See further details in the Sports@Claremont section below.

Claremont College participated in the Perspectives Surveys in July 2021, to canvas the perceptions of our school community.

First of all, a huge thank you to all of our families who gave their time to complete these school surveys at the beginning of Term 3, at a time when everyone had a lot on their plates as we began a term of Off Campus Learning. We know and appreciate that by giving your time to complete the surveys, you were not only reflecting on current practices as you see them to help us, but you were also giving to the future direction of school. The power of the suite of surveys in the Perspectives Surveys, comes from the ability of our school to use quality data to support evidence informed decision making. Two-thirds of our families responded, with an even distribution across all grades, so we are able to utilise the data with the confidence that it is a true representation of our school community. Staff, Year 5 and 6 students and School Council members also completed the survey, so we have ‘voice’ from all of our stakeholders. 

The Perspectives surveys were developed by the AISNSW Evidence Institute, who ‘understands that independent schools are unique, multifaceted and dynamic environments committed to growth and improvement in all areas impacting their school community. In recognition of the need to collect and use robust data that reflects member school distinctiveness’.

AISNSW member schools use these surveys to monitor stakeholder views across a minimum two-yearly cycle. The data collected provides important information for the leadership team as we work with all stakeholders to investigate ways to better meet the needs of the school community. The rigorous data will now be used to inform future priorities, goals and targets, and the action plans designed to realise them. Progress toward these goals will be tracked longitudinally.

The Perspectives: our school in focus suite of surveys is a powerful tool to leverage the potential of quality data to make evidence-informed decisions. The exceptionally good news for us is that our consultant at the AISNSW said she has never seen such strong data and there are currently over 60 independent schools using the Perspectives suite of Surveys. To remind you, the surveys covered the 5 domains: School Environment, Teaching and Learning, Student Wellbeing, Leadership, and Community. And, the data was grouped into the following stakeholder groups: Students (Year 5 and 6 only), Teachers, Parents/Guardians, Non-Teaching Staff, Board Members and School Leaders.

All stakeholders responded to survey items on a six-point Likert scale (scored from 1-6), and had the opportunity to provide written feedback at the end of the survey. The written feedback has provided additional information to the survey data, and has also helped us by grouping and prioritising the key areas addressed across these written comments. 

Today we would like to share with you and to celebrate the comparative summary data. 

AGGREGATE SCORE

The figure below provides a high-level aggregate score, combining all responses for items across all five domains and for all stakeholders. Claremont College’s score is in light blue, whilst the comparative dataset - featuring the combined data of over sixty schools is in dark blue.

SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

School Environment is a critical element of each student’s school experience and contributes significantly to school success. This domain provides an indication of school climate through the exploration of the school’s vision, mission and values, the sense of safety the school fosters and the physical environment.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Teaching and Learning is at the core of a school’s purpose. It includes evidence-based decision-making processes which maximise student learning outcomes. Active and purposeful teaching and learning supports students’ academic achievement, growth and school success. This domain focuses on designing learning, quality pedagogical practices, inclusive learning and professional learning.

STUDENT WELLBEING

Student Wellbeing is essential for both academic and social development and is optimised by safe, supportive and respectful school learning environments and interpersonal relationships. This domain focuses on social and emotional learning, respectful relationships and inclusivity and equity.

LEADERSHIP

Leadership plays a pivotal role in the improvement of learning outcomes and opportunities for all students. Leaders draw on their range of knowledge when working with others to create the necessary changes to systems and practices. This domain focuses on growing leaders, leading teaching and learning, leadership practices and engaging with the community.

COMMUNITY

Community involvement and engagement is a distinctive element of being an independent school. This domain focuses on communication, student/community engagement (co-curricular activities, sport and service learning), reporting, and reputation.

As you can see this is data we absolutely want to share and celebrate. However, we do set high standards for ourselves and are always looking for ways to improve. As we have discussed with our AIS consultant, the work for us now with such positive data, is to find the pockets for improvement within each domain, and to make sure we understand and name what we are doing well – so that we capture our strengths and not take them for granted.

