News from SLC

I have been very impressed with the SLC students for their informative writing. It has been riveting reading and listening to the informative texts the students have been working on in class. We first started to plan our informative texts using the Seven Steps of Writing Success, informative graphs. We have progressed our sizzling starts and we have now moved onto our three facts section. We are still improving our endings to make them as impactful as possible. 

These texts have been hooking me in as a reader and I have been delighted with the results. The students have written topics on animals, sports stars including Cathy Freeman while others have written on a topic of their choosing. I am excited to continue to encourage SLC to not only improve their writing but enjoy their writing, as I am seeing the students flourish. 

As well as writing informative texts we have been focusing on using descriptive language. I don’t want the students to use simple words like big/small or happy/sad but to use words like mammoth to describe something big and ecstatic to describe being happy. This makes our writing more interesting and engaging. The students are trying to expand their vocabulary and they are on the hunt to find new words to describe what they are trying to write about. 

The students are coming to the conclusion of their Saint Projects. The students have learnt terms like Pre-Congregation which means before the Church or Catholic tradition became as we know it today. Also, the word canonised which is the name for the process for becoming a saint. The students have also learnt that some saints are from more modern times and some are from before Jesus was alive. 

The Catholic tradition is so rich in history.  Having the choice of focusing on one person from a time period has given the students some insight into the context of that time period as well as how the saint might have been seen at that time in which they are now praised for but may have been punished for in the past.

To continue our faith journey in SLC, the students have been learning new prayers and revisiting some old ones. Most recently the students have been learning the Nicene Creed which is a prayer in the Catholic tradition that exclaims our belief in our one God.

The students are learning this prayer as they draw close to making their Sacrament of Confirmation where they become fully initiated into the Catholic faith. The students are learning to understand what they believe in and to start spreading this message as they move further along their faith journey.

Kind regards,

Mr Jack Cirillo

SLC Classroom Teacher