St Mary's Primary School Newsletter

Learning and Teaching

Inquiry

A message from Mrs Hodgetts

 

As the start of the year, transitional 'Be the Light' unit draws to a close, classes will move into their Health units!

 

In the Victorian Curriculum, Health is divided into 3 sub strands:

 

Being healthy, safe and active

The curriculum focuses on supporting students to make decisions about their own health, safety and wellbeing. It also enables them to access and understand health information and empowers them to make healthy, safe and active choices. In addition, the content explores personal identities and emotions, and the contextual factors that influence students’ health, safety and wellbeing. 

 

Communicating and interacting for health and wellbeing

The curriculum develops knowledge, understanding and skills to enable students to engage critically with a range of health focus areas and issues. It also helps them apply new information to changing circumstances and environments that influence their own and others’ health, safety and wellbeing.

 

Contributing to healthy and active communities

The curriculum develops knowledge, understanding and skills to enable students to analyse contextual factors that influence the health and wellbeing of communities critically. The content supports students to access information, products, services and environments to take action to promote the health and wellbeing of their communities.

Mathematics  

A message from Mrs Toney

 

Using Enabling and Extending Prompts to Differentiate and  Support Mathematical Thinking

 

At St.Mary’s we are always looking for ways to support and challenge our students in mathematics. One approach we use to differentiate in the classroom is the use of enabling and extending prompts. These prompts help cater to the diverse learning needs of our students, ensuring that everyone can engage with mathematical concepts at a level that is right for them.

 

What Are Enabling and Extending Prompts?

Enabling prompts are designed to support students who may find a task challenging by breaking the problem into smaller, more manageable steps or providing a different way to approach the question. These prompts help build confidence and ensure all students can participate in mathematical discussions.

Extending prompts, on the other hand, provide an opportunity for students who have grasped a concept quickly to deepen their understanding by tackling more complex or open-ended problems. These challenges encourage higher-order thinking and creativity in mathematics.

 

How Do These Prompts Work?

Let’s take a simple example from a Year 4 class working on multiplication:

  • Original Question: There are 6 baskets, each with 8 apples. How many apples are there in total?
  • Enabling Prompt: Instead of 6 baskets, let’s start with 2 baskets. If each basket has 8 apples, how many are there altogether?
  • Extending Prompt: If each basket had double the apples, how many would there be? What if there were 10 baskets instead?

Now, let's consider an example from a Year 6 class working on multiplication:

  • Original Question: A factory produces 248 toys each day. How many toys are produced in 15 days?
  • Enabling Prompt: How many toys are produced in 1 day? How many in 5 days? Can we use this to find the total for 15 days?
  • Extending Prompt: If production increased by 20% each day, how many toys would be produced in 15 days? What if the factory operated for a month?

By using these prompts, all students can engage with the same core mathematical idea but at a level suited to their individual needs.

 

Why Do We Use These Prompts?

Using enabling and extending prompts ensures that:

  • Every child is included and can experience success in mathematics.
  • Students develop confidence in their problem-solving skills.
  • Higher-achieving students remain engaged and challenged.
  • Children build resilience and a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.

We encourage parents to use similar strategies at home. If your child finds a problem tricky, try simplifying it first. If they solve it easily, ask “What if…?” questions to stretch their thinking!

 

Kind regards, Nicola Toney (Mathematics Leader F-6)

English  

A message from Ms Cardillo

The One About Fluency

We know what it sounds like when a child can read fluently. A fluent reader is reading accurately, at a good pace, and with appropriate expression. Their reading appears effortless and natural. 

In a nutshell...

 

Why is fluency so important?

 

Fluency is an essential to reading instruction because of its strong relationship with reading comprehension.  When can read fluently and with automaticity, we are better equiped to comprehend the text.

 

What are some of the best strategies to build fluency in our young readers?

 

Repeated Reading:

NEVER be afraid to read a text multiple times...it is actually proven to be a good strategy for teaching fluency. When a reader can HEAR themselves reading fluently, they know what to work toward and repeated reads is a brilliant way to achieve this and build confidence as a reader.

 

Choral Reading:

Choral reading is when a text is read aloud in unison as a whole class or in a group. Choral reading helps build fluency, self confidence and motivation. 

 

Echo Reading:

Echo reading is when the teacher or parent reads aloud and the child repeats after them.  MODELLING fluent reading is very important and is a great way to provide a scaffold for students as they are learning to become fluent readers.

 

Paired Reading:

This strategy involved two people who read the same passage aloud to each other.  The partners will take turns at reading or tracking; learning from each other as they go.  This is usually done with a text that has been modelled to them first.

What does this mean for us at St Mary's?

We are going to be building in fluency sessions into our reading instruction!  We are working toward building this as a consistant practise across the school. (Some year levels may look slightly different to others)

 

How will it work?

 

We will be applying some evidence-based fluency strategies so that we have the best chance at building confident, motivated and proficient readers.

 

We will be including:

Repeated Reads

Choral and Echo Reading where needed

Paired Fluency Reading

What can you be doing at home to support us?

Read, Read, Read....YOU ARE NEVER TOO OLD TO BE READ TO.

  • Get a good book, snuggle up and model fluent reading to your children.
  • Use Audible as a tool to model fluent reading.
  • Noticing your child is finding a text  particularly difficult? Choral or echo read it...again and again and again!
  • Ask your children to read aloud to you as often as you can.