SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

TERM 3 CURRICULUM DAY LEARNING

Last Tuesday staff at Chilwell Primary School engaged in learning more about Inclusive Classrooms. Inclusive education means that all members of every school community are valued and supported to fully participate, learn, develop and succeed within an inclusive school culture. Our aim is to create safe and inclusive school environments for all students. 

Staff engaged in professional readings and discussions around sensory processing. Sensory processing is the ability to organise and interpret the information we receive through our senses. We are all sensory beings, and for optimal learning, our environments need to be sensory-friendly. A sensory-friendly classroom aims to change the learning environment and improve the learning outcomes for all the students in the class. When children are comfortable in their environment, they don’t have to worry about an adverse experience that might suddenly occur and they can focus on learning. The right environment for learning is crucial. 

Did you know, we have eight senses that we use to process sensory information? There are 5 external senses that are well-known to all. These include the sensory systems whereby sensory information is received externally from sources outside of the body, namely, sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell. There are 3 internal senses that are less well known but just as important as the external senses. These include the sensory systems whereby sensory information is received internally from sources within our bodies, such as bodily awareness (proprioception), bodily movement (vestibular) and bodily basic functioning (interoception). These eight senses are crucial in assisting us to process and interpret information from the world around us. The processing of sensory information is the basic foundation for learning. Look out in the next newsletter for more information about our internal senses. 

Staff then made adjustments to their classrooms to create sensory-friendly environments.  Our Prep teacher, Britt Hercus, focused on a short-term action, minimising visual clutter at the front of the room, by taking away anything without purpose.  A long-term adjustment that Britt aims to make is to clearly define spaces for reading, writing and maths resources so that her students know where to go to collect the resources they need when working on learning tasks. Britt’s comment about our Curriculum Day was, ‘My brain lit up with lots of ideas about how I can support my students.’

Virginnia Gilham

Inclusive Practices Leader

LAMONT BOOK FAIR: 

Thank you to all our students and families for supporting the Lamont Book Fair in Week 3. With afternoon, morning and online opportunities, it was very well supported by our community. 

We raised $1246.52 in valuable funds to support our Library and reading materials in our school. In addition, Lamont provided an additional $200 in funds, used to select valuable mentor texts to support our ‘Learning for Life’ Wellbeing Program. 

Thank you to our community for your support!

– Sarah Jeffreys