LITERACY /

LEARNING & TEACHING 

SMART Spelling 

Spelling is an area that has seen many changes over the years, and taught very differently in many parts of the world. At Holy Name, we are continuously working hard at growing our students, and we get very excited when we see them succeed. For this reason, we have chosen to take a whole school approach to SMART Spelling. This program was developed by Michelle Hutchison to not only improve students' confidence and their learning outcomes, but also to improve the way our teachers explicitly and systematically teach spelling in their daily teaching and learning program. 

Here is what some of our students had to say when we first started SMART Spelling in 2022, and some of the activities they participated in. 

“Teaching spelling also supports reading and writing, and vice versa (Adoniou, 2016, p.11). Learning how words and language works contributes to vocabulary development. This, in turn, supports reading comprehension and enhances choices made when composing written texts. While it is acknowledged that spelling ability is not related to intelligence, poor spelling can affect performance across all areas of the school curriculum.” (DET, 2019) 

Classroom Helpers

Thank you to those parents and grandparents that have put their hand up to be a classroom helper by signing the Operoo form. 

Classroom helpers are the strongest way to develop partnerships within our school community which enables us to maximise the support needed in individual classrooms, to ensure that students are achieving their personal best. 

We have two training sessions tomorrow Friday 17th February,  upstairs in the shared learning space. One is at 9am and one is at 3pm.

This session is only required if you haven't previously done the training with us, and you only need to attend one session, which will go for about half an hour. 

It is school policy that all classroom helpers hold a current Working with Children card. These forms are downloadable from the Department of Justice website (http://www.workingwithchildren.vic.gov.au/). 

Please note that as you are a volunteer, your card is free.