Learning and Teaching

Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools Art Exhibition  Tuesday 14th - Saturday 18th March

Location:  Catholic Leadership Centre - 576 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne 3002

Art Show Opening

The exhibition will run from 9.00 am to 3:45 pm on Tuesday the 14th until Friday the 17th of March. On Saturday, the 18th of March, it will be open from 11 am to 3:45 pm.

Those planning on attending will need to book a session through this link. https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing?eid=1016938&

If you are unable to attend, the exhibition website will be live once the exhibition starts.

Thank you

Katherine Slater

Visual Arts Teacher

JUNIOR READING NIGHT 

A big thank you to all the parents/carers who attended our Junior Reading Night on Tuesday.   We hope that the tips, resources and strategies provided by teachers will continue to help you support your child/children at home as they continue developing their reading skills. 

Thank you also to the teachers for their efforts in preparing the parent workshops for the evening.  

Below are some helpful suggestions which were shared on the night and things to consider when reading with your child at home. I have also included some of the digital reading resources that children  can access at home. Children should have all received their passwords by the end of next week, if not already. 

If you have any questions please see you child’s home group teacher. 

Thank you

Joanna Forbes

Learning and Teaching Leader 

Parents/Carers reading with their child!  Does it help?

• You make a difference to your children’s reading  journey
   
• As parents and carers, you create the home context for reading and set the tone for how reading is valued.
   
• Can influence children’s attitudes to reading
   
• Reading with your child helps their reading improve
   
• When parents show an interest in children’s learning, children respond positively (read more, develop a positive self esteem)
   
• development and comprehension
• Impacts positively on children’s vocabulary 

Reading with your child?

Should the books your child be easy or difficult?

For the Junior children the texts read at home should be at a slightly lower level than what children are reading at school. By the time children reach Year 3, their decoding skills are well established and therefore they have more choice in the reading material they choose. However, a good rule of thumb for all children is that if your child is getting stuck on every second word or more than 5 words per page, then the book is too hard for them.

Make it Routine

Find the right time for you and your child to read. Do what works for you! Ten minutes of reading every night is what we need to aim for in Years F-2 and 15-20 minutes for Years 3-6. For the Junior children it is important that a parent/carer listens to them read and engages in this experience with them by reminding them of their strategies and discussing the text with them.  Many older children like to read independently and before bedtime. This is fine and should be encouraged. For children in Years 3-6 listening to your child read aloud once or twice a week to check for fluency and expression is recommended. It is then important to find a time during the week to discuss what they are reading with them to help them develop their understanding of the text. 

English is not our first language.

It does not matter!!! We encourage parents/carers to read to children in their first language. The most important thing is that you are modelling positive reading behaviours and an enjoyment of reading. This makes a huge difference to how children view and feel about reading.

Turn off devices and remove distractions

Think about where will you sit and read together if you are reading with your child? Are there any distractions that will take away from focusing on what you are reading? Consider where the best place might be.

Who holds the book?

The reader holds the book! The reader needs to be in control. Particularly with little children 

it is so easy for us as parents/carers to hold the book for them and turn the pages as they 

read, however as the one reading they need to be in control and do this for themselves 

so that they become independent.  

Make it Enjoyable! 

Reading is meant to be fun. If you are getting frustrated with them, they will sense this and get frustrated too, especially in the early stages when children are learning to read and apply the strategies taught. 

Avoid using words like ‘good’, ‘excellent’, ‘getting better’ – focus more on the strategies they are using. For example, “I like how you looked at the first sound and picture to read that word”, “ I like how you changed your voice for that character” or “ I noticed you went back and re-read the bit that didn’t make sense”. Even with older readers making comments about their understanding when they are talking about the text with you also helps build their confidence. For example, “That was a great text to self-connection”, “You really have a good understanding of what happened or why that character acted that way” or “WOW. You have remembered lots of facts about…….”

