Teaching and Learning

Welcome Back to Term 2

Welcome back to term 2 the students are already busy working in their classrooms and building on their skills. It has been an excellent return to school with the beautiful weather helping in this area. We are very excited about a few different things taking place this term and look forward to your support and participation in these. The following will outline a few of the Teaching and learning items that are taking place this term.

Education Week 2016 

15th - 21st May 

We are very excited that education week will be held from the 15th - 21st of May. This week is celebrated throughout Victoria and gives us a chance to showcase our skills to the greater community. This year the theme is Technology and how we can be inspired and intrigued by its multiple uses. It is a really pertinent theme as there are hundreds of rewarding technology-related careers and fascinating pathways to follow through the study choices made during ones educational journey. Keep an eye out as we will be inviting parents into the school at different times throughout Education week to celebrate our use of technology.

Maths in the Classrooms

As you know we have been busy working on place value skills in the various classrooms across Concord School. All of the teachers have really been doing their best to make sure every child is learning about the value of numbers from their own point of need. Many of the skills that we see as essential for students’ future beyond schooling are intricate parts of place value. Given the emphasis on place value we wanted to ensure that we were really thorough in our assessment of this area and have created an assessment task that will check understanding from numbers to 20 all the way to seven digit numbers and numbers with decimal places.

The focus has been on number lines, number facts, making numbers, number patterns, before & after, more & less, odd, even, the four processes, prime, composite, square and triangular numbers. Though not every child has been exposed to all of this content, every child has been exposed to the content that is relevant to their point of learning. In the Early Years of schooling we are teaching the skills explicitly but as the students develop in maturity and age we are trying to make the learning meaningful by teaching the content and skill within a practical experience.

In a few weeks we will move onto the addition process as our content base but while we teach the different strategies for addition we will continue to relate it back to the place value learning that has taken place earlier in the year. As we follow this continuum of learning we are able to build on these skills with the hope being that students will be able to apply these skills at some point.

A few simple suggestions for working mathematically at home:

Though we teach content and skills that are very necessary for our students when they graduate from school it is sometimes very difficult to develop authentic experiences where these skills can be practiced.  A simple shopping expedition or planning a trip and using the different transportations are necessary skills which we do practice but we cannot give them as much time as we would like.  These practical experiences are the perfect way to practice the skills that we have been working on with your child in a pressure free environment.

When paying for small items where the cost is a whole number (e.g. $10.00) give your child the payment and ask them to purchase the item. Try to organise for them to get change and simply count out the change with them and check whether it is correct.  If you have routines like take away night on Friday or going out for a milkshake after a sporting activity encourage your child to pay for the items that you are purchasing. These real life experiences give our students valuable opportunities to demonstrate their understanding and practice relevant skills and don’t forget if these experiences are not fun and stress free then the value can be diminished.  Home Learning should be fun, real life opportunities to practice skills.

Parent Helper Training

To finish off today I would like to thank all of the parents who attended our parent helper forums. These were a huge success with multiple attendees.  Don’t forget to speak to your Childs Team Leader and classroom teacher so that we can help you to support the learning program in the school.

Kirrily Lamers

Assistant Principal