From the Principal 

Dear Parents and Caregivers, Konnichiwa!

Student Writing

This year we have focussed on further developing teacher’s practice and skill in the teaching of writing. Teachers in the early years have been focussing on children creating their own books in bookmaking. In Foundation children have been writing their own books and you can see significant progress in the developmental stages of writing. For example you will see children moving from making marks on a page, using random letters, using spaces between words, understanding that writing is to entertain the reader and convey a message, forming letters correctly, using approximations of spelling and using high frequency words which are all steps on the writing journey.

 There is a critical connection between writing and reading, so when writing a child is also developing their skill as a reader. The explicit teaching of writing and the conventions of writing continues across all levels of schooling. The focus on the “Seven Steps to Writing Success” of-

Step 1: Plan for success

Step 2: Sizzling starts

Step 3: Tightening tensions

Step 4: Dynamic dialogue

Step 5: Show, don’t tell

Step 6: Ban the boring

Step 7: Exciting endings

supports enabling students to really entertain a reader and convey an intended message. More information on the seven steps to writing success can be found at

https://www.sevenstepswriting.com/what-are-the-seven-steps/

Evidence of progress in student writing at Grange was seen through the City of Charles Sturt Make a Book Literacy Challenge. Last Friday the Mayoral Make a Book literacy challenge held a celebration night of shortlisted and year level winners of the challenge. There were 663 entries from schools in the Council area and about 40 shortlisted and year level winners. Of these 40 outstanding writers, 23 were students from Grange. This is truly an amazing achievement. Congratulations to all Grange writers.

Some books have been uploaded to the Charles Sturt website https://www.charlessturt.sa.gov.au/page.aspx?u=883  including

Westport Primary School Year 1 Class 6.3

Dimitri Fragogiannis  - Year 1 -  Westport Primary School

Gabriel Fernandez  - Year 3 -  Grange Primary school

Alfie Woolnough & Rocco Rositano - Year 4  - Grange Primary school

Hanh Ly – Year 5  - Whitefriars Catholic School

Tarj Simpson – Year 6  - Grange Primary School

Georgia Stephens – Year 6  - Henley Beach Primary School

Rosie Ranford – Year 7 – Henley Beach Primary School

Year 4 students, Rocco and Alfie were two of only three students asked to read their text. Rocco and Alfie read “Spaghetti, Silly Spaghetti" to the audience of about 200 people. They did an amazing job and did Grange Primary School proud as did all the students from Grange that entered the literacy challenge. Great job!

Regards, Grant

Grant Small, Principal

Grange Primary School