Don’t Tell Them, Guide Them

If you tell your child every word they get stuck on, they won’t learn to use the reading strategies they are learning at school and will expect you to tell them every time. This isn’t going to help them develop and grow as readers. Listening to your child read each night is not a TEST – you are not checking if they can read all the words correctly as an indicator of how they are progressing in their reading development. They need to have a go at ‘figuring out’ the unknown word by applying the strategies taught. Your role is to use the prompts and tips provided to help them in this process. 

My Child is an independent reader what do I do now?

Continue to share reading time – maybe the library book that they bring home OR talk about what they are reading. Show interest in their reading choices. Ask them about the book, series they have chosen to read and why they choose it. Talk to them about your reading choices. 

Comprehension and ‘TALK’ is important! 

TALK! TALK! TALK! . This might be talking about the pictures and what is happening in the text before you read and as you read together. After reading with your child or after they have read their book independently ask them some questions about the text. Talking to children about what they have read is not only great for developing their understanding of the text, but it also helps build their vocabulary. Parents/Carers are key to assisting children in developing and building on their use of new and more complex language. Oral Language and the key skills of speaking and listening when engaging in a discussion are central to all aspects of a child’s learning and development. 

Digital Resources                 

YEAR LEVELS: F –Year 3

Wushka can be accessed online by students from Foundation to Year 3.

 Student’s login details have been provided by teachers and can be found in your child’s diary. Wushka is an excellent online reading platform as the texts provided are specifically designed to enable children to pracitse their decoding strategies as well as their comprehension skills therough the online quizes. 

YEAR LEVELS: F –Year 6

We are delighted to let you know that our school subscription allows SFS students and their family access to Story Box Library online.  Story Box Library is one of my personal favourites and I highly recommend it as it really celebrates a love for reading and storytelling.

Children can watch favourite stories, read aloud by fabulous storytellers, at home. Reading aloud to children, in particular by diverse and engaging storytellers, greatly improves language and literacy skills. There are also fabulous Home Activities which children can complete related to the books read. These are great and fun to do during the holidays.

To access Story Box Library at home: 

1.  Visit www.storyboxlibrary.com.au 
2. Choose Log In from the top right corner of the screen 
3. Log in using the username and password provided below:
   Username: St Francis 
   Password: St Francis
4. Enjoy the library of stories on any device with internet connection

YEAR LEVELS: Years 3- 6

Epic is a digital reading platform that provides children with fun ways to engage with texts online to support their reading. Children have access to an amazing collection of texts across a range of genres.

Students can access all Epic books at school for FREE during school hours. At home, students can also access ONE BOOK FOR FREE PER DAY through Epic Basic.  

Parents can do this by going to https://www.getepic.com/plans . Parents will be prompted with two options to select from – EPIC BASIC OR EPIC UNLIMITED. EPIC BASIC is the FREE OPTION and children have access to only ONE book after school hours. EPIC UNLIMITED comes at a cost to parents and is a yearly subscription so we recommend Epic Basic. When you select Epic Basic you will need to enter an email address to create the home account. 

Once this has been done, students can link their home account to their home group account and access epic using their class code. See below.

HOW TO LONG ON:

From a laptop/desktop computer:

Go to www.getepic.com/students

Enter class code: Teachers will provide this to students

Select student name

Start exploring and reading.

From a tablet:

Download the Epic Reading App

Tap on class code: Teachers will provide this to students

Select student name

Start exploring and reading.

Donations for Junior DT Wanted!

The Junior school is beginning a STEM project in DT where they will be designing and building a minibeast hotel to increase the biodiversity within our school. The objective is that the minibeast hotel is to be built with recycled materials and with items that they can find in our environment. 

If you have any spare plastic bottles or clean paper towel/toilet rolls that you can donate, that would be greatly appreciated. If these items could be brought in before your students specialist in Week 8 (7/3/23 - 9/3/23).

Each junior space will have a cardboard box where they can be placed.

Snap Shot of Writing Term 1

– LS1 Juniors – 

Clinic 1 Writing

This week in writing we went outside to Blow Bubbles! We had to hold the wand in a particular way to be able to make the bubbles big. We made so many bubbles which was lots of fun.

