A message from the Principal

This week we are celebrating Children's Book Week at SKiPPS and it has been wonderful to go into our classrooms during the week and see our classes of all ages engaging with high-quality books, the process of writing and getting excited for our Book Week Parade this Friday.

Children's Book Week is run by the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) to spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children's authors and illustrators. This year our school has gone all-out and completely engaged with the theme of 'Read, Grow, Inspire'. 

Each class has been lucky to receive the full set of books shortlisted for the CBCA 'Book of the Year' award and they have enjoyed spending time with these beautiful, rich books alongside their teachers and classmates. Each class has taken the time to discuss the books, choose a favourite and talk about their reasons why.

We have run our very own voting system to choose our very own SKiPPS 'Book of the Year' and look forward to revealing this at our Book Week assembly this Friday.

At SKiPPS we place huge importance on children being surrounded by high quality literature and having time to enjoy and be inspired by great books. This desire led us to spend large amounts of time and money over the last few years building incredible 'classroom libraries' in each learning space.

Research shows that classroom libraries and regularly enjoying quality books shows that;

• Equitable access to books promotes reading achievement and motivation (National Council of Teachers of English Executive Committee, 2017).
•  “Providing access to high-quality, diverse books and content” was recently listed as one of the top five most critical topics for improving literacy outcomes in the next decade, as revealed in the International Literacy Association’s 2020 What’s Hot in Literacy Report.
• The quality and range of books to which students are exposed (e.g., electronic texts, leveled books, student/teacher published work) has a strong relationship with students’ reading comprehension (e.g., Hoffman, Sailors, Duffy, & Beretvas, 2004).
• Students in higher-achieving schools had more books in classroom library collections than students in lowering achieving schools (Allington, 2012; Duke, 2000).
• Classroom libraries significantly improve student motivation and engagement towards reading as well as student reading habits. (Yi et al., 2018).
• Students in classes with classroom libraries borrow more and read more. (Yi et al., 2018; Allington, 2012).
• Students who read widely and frequently are higher achievers than students who read rarely and narrowly (Guthrie, 2004; Atwell, 2007). (In fact, Guthrie found that the ‘engaged readers’ in his study actually spent 500% more time reading than the ‘disengaged readers’.)

In addition to spending time exploring the 'Book of the Year' shortlist, over the last fortnight we have also invited a series of professional children's and young adult authors into the school to further inspire our students and to talk about their own writing processes.

Earlier this week, we were excited to welcome Jack Heath to work with our Year 5/6 students. Jack is the #1 bestselling author of 40 novels, published in nine languages. His first crime thriller, Hangman, was voted one of the 100 best books of all time (twice). His mission is to create books that inspire a love of reading in children and adults.

Jack met with our Year 5/6 students and ran a series of writing workshops to allow them to try some new creative activities and practices to build their ability to engage and entertain.

In last week's newsletter we shared how local author, Robert Lorenzon has visited each year level to share his story about his Rescue dog Spike, who has learned to surf. Spike has won a dog surfing competition in Queensland. Many of the images in Robert’s book of Spike surfing have been taken locally at St Kilda West beach.

Robert shared stories with the students about using the ‘idea’ of a loved one (a pet) as a great story to write. He is also talking about the process required to have a story published and sold.  

We were also thrilled to be visited by the amazing Gus Gordon (author of school favourite 'Wendy') working with our students to talk about his inspiration, stories and illustrations. 

Gus ran sessions with all of our classes and even found the time to do some live illustrations in his unmistakable style.

Book Week will finish this Friday with everyone dressing up as their favourite book characters and I am looking forward to seeing all of our students and staff members getting into the theme and sharing a book they love.

A love of reading and literature is one of the best gifts that we can give a child and I am sure that this week's activities and excitement will help to foster that in all of our students here at SKiPPS.

Neil Scott

Principal