AN INVITATION TO PARENTS FROM THE SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM

As part of this deeper dive into our data, Mrs James (who has also been involved in the decision making, sourcing and implementation of these surveys) and I would like to invite parents to join us on Zoom to look at the details of the comparative data, the stakeholder summaries and question sets that fed into the results. As we look at our data and wonder why each group perceives certain aspects in different ways, it will be valuable to hear from you about what you believe these perceptions to be.

Our ‘Deeper Dive into the Data’ Meeting will be on Tuesday 9 November at 4pm.

Please note, we expect the preview of the data to take 30-45 minutes, and following this we would like to allow plenty of time for questions and discussion, so if you would like to join the discussion in the second part of the meeting, please allow an additional 30 minutes, as we would love for you to share your thoughts with us. Please register your intention to join us HERE. An email with the Zoom link will be emailed to you by 12:00pm on the day.

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The majority of our students are now back at school, and there is definitely a buzz of excitement and happiness in the air, and it is not just the students. The staff are super excited to be back doing what we love to do as well. I am reminded of this quote as we witness and feel the joy that comes from personal connections. I am not so sure we needed a COVID storm to remind us not to take our interactions with others for granted, but isn’t it good to be back at school and also connecting with some of our friends and family again!

Next week for us is ‘Christmas Week’. We will be decorating the school so we can all begin to share in the wonder of Christmas. Expect some additional excitement when you pick your child/ren up on Monday afternoon.

Please grab a cuppa and take your time to read through all of the newsletter, and let’s be grateful that school is back, we are all a part of such a strong school community, we have survived this recent storm, and Christmas is coming.

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name 
Psalms 92:1-2

New Staff Welcome

We would like to welcome our new bus driver, Mrs Margaret Puddick, who has taken over Mr Flynn’s bus run.

Janelle Ford
Co-Principal

Follow us

Website: www.claremont.nsw.edu.au
Instagram: @claremontcollege
Twitter: @claremont2031
LinkedIn: Claremont College

It was wonderful to have all of our students back onsite this week. We are incredibly proud of the way our Claremont learners have responded to the changes and safety measures that have been implemented. Throughout the week, the Claremont staff team have worked incredibly hard to ensure a smooth transition for our students, to follow the many guidelines in place, and to problem solve and collaborate when analysing and mitigating any potential risks. It has been a true team effort. 

Lunch times

In order to keep our students as safe as possible, we have created staggered recess and lunch times to minimise the crossover of cohorts. Within our staggered Infants and Primary lunch times, we have also designated various areas of the playground for specific year groups. This system rotates so that all year groups have time on the playground, balcony and Library area, and the undercroft. We have been impressed with the flexibility and responsibility our students have shown with these changes.

Vaccination Status 

In last week’s newsletter, we mentioned a survey that we will be distributing to gain an understanding of parents’ vaccination status. This survey is anonymous and voluntary. It will be used to help with the risk profile of our school, and to gain an understanding of the likelihood of infection and transmission within the Claremont  community. This survey will also assist us to implement necessary safety measures if or when restrictions in the school setting begin to ease. This survey will be distributed next week. Thank you for your cooperation and support.

Important Reminders

• If your child is displaying symptoms such as headache, cough, sore throat, runny nose, please do not send them to school. You will need to get a COVID-19 test and self-isolate until you receive a negative result.
• If you or a member of your household is currently self-isolating for any reason, your child/ren must stay home. Please follow the directives from relevant government authorities and restrict any non-essential movement unless cleared to do so.
• When collecting your child on foot from Coogee Bay Rd, please remember to practice social distancing and wear a mask.

As the term progresses, we will continue to keep you updated with the latest information and guidelines for our school.

Thank you for remaining vigilant and supporting us throughout this uncertain period. We truly value our Claremont community and appreciate your cooperation and understanding as we navigate each day. Thank you.

