Faith Life & Learning and Teaching News

FAITH LIFE INQUIRY

TERM 3 THROUHLINE: INTERCONNECTIONS

Our school throughlines are used to guide the inquiry based learning and connections are made to other areas of the curriculum such as Religious Educations, Mathematics and English.

This throughline explores the following:

• Everything and everyone is interconnected
• People are connected to different places within and beyond our community
• Places and activities are influenced by human actions 
• People are connected to others within and beyond our community
• Places and the people and organisations in them are interconnected with other places in a variety of ways
• People, through their choices and actions, are connected to places throughout the world in a wide variety of ways, 
• My choices and actions can have positive and negative impacts

Pre-Year 6 inquiries:

Prep: "How do living things survive and thrive?"

Years 1/2: "What are our connections to these places and spaces?"

Years 3/4: "How can we show our connections to our country?"

Years 5/6: "Should we get everything we want?"

Social Justice Leadership Group

A huge congratulations for the work our Social Justice Leadership team put in last term and this week to raise donations for West Welcome Wagon. 

Last week they presented the donations to Colette McInerney, the CEO of West Welcome Wagon, at Monday's School Assembly. Colette accepted the donations and thanked the Sacred Heart community. As the lead educator of this group, I am looking forward to working with them for the reminder of the year. They have an abundance of enthusiasm and ideas they still need to unleash! 

Thank you to our Sacred Heart community for their generosity.

Grandparents Day 

Cath Palmer

Learning and Teaching Leader

Faith Life Leader

cpalmer@shnewport.catholic.edu.au

Mathematics

Most year levels across the school will have a focus on multiplication and division concepts this term. As a result we have provided a school google site where students can access a range of links to assist them with practising and learning their times tables. 

Sacred Heart Multiplication Google Site

If your child needs to practice their times tables and you are looking for a fun and interactive way to engage them, this school site provides an abundance of links to fun and interactive games. The site is linked to the school google platform and can only be accessed by students using their school log on.

https://sites.google.com/shnewport.catholic.edu.au/multiplication/home

There are also some tips on strategies for learning times tables as well as some unique tricks for using your fingers to solve times tables! 

Students are encouraged to use the strategy that works best for the

Kim Dalmau

Mathematics Leader

kdalmau@shnewport.catholic.edu.au

ENGLISH

It has been an exciting start to another term and the buzz of learning has been seen and heard across all classrooms.  To begin each lesson in English, the class gathers as a whole class and explores specific learning intentions to support their development. The purpose to meet as a whole class is to have explicit and strategic instruction that has a clear structure of learning acquisition.  

During the Reading whole class focus, students engage with texts and explore literacy concepts about phonemic awareness, phonic knowledge, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.  During Writing, the whole class focus targets student's capabilities with the stages of the writing process, planning their ideas,  drafting, revising and editing and publishing.  Worked examples are shared and discussion about grammar, punctuation and spelling are explicitly discussed.  

The whole class focus is an important component of the lesson as it provides students with what they need to then complete independent tasks. 

In English, students have also re-engaged with their learning routines, taking an active role in their progress and future directions. Feedback practices are a constant and students regularly meet with their teachers to reflect on their learning goals using criteria and evidence to support. To give your child additional opportunity to discuss how they are going in Reading and Writing, ask them to share the learning goals they have set and how they are progressing with them.

Sue Burke

English Leader

sburke@shnewport.catholic.edu.au