Ballan Primary School

Teaching and Learning

Mr Baker

Curriculum Day

Hello families,

Our whole staff professional learning day on Monday was a great success with a focus on curriculum and wellbeing. Mr Carlyle presented information from the Principal's Conference regarding best teaching practice and embedding explicit teaching in all classrooms. We reviewed our current spelling programs throughout the school and finished with an enjoyable session on GenAI (Generative Artificial Intelligence).

Sounds Write

What is Sounds-Write?

At Ballan Primary School in our prep, grade 1 and 2 classrooms, we teach phonics using a linguistic phonics programme called Sounds-Write – a proven Systematic Synthetic Phonics program. It is based on the science of reading and provides a structured, cumulative, and code-oriented approach to teaching reading and spelling. It starts with what children learn naturally, the sounds of their own language, and teaches them to represent those sounds in writing. Sounds-Write is a complete phonics curriculum that teaches the skills, concepts, and code knowledge necessary for children to read and spell.

 

Students are taught four key concepts:

1. Letters are symbols that represent sounds.

2. Sounds can be spelled using 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters (dog, street, night, dough).

3. The same sound can be spelled in different ways (rain, break, stay, gate).

4. The same spelling can represent different sounds (head, seat, break).

 

Students are taught to master three key skills:

  1. Segmenting – the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words
  2. Blending – the ability to push sounds together to build words
  3. Phoneme manipulation – the ability to insert sounds into and delete sounds out of words. This skill is necessary to test out alternatives for spellings that represent more than one sound.

We encourage all of our parents/carers to access the free Sounds-Write online course so that they are well-informed about how best to support their children with reading and spelling at home.

 

Another great resource for use at home is the Sound Waves Chants and Actions video which allows students to learn about the 43 sounds (phonemes) that make up Australian English link.

Life Ed visits

This week we have welcomed back Healthy Harold and Life Ed's health and wellbeing programs to our school. Our Preps, 3/4s and 5/6L have participated in learning programs led by Life Ed educator, Kate. Our education sessions will continue to take place next week on the 11th and 12th of September with the 1/2s, 5/6M and 5/6P.

 

The Life Ed modules each class are/will be taking part in are as follows:

Prep - My Body Matters (60 minute session)

Grade 1/2 - Ready Steady Go (60 minute session)

Grade 3/4 - bCyberwise (90 minute session)

Grade 5/6 - bCyberwise (90 minute session)

 

The parent information session is still available online. Click on the link to access the online information video Parent Information Video Registration. 

Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge (PRC) is coming to a close today (Friday 6th September). Congratulations to our 246 students in the school who successfully met and/or exceeded the challenge targets.

 

Our students will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers in early Term 4.

Book Club - Issue 6

Issue 6 orders of Book Club were processed today and the delivery of items will arrive by the end of this term for holidays reading and enjoyment. Thank you to families for ordering through Book Club so far this year as teaching teams have spent Scholastic rewards money by replenishing classroom libraries with new fiction and non-fiction books.

 

Scholastic Book Club is a service offered to students, parents and teachers. Brochures advertising a variety of books and computer software are sent home with each student, approximately twice a term.

 

Purchase of the books is not compulsory and there is no obligation. If you do wish to purchase any goods simply log into the Book Club site www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP and follow the prompts. All Book Club orders must be ordered and paid for via LOOP. Do not send order forms and cash to school. When the order arrives at school, books are sent home with students.

 

The School earns “Bonus Points” for each order which can be used to purchase new resources for classroom libraries and the school library.

 

Click here for the Scholastic Book Club Parent Log in page or to register for new users.

 

How to order 

Click on ORDER in the top menu or REGISTER first to save your details for the first time.  Select Ballan PS and your child’s class.  Add your child’s name and last initial. Enter the item number from the brochure.

 

You can order for multiple children at once. All orders are linked directly to the school.  

 

Our school receives bonus points, which are redeemed for a variety of books for the children therefore we thank you for your continued support.

 

If parents wish to collect orders personally from the office, please let the school know.

 

Please go to www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP and find Ballan Primary School to order or alternatively you can download the LOOP app via the App Store or Google Play.

 

Happy learning!

Mr Baker