Mrs Alanna James
Acting Deputy Principal

This week we wrapped up our theme on ‘compassion’ with what I think is one of the most challenging teachings of Jesus, that is to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). It’s so much easier to love and be kind to people who we like, or to show compassion to those who are kind to us, or to those we have ‘pity for’. Yet, this teaching challenges us to consider the freedom and power that comes with showing grace to others, listening and recognising hurt and pain, demonstrating authentic forgiveness and working for reconciliation. All of this can be incredibly tough, (and mostly I have learnt this the hard way, by making mistakes) but I truly believe that these things are found at the heart of strong and healthy relationships and community.

Doug Thomas
Principal

Today is World Teachers' Day!

Thank you to our amazing teachers who do so much for our students and our wider Claremont community. We thank them for all of their expertise, time, attention and love that they give to every child in their care. We are incredibly grateful and proud of our outstanding teaching team.

If your child would like some ideas on how to show appreciation for their teachers, refer to this link. (https://www.worldteachersday.e... )

Larissa Cameron
Co-Principal

Our Social Media Team is working to increase connections, and promote our amazing school. We know everyone has been doing wonderful things during this time and we would love to be able to share these with the Claremont community. 

In the coming week we would like to focus on:

• CHRISTMAS! We will be decorating our school next week in preparation for Christmas. We would love to see your Christmas preparations and/or decorations as this special time of year approaches.

If your child would like to be considered to be featured on Claremont College's social media platforms and in the whole school assembly, please send your photos and videos to [email protected] with: 

- Child's Name
- Grade
- Quote or Caption

OR, feel free to tag @claremontcollege on Instagram,
or @claremont2031 on Twitter,
or to follow us on LinkedIn Claremont College 

Please feel free to submit any photos and most importantly, have fun! 

The Social Media Committee

Follow us

Website: www.claremont.nsw.edu.au
Instagram: @claremontcollege
Twitter: @claremont2031
LinkedIn: Claremont College

Congratulations to the following students who received a Gold Certificate or Pennant Award at Monday’s assembly: 

Gold Certificate 

Ethan S (K), Chloe B (Yr 1), Camille C (Yr 1), Amelie L (Yr 1), Zara R (Yr 1), Lucas S (Yr 1), Mariana CL (Yr 2), Taylor K (Yr 2), Avery L (Yr 2), Sofia LN (Yr 2), Xavier G, (Yr 3) James L (Yr 3), Abbie H (Yr 4), Isabella W (Yr 5) and Jasper VG (Yr 6).

Let’s Include Others

Now that we are back onsite, you have been able to see your friends again, which has been simply fantastic. Sometimes, though, friendships can change. At Recess and Lunch times, look out for people in your grade who may not have someone to sit with. Invite them to sit with you and your friends. You never know, they may end up being a very close friend of yours down the track. Let’s be friendly, kind and inclusive.

Larissa Cameron
Co-Principal

Arrival Time at Claremont

Please remember that students can arrive at Claremont from 8:15am in the morning. While we are completely understanding of parents needing to get to work and/or drop other children to school, we simply do not offer teacher supervision at Claremont before 8:15am. For safety reasons, all students who arrive at school before 8:15am will be directed to Team Kids and booked into the morning session. Team Kids offers an excellent service for before school care and Joe would only be too happy to discuss your requirements. Joe can be contacted on 0439 320 108.

Please Don’t...

• Ask your child/ren to stand on the street outside the school gates unsupervised until 8.15am; and/or
• Ask your child/ren to go and sit quietly on the red steps in the playground prior to 8:15am.

We greatly appreciate your cooperation and understanding as we work together to ensure the safety of all students before school commences each day.

Please feel free to contact the office if you wish to discuss this matter further.

The Admin Team

Term 4 2021

Term 1 2022

Please CLICK HERE for information for students sitting the ICAS English and ICAS Mathematics tests.

