Our New Rigour Sessions Begin This Week

Week 3 and we are ready to go with our Rigour Sessions. This change in our practice has been implemented to enhance what was already happening at school. Students need time and deliberate practice to establish longevity and memory recall of information when learning. We need to make strong neural pathways in our young people’s brains, so that they can call upon things they have learned easily, and it doesn’t take up the working memory which is required when learning new information. Rigour sessions provide us with dedicated time to practise these skills, rather than squeezing them into lessons throughout the week.

Areas we are targeting in our Rigour Sessions:

Spelling - The Write to Read program will be rolled out this year, which has a strong phonics base. The premise of the approach is teaching children how to decode words and the spelling rules that support good spelling.
Mathematics - Rainbow Maths – a program developed by our Numeracy Coordinator based on a developmental approach to learning the basic number facts.
Handwriting – dedicated time to practise letter formation and fluency.

Attendance

With this new, daily Rigour Session comes a stronger need for our students to be at school on time. While we know it’s not always achievable due to unforeseen circumstances, we have a growing number of children who are late for school on a regular basis. Our concern with this is that these regular late-comers will now be missing these new targeted practice times. We are hoping families can help support us by getting children at school by 9.00am.

Parent-Teacher Interviews – Getting To Know You

Our 'Getting to Know You' interviews will be held on Wednesday 6th March from 2.00pm until 6.00pm and will be held on school grounds. This is an opportunity for you to meet your child’s teacher and tell them about your child. Compass bookings for the interviews will open up shortly.

New Spelling / Reading Practices Coming To Scoresby PS

As we put this newsletter together this week, the Grattan Institute have released their latest findings into the teaching of Reading in schools. They have found that there is a strong need for children to be taught Reading in a systematic way that includes a phonics approach.

In our many years of education, this debate has been raging with new approaches and techniques coming and going. At Scoresby PS we are currently reviewing the effectiveness of our spelling practices and aligning them with our new reading practices. We have been upskilling our staff in the Write to Read program, which is a phonics-based approach to teaching spelling and decoding words.

Research has found the following components essential for successful literacy instruction. The Write to Read program investigates each of these, and how to explicitly teach them.

Phonemic Awareness
Explicit Systematic Phonics
Vocabulary
Fluency
Text Comprehension
Teacher Training

Merran Maguire and Nic Rheumer attended the Write to Read program stage 1 training last year, and we are now sending more staff this term so we can roll it out to all students. We have seen the benefits of this approach in other schools and we are keen to get this up and going at Scoresby PS.

Tutoring In Term 1 Is Writing. The Approach Is 'Good To Better'.

Our termly Tutoring sessions are kicking off this week; Nic Rheumer is taking the sessions this year. The first focus is Writing, and giving a boost to our Year 3s and Year 5s in preparation for NAPLAN. We have chosen to support our middle writers who will benefit from a strong focus on some of the more challenging aspects of writing. Generating ideas, thought for their audience as a writer, adding their own voice to their writing, and the conventions of writing will be the main topics covered in the Term 1 Tutoring sessions. All students in Years 3 and 5 are receiving assistance and the Tutoring program for Term 1 in their classrooms.

Peer Mediators

Next week, our Year 5 students who applied to be a Peer Mediator will be beginning their training on how to solve conflicts in the yard. Peer mediation is designed to contribute to a positive, caring, safe and friendly school environment. The SPS Peer Mediation program helps students identify issues amongst peers, and teaches students skills and guidelines for resolving low-level conflicts. Mediation opens up communication channels and allows students to discuss their problems with the guidance of mediators and come to a reasonable resolution.

Our Year 5 students are looking forward to being out in the yard supporting our younger students.

Children’s University

This week, Vera and Taylor from Swinburne University’s Children’s University came to SPS and spoke to our Year 3 and 4 students about joining up to this wonderful program. The aim of Children's University is to give children an exciting range of fun learning activities to do outside of class, whether that's before school, lunch time, after school, on weekends, or in the school holidays. This program is open to students in Year 3-5, or by request.

