Wow, what a big night last night was!

It was an incredible experience to see our students run out with the Melbourne Storm. To see their eyes light up as they ran out onto the ground, high five the players and got to run around playing a sport most didn’t know 5 weeks ago, was incredible.

A huge thanks to the families who made it happen. The only hard bit was only having 9 spots for Year 6 students, but rest assured that we are working on the next big opportunity.

This is a strategic priority to provide our students with these opportunities. It allows them to dream big… to think of big possibilities. Whether it is holding the Melbourne Cup, running out with Storm players, performing at the Doveton Show, we want all our students to experience something special!

What can’t be missed is the hard work though. The Storm players don’t get that fit and skilled without hard work. The Melbourne Cup isn’t won on a day, it’s years of work, and the dance routine takes repeated practice.

We need to always tell that story. That practice, the monotonous repetition is how people achieve greatness. Steph Curry is big in this space talking about the need to practice. The need to find what you love, but then work at it.. even the not so fun times.

This is the same in learning, practice really makes perfect.

What is sometimes misunderstood in the need for spaced practice. That we repeat something regularly initially, then we come back after time, and after longer again.

The way our lessons and curriculum is set up now is to embed this spaced practice. An example might mean that initially, the students will get many exposures of the concept. Then the same concept will be revised weeks later. It will then be 6 weeks later, followed by revision in three months. Therefore, your children may come home and say ‘I’m learning the same stuff’. Yes, they are.. because our memory is prone to forgetting. Our task is to move learning from the short term memory, to long term memory.

Consider phone numbers. When I was a child, we would often know many phone numbers of by heart. We used them regularly, they were in our long term memory and we would retrieve them regularly. We retained that knowledge.

Today, we do not retain the knowledge, however, we do know they are in the phone contacts and we can scroll to find it. If we don’t use it, we lose it.

Encourage the dream, but celebrate the practice. That is the hope of the dream coming to reality!

Key messages:

No school Monday 9th March: Public Holiday
Parent Teacher Interview forms have gone home, please book in.
NAPLAN next week year 3 and 5. This is a great chance for our students to show us what they have retained.
Catholic Education Week: 13th to 20th March
Congratulations to Kobee, Shadrack, Giselle and Reegan for being elected school captains by their peers. These students spoke of setting an example, so we will look to them to drive our key focus of ‘Raising the Bar’ in all aspects of school.

Parents we need your help!