From the Primary Principal

Hello to all our primary families,

I can’t believe that we are nearly at the end of Term 2. I can’t commend our students and teachers enough for the way we have learnt, taught, and upheld our school values during the first part of the school year. This is not by fluke but a great deal of planning to utilise staff expertise and allow students to have ownership over what they learnt and how they learn it. Students like teachers, are finishing the term with gusto and we are looking forward to Term 3, and the continuation of the fine work here at The Lakes. Thank you for all your support along the way during the first part of the year. 

A reminder that we will be holding our Term 2 Parent Teacher interviews on Tuesday 21st June between 10am-6pm. This is a non-school day for students on the Primary Campus. Bookings are open on Sentral and will be open right up until Tuesday. End of semester reports will be available to parents on Monday 20th June via Sentral. 

A reminder also for parents that we will be finishing at 1.15pm on the last day, Friday 24th June. Our end of term assembly will start at 11.30pm in our gym with parents of award winners invited to attend to celebrate our Term 2 award winners.

 We Love Reading at The Lakes

How great our library is looking! We have Megan D to thank for this and she is doing an awesome job each week to make sure this very special place is looked after and new books are purchased, processed and then available for students to borrow. 

We know that our students love to read. As a school we support our student’s passion for reading every school day with reading time across every classroom. We also have an awesome range of books in our classrooms and classroom libraries for students to access and of course our staff are very skilled at teaching students to read as well. After all, it is harder to enjoy something if you are not very good at it.   

At home, you can join and support our school and students love of reading as well. Here are 9 reasons why reading every day is so important for everyone:

1. Mental stimulation - keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing its power!

2. Stress Reduction - a good book can transport you to another world and distract you from problems.

3. Knowledge  - everything you read fills your head with new bits of information.

4. Vocabulary Expansion – the more words you read, the more you gain exposure to and then begin to use in your everyday vocabulary.

5. Memory Improvement – when you read a book you have to remember characters, plots and subplots.

6. Improved Focus and Concentration – when you read a book all of your attention is focused on the story.

7. Reading can help you sleep – reading at the end of the day can relax you, making it easier to fall asleep.

8. Decrease screen time – turn off the TV /phone/computer and read a book.

9. You become an excellent role model for your children – when they see you enjoying a book they are more likely to want to read themselves.

HOW DO WE ASSESS STUDENTS AT THE LAKES?

With school reports available for parents to view from Monday 20th June 2022, l thought it would be timely to give parents an overview of what we do here at The Lakes and how teachers collect data across the year to track student learning. It is important to understand that assessment of students at The Lakes South Morang College Primary Campus is an ongoing process and takes a number of forms. 

Assessment for improved student learning and deep understanding requires a range of assessment practices to be used with three overarching purposes:

• Assessment for learning: informs teaching
• Assessment as learning: enables students to reflect on and monitor their progress to inform their future learning goals
• Assessment of learning: occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards

There are two main types of assessment that are used regularly and consistently within classrooms at The Lakes – formative and summative. Both have an important role to play in a balanced assessment program.

Formative assessment (for and as learning) is often viewed as more of a natural part of the teaching and learning process. It involves finding out what students know and do not know, and continually monitoring student progress during learning. Formative assessment can include strategies such as observations, listening to students read and asking student’s questions. Pre-tests, sprint data, projects, self-reflections, running records reading assessments, pair and group tasks, checklists and student conferences are all examples of the many types of formative assessment that teachers do every day to monitor and reflect on student learning. 

Teachers use the feedback from formative tasks to identify what students have already mastered or are having difficulty with and adjust teaching appropriately. This could involve re-teaching key concepts, changing how they teach or modifying teaching resources to provide students with additional support. Students also use feedback from formative tasks to reflect on and improve their own work.

Summative assessment (of learning) provides students, teachers and parents with an understanding of student’s overall learning. Most commonly thought of as formal, time-specific tests, these assessments many include post-tests, writing tasks, art works, presentations, reports or work samples that are part of our continuous reporting program. The recent NAPLAN testing is an example of a summative assessment. Summative assessments are generally designed to measure the student’s achievement relative to the subject’s overall learning goals as set out in the relevant curriculum standards.

In order to have a rich and thorough understanding of our student’s progress, we endeavour to ensure that data is obtained consistently over time from a wide range of assessment types and methods. We are also working to prioritise students having the opportunity to reflect on their own learning and part of this is ensuring that their learning goals are clear and that students are aware of the success criteria for different tasks. You may have seen our Instructional Model that is evident in all of our classrooms each day. This includes setting clear learning intentions and success criteria. 

The provision of timely and relevant feedback to students is also vital to the learning process. Students are given time to reflect on their learning and make use of feedback to improve their work. 

Thank you for all your support this term. It is much appreciated. We wish you and your family and wonderful break and look forward to seeing our students back refreshed, ready for Term 3. 

Marcus