Teaching and Learning

First of all, I wanted to congratulate our students on what a wonderful start they have made embedding our school routine of making sure we are ready to learn. Each morning, our students have been going straight into class as soon as they hear the music playing at 8:50. This routine means they are settled and ready to learn and our teachers can begin the day at 9am. Thank you to everyone for showing such a commitment to ensuring we make the most of our teaching and learning time.

New Government Initiatives

I thought that this week I would share some information about two of the initiatives that the Government and Department of Education have rolled out across all schools in Victoria. 

"From Term 1 2025, all Victorian government students from Prep to Grade 2 will be taught using a systematic synthetic phonics approach as part of their reading programs, with a minimum of 25 minutes daily explicit teaching of phonics and phonemic awareness."

I'm sure you have heard news reports, interviews and social media conversations around the introduction of this Systematic Synthetic Based Phonics program.

It is a 'systematic' approach in that teaching reading begins with the most basic sounds (phonemes), not whole words, and progressively becomes more complex.

'Synthetic' approach is the decoding or breaking of words into separate sounds and then blending them together (reading and spelling).

'Phonics' is knowing the relationship between letters and sounds.

At SEPS, we have introduced a 25 minute Core Literacy block across every teaching level (Foundation to Level 6). Teachers use this time to deliver explicit instruction to our students that covers decoding, spelling and vocabulary, as well as explicit handwriting, phonemic awareness and morphology.

The new English Victorian Curriculum 2.0 (being trialed this year) and embedded in 2026 refers to the six key foundational literacy skills that students are expected to develop: Oral Language, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension; essentially encompassing the ability to use spoken language effectively, understand sound patterns, connect letters to sounds, read smoothly, grasp word meanings, and extract meaning from text. This year, we are privileging a 2 hour literacy block four times a week, to ensure our students are receiving the most effective approach to teaching reading and writing. I will share more through this newsletter over the course of the year.

A new Victorian Teaching and Learning Model

The updated Victorian Teaching and Learning Model (VTLM 2.0) is based on scientific evidence about how students learn and evidence of the teaching practices that best support that learning process.

This method involves teachers:

• working together to develop whole school approaches to behavioural expectations, cultural responsiveness and wellbeing support, so that classrooms provide a safe, predictable, learning-focused environment
• planning learning goals for each lesson and how they will sequence their teaching of the curriculum
• breaking down new content into manageable chunks
• using clear explanations, demonstrating new content and skills, and supporting students to practise them
• providing opportunities for students to review recent learning and apply it in new situations.

Evidence demonstrates that this approach supports students effectively to grasp new content, retain it and apply it with confidence.

VTLM 2.0 approaches will also help your child:

• set personal goals
• succeed in their learning
• build confidence.

As children master new content, their ability to learn additional information and skills increases, supporting them to develop into lifelong learners who are well-equipped for future challenges.

At SEPS, we are providing professional development for our staff on the components of the VTLM 2.0 to begin the work of ensuring that we are adapting our pedagogical approach to align with what we now know is seen as the most effective way to help students learn and retain new information that they can apply to their lives.