Once again, Claremont will be holding the AMAZING ME Sex Education Seminar to support our families. The evening, which will be held in Term 4 via Zoom on Wednesday 3 November, aims to provide information to children and families in this important area of personal development. Feedback from past evenings has always been overwhelmingly positive with many parents commenting on how appreciative they are that the school provides the opportunity for positive family discussion in this area. 

Our AMAZING ME educator will again be Rowena Thomas. Rowena is a primary school teacher (and Mr Thomas’ wife) who has had many years experience in this area. Rowena’s talks are always lively, informative and lots of fun. There will be two separate seminars that are optional for students in Years 3 to 6 to attend with their parents. The first seminar will begin at 6:00pm. This talk will focus on the difference between girls’ and boys’ bodies and how babies are made. This session is recommended and aimed for students (and their parents) in Years 3 and 4, but other years are welcome.

The second talk (7:10pm to 8:10pm) will focus on puberty and some of the emotional and physical changes children can expect at this stage in their lives. This seminar is recommended for students in Years 5 and 6. Parents have the option of attending one or both sessions, regardless of whether your child is in Year 3, 4, 5 or 6. Whilst the sessions are not aimed for Infants children, some parents have asked if they can bring their child who is in Year 2, along with his or her older siblings. This is suitable but the decision to attend, however, is entirely up to parents as you may feel that you would like your children, and your family as a whole, to have this knowledge. This is not a compulsory event, rather a resource to parents who wish to take up this opportunity. Children in Kindy or Year 1 do not attend.

The cost of the sessions is: $33 per family for one session or $46 per family for two sessions.

AMAZING ME will take place via Zoom.

Please follow the links below to register. 

Booking for Session 1 only: Years 3 & 4 - Bodies and Babies - $33 per family

Booking for Session 2 only: Years 5 & 6 - Bodies and Puberty - $33 per family 

Booking for Sessions 1 and 2: Bodies and Babies & Bodies and Puberty - $46 per family

St Andrew’s Cathedral School will offer one full or part scholarship to a Claremont student (boy or girl) for entry into Year 7 2023. This scholarship is in recognition of the relationship between the two schools, and acknowledgement of the high standard of Claremont graduates. The scholarship, and amount of scholarship will be based on the following criteria:

• Results in the ACER Scholarship Selection Test which will be run at Claremont late February or early March 2022 TBC.
• Demonstrated commitment to school life at Claremont through Music, Drama, Sport, Leadership or other school programs.
• School reports and NAPLAN.

Application forms can be downloaded at

https://www.sacs.nsw.edu.au/enrol/scholarships/academic-scholarships/

Applications close on 10 February 2022.

The P&F invites all parents to join the final AGM meeting for 2021. Despite the lockdown over the past 4 months, the P&F have been meeting via zoom and appreciate the time and effort by the school executive team, P&F executive team and 2021 grade representatives to help keep our school community strong. We look forward to continuing to build our school community in 2022 and invite you to be part of this.

At the AGM the committee for 2022 will be elected, consisting of the P&F executive team and grade representatives, ideally at least two persons per grade. Please see attached the descriptions of these roles and invite you to consider applying for either one of the P&F executive roles or consider becoming a grade representative in 2022. Please email your interest to [email protected]

Due to ongoing COVID restrictions within schools, the AGM will at present need to be held off site. We ask if you can please book a ticket on the link below to attend the AGM.

https://www.trybooking.com/BVEAN

P&F COMMITTEE ROLES

Hi Parents,

We hope you are well! We are still missing many of our decodable home readers from earlier in the year. For this reason, we have only sent home 1 reader per child this week while we wait for more readers to be returned. In the meantime, Kindergarten can access additional readers online through their Wushka account.

We would be very appreciative if you could check if there are any Kindergarten readers in your home from before lockdown. Please return readers in your child's Home Reading folder on a Friday. Your child's reading folder will be sent back home on a Monday. 

