Regentville Public School

Location: Western Sydney

Regentville Public School is a primary school in the Penrith area, NSW and has 720 students enrolled.

How has your school used its Gonski funding?

The Gonski initiative and funding has made a significant impact to both students and teachers at Regentville Public School. We use our funding to support teachers, teaching and learning and students across the school. Regentville PS has received $170 000 in GONSKI funding including $49 000 in 2016.

How has Gonski made a positive difference for students?

We have employed an SLSO who provides support in the classroom and on the football field to improve student friendship groupings. He also works with disengaged students and those who are on the path to being disconnected from education. His work has been praised by the involved students, their parents and teachers.

Our funding also provides instructional leadership for professional learning (Plan Pods). This gives each stage time to look at student data and plan the ‘where to next’ phase, collaborate over areas of concern and engage in meaningful and relevant professional development. Surveys from these Plan Pods have shown that teachers find this use of time an effective and necessary part of the teaching and learning cycle.

One of our Deputy Principals frequently has the opportunity to collaboratively plan and teach with teachers in the classroom in order to address a particular need. This is a wonderful hands-on approach to help teachers with a particular KLA or aspect of teaching. Such a helpful and open learning environment is rare in the teaching profession and we are lucky to have the funding to support our teachers in this way.

What could your school do with Gonski funding in the future?

Future Gonski funding would enable Regentville Public School to build on progress, expanding individual student support, building teacher capacity through more training, and implementing interventions such as TOWN in 2016 and Multilit.