Prep

Dear Prep families,

Our amazing prep students have now completed seven weeks of school and continue to exceed our expectations. From Monday, March 4th, our Prep students began school full-time. It's been an exhilarating time for us all as we extended to a five-day school week. Please make sure your child gets plenty of rest at night, as adjusting to this new schedule can be tiring for some. We are incredibly proud of our youngest students! They have shown that they've effortlessly adapted to the school routine, displaying confidence, and embracing new challenges in our school environment.

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Students are now more aware of classroom and teacher expectations. As teachers, we have really enjoyed getting to know our prep students and have been so proud of all their efforts and positive attitudes towards school. We are looking forward to building on their enthusiasm for learning as the year progresses. 

Data-Driven Planning 

A central focus of our annual implementation plan (AIP) this year is to strengthen teachers' capacity to effectively leverage data in guiding teaching and learning practices. Our Teaching Teams have initiated the utilisation of formative data and are in the process of developing tailored strategies to elevate instructional practices and student outcomes. 

Over the first four Wednesdays in February, the prep team has been pivotal in gathering significant data to assess the preparedness of our Prep students. Engaging in in-depth collaborations, the teachers commenced the analysis and synthesis of data to discern overarching patterns and pinpoint areas for focused intervention throughout the 2024 year.

Reading 

In Reading, students have consolidated their understanding of 'Concepts of Print' and ‘Prediction’ through modelled and shared reading in the classroom. Students have continued developing their knowledge of 'Good Reader Strategies' with a focus on using the slide and skip strategies, to help pay attention to letter sounds when decoding unfamiliar words.

 We have also begun exploring the concepts of rhyme. ‘Rhyme’ is a repetition of similar sounds in the final stressed syllables e.g. cheese and please. Students have enjoyed participating in rhyming activities. They have enthusiastically built their word sound knowledge by identifying similar sounds in words. Hearing and understanding rhyme helps them discover many common word patterns (such as those in cat/sat or day/say), which assists in reading and writing.

To further help support your child's reading at home, a minimum of 10 minutes per night is recommended. Encourage them to make predictions before reading, as well during reading. Discuss what clues they can use to make predictions to better comprehend what they are reading. Ask them if they noticed any words that rhymed. Give them an ending pattern such as 'an', 'at' or 'in' and allow them to come up with the onset to create a word bank of riming words. Then ask them to put these words in a sentence. Remember it could even be a silly sentence. Finally, they may want to draw a picture to match. The important thing is to have fun exploring patterns in words. 

Story Dog Visits

We were fortunate to have the Story Dogs foundation visiting Preps in their classrooms. Students got to pet the dogs and learnt that when story dogs come for school visits, we can read to the dog which promotes student confidence in reading and encourages them to form a love for reading without judgement.

Mr K Visits Prep

We were once again delighted to welcome back our literacy consultant Mr K, to our Prep classes over the last two weeks. Mr K aims to foster a love for reading and writing while nurturing essential foundational skills. Engaging with our young learners, Mr K used a read aloud and storytelling to make literacy learning both enjoyable and meaningful. He empowered our students to develop phonemic awareness, vocabulary acquisition, and comprehension skills through the text, ‘The Magic Hat’. What a captivating adventure where every word became a gateway to imagination and discovery.

Writing/PYP

In Literacy, students have continued practising writing in their Special Writing Books, with a focus on the high frequency words of the last two weeks 'go’, ‘on’, ‘is’ and ‘in’. Students have been risk takers when attempting to independently write full sentences using their knowledge of letters and sounds. 

Furthermore, the Prep cohort continued exploring the last two IB Primary Years Programme (PYP), learner attributes of what it means to be a Reflective learner through the mentor text ‘Elmer’ and an Inquirer through ‘Curious George’. 

Students are learning about language conventions with a current focus on vowel sounds. Understanding vowels will aid them in pronunciation of words when reading and writing. Additionally, students have continued developing their thinking skills using the Think, Draw, Write, Share model as we embarked on recount writing. They have been learning the importance of labelling their pictures to help them write a sentence that matches their drawing. Students are encouraged to re-read their sentences to check if they make sense. We are proud to say that they are not only gaining increasing confidence to write but are enthusiastically seeking opportunities to share their work with their peers.  

Numeracy

In Mathematics, students have been continuing the exploration of counting forwards and backwards. This week, we have focussed on counting backwards and forwards from any given number and ordering numbers from smallest to largest number using concrete materials. They have been encouraged to share their thinking of how they chose to order a number using mathematical vocabulary.

Students have also been learning about 2D and 3D shapes and participated in activities that required them to demonstrate their knowledge of different shapes and features of 2D and 3D shapes. For example, students are beginning to understand that shapes are everywhere and showcased their knowledge by creating a picture of school using 2D shapes. Furthermore, they used concrete materials such as playdough to make a 3D object and explain features they added to create their object.

We encourage families to continue to have conversations with your child about 3D objects such as toys and 2D shaped items around the house etc. This will enable students to form personal connections and further consolidate their learning.

Wellbeing 

Over the last two weeks in Wellbeing, students have been learning about making responsible choices so that their classrooms and outdoor spaces can be a safe environment. In light of this, they have also been learning to develop vocabulary to identify emotions and identify the ways in which emotions are shown in body language. Our Preps have successfully recognised and named some commonly experienced emotions and have been able to identify what the emotions look like through facial and body expressions. 

REMINDERS:

• Students are expected to bring their satchel to school EVERY DAY.
• Please ensure all your child’s belongings are clearly labelled with their first and last names.
• Hats are to be worn when outside from August to April. Please ensure to put sunscreen on your child before arriving at school.
• Prep students will begin using iPads in Term Two. Your child’s iPad will need to be configured by our IT team. Please look out for a recent notification detailing when to send iPads to school for configuration.
• Snack and lunch times are 20 minutes long. Please encourage your child to eat their snack/lunch within a 20 minute period, as this will help them to follow school routine.
• Please remember to pack a spare change of clothes for your child. Sometimes, little children can have toileting accidents and spills at school.
• Prep Cohort will commence school assembly in week 8. We had a practice assembly to familiarise students of the expectations at assembly. 

• If you would like your child to practice our school song. This is the Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua5RnSttwyY 
• Our cultural picnic will be held on Thursday 28th March, to celebrate Harmony day. Families are welcome!
• Lastly, a reminder about bringing in headphones if you have not already done so. We will be using them in Term Two, along aside the iPads.

Kind regards, 

the Prep Team.