankful for and to ask God to protect and help us steward well this year…

To show just a token of our appreciation to our community and to OCS staff that have had input into our projects taking place from the carpark build to the k-block classroom renovation, we got an ice cream truck and some sausages cookin, and made an afternoon of it! As probably most of our community – and definitely our staff – can attest to, we are experiencing that “stretching” feeling of growing as we upgrade our facilities and add to the growing family of OCS – we are up for it and we hope you are too!

Thank you to Swirl & Dip Ice Cream and Coffee for coming and doing the ice cream for this event – your soft serve was delicious and we had plenty of smiles on ice cream covered faces from students, staff and parents alike.

Thanks to our community for coming to help celebrate!