From Head of Teaching & Learning

Welcome Back

It has been so exciting to welcome all the students back to the college after a well-deserved break. We have been joined by some amazing new teachers and they are settling into our College community quickly. We know you will make them feel well supported as they navigate new systems and processes! 

Letters & Sounds

We are also excited to be in the second year of the evidence based, structured synthetic phonics program ‘Letters and Sounds’. We had fantastic results last year and hope to see even better results this year. We have invested in high-quality resources and will continue to provide professional development for new staff and refresher courses for existing staff. 

Testing & Home Readers

A major part of the Letters & Sounds program is the change in approach to home readers. Traditionally student in Prep-Year 2 would bring home levelled readers that were often unrelated to the teaching occurring in the classroom. To create greater connection with actual teaching and home revision we have moved away from the technique called PM benchmarking. From now on, students from Prep – Year 2 will borrow home readers from the 6 phases of the program. Teacher’s will guide the book selection based on the results of tests they have conducted recently. After completing the 6 phases your child will be able to borrow any book from the library. This will nurture a love of reading and students can read books that they are interested in therefore promoting student engagement. 

Students in Year 2-6 will have reading logs to record their reading; it is still an expectation that students read each evening. To ensure that students can regularly change their reading books, the library will be open before school, recess and lunchtime.  Many states in Australia have mandated this approach because of the strong evidence behind the program and it is exciting to see Wyndham Christian College leading the way in Victoria.