Ryan’s Rambling 

Dear Families, 

The wintry weather often associated with Ballarat certainly graced us with its presence this week. 

You may have read the articles in the media regarding the Minister for Education’s announcement that 2025 will bring a renewed focus for schools on Phonics, with all students in Victorian Government Prep to Grade 2 students being taught a minimum of 25 minutes a day. The great news about this announcement is that there have been many Government schools in Ballarat who have already begun implementing a structured, synthetic Phonics program into their daily Literacy programs. 

Dana Street is no stranger to Phonics instruction. Our journey in this space began back in 2022 and it has been developed and refined over the past couple of years by our dedicated staff.  This announcement follows on from the Grattan Institute’s “The Reading Challenge” report released earlier this year. You may remember me writing in the newsletter about it, but the recommendations from this report also strongly advocated for a structured Phonics approach in schools. Again, we are reassured that our current practice is the correct path for our students. 

The original Dana Street School building, or ‘Residence’, is still receiving some running repairs. Sadly, there has been some delays in the works, and we are currently awaiting a reappraisal from Heritage Victoria to complete some additional flooring work.

Unfortunately, this will result in more delays and disruption to our piano, percussion and guitar lessons. We are still hopeful that the works will be finished in the next month. 

Finally, please don’t forget to register for our Student Led Conferences via the link in Sentral. We understand that parents are busy; however, the importance of home/school partnerships cannot be understated. 

Finally, have a fantastic weekend 😊

Ryan