Learning & Teaching News

Term Overviews

Click the links below to read the Term 1 Overviews for each year level.

Nick Byrne

Learning & Teaching Leader

Literacy Development is Critical.  How you can support your child at home....

We are most fortunate to have Marian Nicolazzo from Melbourne University coming to our Information night next Thursday February 6th at 7.00pm to talk about the many ways to assist your child at home as they develop vital literacy skills throughout primary school. Marian has vast experience as a teacher, Literacy consultant and lecturing in this field.  

Sound literacy skills underpin our ability to understand, empathise, communicate and build relationships with others and the world. We aim to create confident communicators, imaginative and critical thinkers, and informed citizens.  

The development of literacy is critical across all learning areas, which gives students the knowledge and skills needed for education and training and in the workplace. It helps them become ethical, informed, perceptive, innovative and active members of society. 

As partners in your child's education, please take this opportunity to hear about ways you can support at home to enhance your child's literacy.  See you there!

Lisa Canty

Literacy Leader

Mathematics at OHR: A time of growth

Maths planning and reporting is going through a time of modification as we deepen our understanding about learning and continue to bring to life our belief that learning is a lifelong skill. This year we will be extending and broadening our expert teaching practices, aligning them within additional research. At OHR we believe in evidenced based teaching that takes into account our context and our students’ point of need. Below are some of the terms that the Staff use in their practice and with the students. These will be touched on during our upcoming Information Night. 

Retrieval- is the act of bringing information from long-term memory into working memory. 

Interleaved practice- is the idea of studying a range of topics more regularly/during a single study session/week/, as opposed to focussing on a single concept (usually called blocked practice).

Spaced or longer cadence retrieval- is reviewing content in growing intervals.

Review- is a short review of learning at the beginning of each lesson.

Reteach- is a short reminder for concepts from previous lessons where students are almost there and need a quick reminder of knowledge or a skill.

Immersed within our wider Learning and Teaching rationale we, at OHR, hold the understanding that learning is a change in long-term memory. This is the basis for our interleaved and spaced planning and teaching practices which you will read in your classes Term 1 Overview and will hear more about during the Information Night. 

Students need both working memory and access to knowledge in their long term memory in order for effective learning to take place. The more knowledge stored in long term memory the more space there is in working memory for problem solving and the learning of new information. Students’ capacity for critical thinking, creativity and problem‑solving is greatly enhanced when students have relevant background knowledge consolidated in long‑term memory to draw on. Interleaved and spaced high impact teaching practices support this learning process. Research suggests that interleaving and spacing review of learning aids students in retention of new information. As such, the way we map curriculum across the year will appear to be repeated as we share concepts taught in our Term Overviews. However, within a concept, e.g. addition, there are many strategies, processes and skills that are taught sequentially and therefore concepts will be taught in smaller chunks, interwoven within other relevant and linked concepts as well as being reviewed more often. 

Our expert teachers at OHR guide, scaffold and extend the students' learning to support the retention of new knowledge. Planning and teaching strategies use intentionally interleaved and spaced practices whilst considering the breadth and depth of the maths curriculum by teaching, reteaching and reviewing concepts throughout the year. You will notice across the year that concepts are taught and reviewed several times, each time building and extending on previous knowledge. This is opposed to previous ‘block’ teaching which would see concepts taught in larger chunks, less often. It is important to teachers at OHR that students receive learning at their point of need, this is determined through utilising checking for understanding strategies in each lesson as well as through our assessments. These practices facilitate scaffolding, extension and support differentiation and targeted teaching.

At OHR we further believe that learning should be engaging and relevant in order for our students to be motivated to learn and become self directed, life long learners themselves. The teaching and learning of mathematics at OHR links everyday experiences and contexts with maths concepts and balances this with utilising explicit teaching methodologies in a supportive environment.

Penny Hansen

Mathematics Leader