Learning and Teaching News

In February 2024, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) introduced a new plan to help every student succeed. This is called Vision for Instruction. You might have heard through the media that this Vision for Instruction is part of the MACS 2030: Forming Lives To Enrich The World (2030) strategic plan.

Central to this plan, as MACS states, is "by 2030, we aim to become the benchmark of excellence in teaching and learning through a coherently integrated, academically competitive and distinctively Catholic education offering" (MACS 2024). 

The Vision for Instruction promotes a unified and consistent approach, and continuous improvement to meet the changing needs of students. It provides teachers with training and resources to ensure excellence and equity in schools. 

Excellence: where all MACS schools deliver a knowledge rich, evidence based teaching and learning program 

Equity: where every student, regardless of background, achieves literacy and numeracy proficiency. 

At SMDP, we teach reading and writing using evidence-based teaching and learning practices. Our reading instruction involves teaching the five core areas of reading. 

Our reading instruction consists o:

• phonemic awareness – understanding that speech is made up of words and sounds
• phonics – knowledge of the letter–sound relationships and the ability to use these relationships to decode words
• fluency – ability to read accurately and quickly to derive meaning from text
• vocabulary – understanding word meanings in isolation and in context
• comprehension – ability to understand and derive meaning from text.

In Years Prep-2 the focus relies more heavily on learning to read with a greater emphasis on phonics and fluency and in Years 3-6 the  focus is placed on reading to learn with an explicit emphasis on comprehension. 

Collaboratively, our staff wrote the following vision statement about what we aspire to and believe when teaching Literacy. 

We teach literacy to develop life - long learners who connect and contribute to the world 

and others.

We endeavour to create confident communicators, imaginative thinkers and contributors to an evolving society 

around them.

We are committed to working collaboratively using evidence based best practice, to ensure learning is engaging and modelled so all learners make growth and progress at all levels.

We strive to create a literacy culture that is learning centered and allows students 

to seek meaning in and understand 

the world around us.

The Vision for Instruction will continue to underpin our best practices in Literacy learning and teaching to ensure all students achieve their best.    

Elise Coghlan

Co-Deputy Principal | Literacy & Numeracy Leader | Visible Learning Leader

Denise Kelly

Co-Deputy Principal |

 Learning & Teaching Leader