Kind regards,

The Kindergarten Team

There have been many exciting learning opportunities around the school this week, and some wonderful collaboration happening too. Here are some stories from the Year 2, 3, and 4 children I interviewed this week.

New Books To The Collection

This series covers the lives of outstanding people from designers, authors, scientists, sports people and artists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream. Each book in the series celebrates individual achievement and illustrates that it is possible to make a difference in the world. The author Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, born in Spain, is a writer and creative director in constant search of new concepts for children’s books. Each book features a fact and photo section at the back. 

This is a very popular series of books with Claremont students and one that often students like to take home to share with their parents. I have also noted that these books can encourage students to do wider reading and research about these outstanding people.  

As a young person, little Ruth recognised injustice in the world. She decided to work to make her country a fairer place for everyone. Ruth went from a career as a lawyer to sitting as a judge on the Supreme Court. This  is an inspiring story about a person who spent her whole life fighting for what’s right and encouraging others to do the same.

Little Iris grew up with fashion and flair all around her - from her grandparents’ fabric collections to her parents’ stylish boutiques. As a young girl exploring New York via the subway, she fell in love with the city’s eccentric style. Iris went on to have a life in the fashion industry and travelled the world buying textiles. Aged 84, Iris’s entire wardrobe went on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The world fell in love with the outfits and accessories and the woman who dared to wear them. Suddenly, Iris was a global fashion icon! This is a inspirational story of a designer and fashion icon who went on to be a person the world could learn from: how to have fun, be good to others and express yourself, whatever your age. 

This series is recommended for children aged 5 years and older. 

Mrs Susan Kesur
Librarian Assistant

With the return of all students this week, the only Sport we have currently planned are the normal PDHPE lessons plus the Wednesday Sport session for each grade that will be delivered ‘in house’ in the school playground by myself and classroom teachers.

It is worth noting that even though community sport is starting to come back in full swing in the next couple of weeks, the Health guidelines concerning schools are at times much more stringent than the Public Health Orders. These can sometimes appear to be in conflict in regards to what is allowed/not allowed, particularly when it comes to Sport. Please refer to the COVID-19 update in the newsletter for more information. 

Claremont Champions

It is so exciting that community Sport is beginning to start back up. With the various seasons beginning again, it means there are opportunities to celebrate our Claremont community’s achievements on the sporting field once again.

Congratulations to Marnie L (Year 4) who has been awarded the Randwick City Junior Female Sports Award for 2021. This was awarded in recognition of her impressive achievements in athletics, surf lifesaving, AFL and cross country. A remarkable accolade for someone only 9 years old! Well done, Marnie.

Please continue to pass on any highlights of your Claremont champions on the sporting field to [email protected]  so we can celebrate their achievements.

Hip hop lessons

While we are unable to begin our morning skills program with external providers at school this term, some of the providers we normally use are back up and running in the community. For those students who have been part of the Thursday morning hip hop classes, you might be interested in checking out some lessons run by MOVE Dance studios (the teachers who run the morning skills) beginning Thursday 28th at 4:15pm and running for 8 weeks. Details can be found at https://movedance.com.au/kids-hip-hop 

Mr Joel Geering
Head of Sport and PDHPE

We hope you and your family are well and safe.

We are so excited to be back at the school and see all the students and staff.

We are offering a limited menu for Term 4, however please keep an eye out when online if there are specials or new additions as we progress through the term.

Please know that the safety of the school community and our staff is paramount, and we are following all covid-19 guidelines as well as the Australian Food Handling guidelines.

If you have any queries at all regarding the school canteen, please contact us through [email protected]

James Anthony and the Claremont Canteen Team

TERM 4 MENU

CLICK HERE to read the most recent newsletter from TeamKids.

A reminder for ALL families to RE-BOOK & VERIFY the dates for the remainder of the TERM. If there are no confirmed bookings the service will be closed. Space is limited exclusively to authorised workers. If you have any questions, email or please call customer service on 1300 035 000.

2022 School Travel Application Information