Then, we drew a picture of ourselves blowing bubbles. Elisabetta then wrote our sentence for us and we had to trace the sentence…

I like blowing big bubbles.

Elisabetta also encouraged us to try and copy the sentence as well. It was a little hard, but good.

Clinic 2 Writing

This week in writing we have been learning about Recount writing. We have looked at using different time connectives like first, then, next and after.

These words help us to sequence our ideas so that our writing makes sense when people read it. 

Clinic 3 Writing

This week in writing we have been learning about Narrative writing. We have had lots of fun creating interesting stories using adjectives.

These words help us to make our characters come to life! We also looked at interesting ways to write our sentences instead of always starting with Once upon a time…

Elisabetta, Nuri and Tamara

LS1 Junior Home Group Teachers

SPORTS NEWS

SENIOR SPORTS

GRADE 3/4 SUMMER INTER SCHOOL SPORTS ROTATIONS & GRADE 5/6 TRAINING

The Grade 3/4’s are doing extremely well in understanding the rules of the Summer Inter school Sport.  The training assists the students with what is involved in working as a team and competing against other schools.

The Grade 5/6’s are showing great leadership and maturity playing in their respective sports.  This is the last session of training, next week they will be competing against Rangebank Primary School at home.

DIVISIONAL SWIMMING

I would like to introduce you to the students who will be representing us at Divisional Swimming next Wednesday 8th March: Evangeline, Dante, Orlando and Sashenka. 

We did not have the District Swimming Competition this year to determine students that would qualify for Divisional Swimming but luckily Casey Race was able to identify possible candidates for us last year during swimming lessons and these were the students they identified.

We wish theses students all the best next week and we will let you know how they go in next week’s newsletter.

NETBALL CLINICS

Thanks to information provided by Courtney we have been able to secure netball clinics for the Seniors in Week 11, the last week of this term. These will be free clinics run by coaches from Casey Netball Association. We would like to thank the Casey Netball Association for providing this opportunity for our students. We hope the Seniors enjoy the clinics and some might even discover that this is a sport they might want to take up out of school hours. 

Further information will be provided to parents via Operoo as we get closer. If students are interested in doing netball out of school hours, there is a flyer in the Community section of the newsletter.

GRADE 6 BIKE EDUCATION

This week our Grade 6s started their 2nd level of Bike Education: Pathways. They started on the school grounds recapping the skills learnt last week. For the remainder of the sessions they will be using the skills they have learnt, riding out in the community on pathways. 

A reminder to parents, bicycles and helmets will need to be at school each Friday up until Week 10. If it is raining heavily in the morning, like last year, we ask you to leave bikes at home.

JUNIOR SPORTS

TENNIS CLINICS

What an exciting time the Juniors had with Bianca from AP Tennis this week. They focussed on ball handling skills and I have never seen students concentrate so much. They were so excited when they were able to complete the activity. Remember if your child is interested in continuing tennis the flyer for AP Tennis can be found in the Community section of the newsletter.

A reminder to parents tennis clinics will continue next week in Week 7, then Week 9 and 10. Below are the days the Tennis Clinics will be held for each Learning Space so that you ensure your child is wearing their sports uniform for the day and brings their drink bottle and hat. Reminders will be placed on Morning Gathering as well as in the Newsletter.

Mondays                Learning Space 1 

(Except Week 9 Monday March 20th when LS3 will have their tennis clinic on the Monday.)

Tuesdays               Learning Space 2

Wednesdays         Learning Space 3 

(Except Week 9 Wednesday March 22nd when S1 will have their tennis clinic on the Wednesday.)

SFS CROSS COUNTRY

On the last day of term, which will be Thursday 6th April, the whole school will be involved in our traditional Cross Country which will be held here at school. We will be looking for the winning House as well as the winners for each level in the Juniors and age group in the Seniors. We will also be identifying Senior students who will qualify to attend District Cross Country in Term 2.

Giuliana & Lulli