If your child is interesting in signing up, please follow the link below. I\https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSct3bSehB7zrf_LSKCPhsq3oXUaPkLyKf5wCJ9ELQOVzD14xA/viewform?usp=sharing

Chinese New Year

It’s the Year of the Dragon this year, and our delightful Mandarin teacher, Ms Hou, will be conducting fun activities in Mandarin this week for Chinese New Year. She has asked the students to wear red on Thursday and Friday this week.

Scoresby Superstars!

We have made a sparkly mural at our front office entrance this year, highlighting our SCORESBY SUPERSTAR culture. We are very proud of our students and their achievements. Every student in the school has decorated a gold star. They are there to remind us all that we are part of a larger team, helping each other, showing kindness and care, while walking our HEART values each and every day.

The Fathering Project - Games Afternoon

Our first event for this year will be a Games Afternoon on Friday 23rd February, from 4.00– 5.30pm. We will have a variety of games for fathers and father figures to play with their child(ren), including tennis, bag toss, quoits, vortex throw, and indoor games such as Sequence, snakes and ladders and Connect Four. We will be providing snacks and drinks as part of the afternoon.

If you are interested in attending, please register using the following link: https://forms.gle/WRq4VJFubW9ixphm6

Working Bee

Our first Working Bee for 2024 will be on Sunday 3rd March and forms part of our Clean Up Australia participation. The Working Bee will run from 10.00am - 12.00pm and you are welcome to come for a short time or the whole time!

We are looking at redeveloping the garden beds around the staff carpark, and need to remove the shrubs and grasses along this area. In the week following the Working Bee, all students will be involved in creating new garden beds along this space using old tyres and painting them up to look colourful. What to bring:

Gardening gloves
Hat
Gardening tools including shovels, picks, secateurs, loppers, etc...

If you are able to attend, please fill out the google form by following the link below: https://forms.gle/phfYiSxSxWZqGcpt9

AFL Superkick Program

AFL Victoria have invited Scoresby Primary School to participate in one of their Auskick & Superkick Programs in Term 1!

The 5-week Auskick & Superkick Program is for students in Prep to Grade 6, and provides an introduction to AFL through their foundation program - Auskick - and the AFL's newest product AFL, Superkick! The program looks to engage students in a safe, inclusive and fun environment, with the AFL’s expert coaches delivering a memorable experience.

The program will run on Tuesdays starting 27th February, and the sessions are from 3.45-4.45pm and are entirely run by AFL Victoria staff. AFL staff will arrive by 3.15pm so that the children will be supervised from the end of school.

To register your interest in the program, please use either the QR code (below) or the registration link https://www.playhq.com/afl/register/53e4b7

The link for Superkick isn't live yet but for those interested in registering, you can register for Auskick and they will add you to their Superkick group!

NAPLAN

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests for Year 3 and 5 students begin on Wednesday 13 March and will be completed by Monday 25th March. The NAPLAN tests are conducted by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) and administered by the Year 3 /4 and 5 /6 teachers.

NAPLAN assesses skills in Literacy and Numeracy that are developed over time, through the school curriculum. NAPLAN is not a pass-or-fail type of test, but rather shows how students are progressing in Numeracy and Literacy skills against national standards for all Australian children. It also provides valuable information that allows schools and governments to better target effort and support to help all students achieve their potential and acquire the basic skills to help them build successful and happy lives.

NAPLAN tests fundamental skills rather than specific content and, as such, is not a test for which students can study or drill. The best way you can help your child prepare for NAPLAN is to let them know that NAPLAN is just one part of their school program and to urge them to simply do the best they can on the day.

This year we continue to participate in the online version of the testing. The online tests are now adaptive and allow students to access the testing at their level and potentially go higher than the paper version has allowed in the past.

Later in the year, parents will receive their child's personal report. The report will describe the child’s particular skills in Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language and Numeracy. The report will also show how the child performed in relation to national benchmark standards. These benchmarks describe minimum acceptable standards for students across Australia.

For more information about the tests, please visit the VCAA website or the NAPLAN website

Our Testing Schedule

Nominations For School Council 2024

We will be calling for nominations for parents to join our School Council for 2024 -2025. There are 3 positions available for this round. We are looking for enthusiastic members who are able to attend 2 meetings per term, and who want to be part of the team that makes plans for the school. More to come in the coming weeks.

SUE HARTLEY AND NICOLE RHEUMER

Scoresby Primary School Leaders

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