Learning & Teaching

Learning and Teaching encompasses the following areas: Student Outcomes, Curriculum, Assessment, Reporting, Principles and Pedagogy.

LITERACY - Bernadette Parnis

Writing

We all know the importance of writing. It is critical for student success in school and an important tool for facilitating learning and reading.

Why learn to write?

Writing improves thinking.
Writing is a primary form of communication which helps us to communicate effectively with others.
Writing is a form of self expression.
Writing helps us think better and more clearly.

Purpose for writing

An author's purpose is his or her reason for or intent in writing.

An author's purpose may be to entertain the reader, to persuade the reader, to inform the reader.

Writing skills

When we teach specific writing skills, their corresponding skills in reading improve. For example, teaching spelling results in improved word reading skills. When students write their reading comprehension also improves.

Writing at St Fidelis

This term the students have been writing various pieces and for different purposes.

The Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 students have been writing recounts.
The Year 3 and 4 students have written snapshots, narratives and persuasive texts.
The Year 5 and 6 students have written a news article based on their experience at camp as well as unpacked narrative and persuasive texts.

Writing at home

Here are some suggestions that may support your child in the writing process:

- Have your child write instructions for taking care of the family pet, cooking a favourite meal,

- Write a letter or thank you note to a relative.

- Make/write a shopping list before going to the supermarket.

- Write an online review of a book or an item recently purchased or a recipe you tried.

- Find a picture in the newspaper and write an article to match.

- Start keeping a personal diary.

- Write stories about family trips, events, and celebrations.

- Create comic strips.

- Go on a word search. Have them look around the house and find things that fit these categories. Then they can write down:

10 verbs
5 adjectives
10 nouns

Take a few moments to view this short TED talk on the power of writing.

‘The Power of Writing’ How inspirational is this young writer!!

The Year 5 and 6 students watched this earlier this term and were asked to reflect on the following questions with the intention of setting a goal for their own writing.

Why do we write?

What do good writers look like?

What are our goals in writing?

Bernadette

NUMERACY - Colleen Monaghan

I thought I would share this article with you. As our Year 3 and 5 children sit their NAPLAN tests, it is important for them to know or be reminded of this. This article talks about children learning to walk and how even though they may fall, time and time again, they never give up. They keep persisting until eventually they can walk on their own. Each and every child at St Fidelis, should be able to relate to this as they have all overcome the difficulty of learning to walk. With the right support, they may fail once, twice or more, but will keep getting up and trying again. This is a lovely way to approach mistakes with our kids. We may not get things right at first, but if we are willing to keep trying we will get there! The ‘I can’t do it’ attitude is something that creeps in as children get older. We really want students to know how important persistence is…

That mistakes are to be celebrated, as they help you learn.

Learning to Walk

Nov 11, 2020 By Dr Ange Rogers.

I was looking through my phone this week, trying to erase some videos so I don't continue to receive the dreaded "There is not enough available storage to take the photo" message. I came across an old video of my daughter taking her first steps. This is always a BIG moment for parents and every time I have watched (and filmed) this moment with my 4 children, it reminds me how amazing the human brain is.

For each of my children the process of learning to walk was exciting, they all tried over and over again until they achieved their goal. It was weeks of falling and getting back up and even before that it was weeks of standing and holding onto furniture and before that there was crawling - it is such a long journey!

But not once did any of them throw their arms up in frustration and say “this is too hard” (not that they can talk at that age… but you get the idea)😉.

The ‘I can’t do it’ attitude is something that creeps in as we get older, we become afraid of failing, are averse to hard work and struggle, we want to do things that are easy, and feel safe.

Over the years I have loved sharing my "First Steps" videos with teachers and students because I think they are a perfect example of the learning process in action. In this video you can see that my daughter:

Persisted and never gave up, and because of that she learnt to walk. 🙌
Made mistakes, but she brushed them off and learnt from them.💪

This is a process that each of our students have been through, so it is something they all can relate to. Our children need to know how important persistence is. That mistakes are to be celebrated, as they help you learn.

So this week I encourage you to show your class a video of a child learning to walk (mine if you want) and then have a chat about how hard they worked to learn that skill, encourage them to go home and ask their parents if they have a video of their own first steps.

This is a simple way that you can reinforce the importance of persistence. Because if you can help develop persistence in your students, this will hold them in good stead for life, particularly in maths class where I think persistence is the number one skill students need to succeed.😉