Literacy News
Young Writers Program Sparks Creativity at SKiPPS
As part of our Student Excellence Program at SKiPPS, 50 of our talented students—26 from Years 3 and 4, and 24 from Years 5 and 6—participated in the PETAA ‘Young Writers Program’, a Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series initiative. https://petaa.edu.au/YWP/YWP/About.aspx
This program, run by the Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA), connects High-Ability students with published children's authors for tailored workshops and mentoring sessions. Since 2020, the government funded program has reached over 2,000 students across Victorian government schools, offering inspiring and technically challenging writing experiences.
Our students spent a whole day with award-winning Australian author and educator Ingrid Laguna. https://www.ingridlaguna.com/ Ingrid, known for her books such as Songbird, Sunflower, and Bailey Finch Takes a Stand, shared her experiences as a writer and guided students through engaging writing exercises. She set them writing challenges, presented them with story starters to continue, gave them feedback on their work and encouraged them to share their writing with the group. Her mentorship provided valuable insights into the writing process, inspiring our young writers to explore their creativity.
Thanks to PETAA for connecting us with our author and funding this enriching experience, to Ingrid for her inspiring guidance, and to our teachers for making the day happen and the selected students whose enthusiasm and hard work made the day a resounding success!
Chantel Jose
Student Excellence Leader
A Favour
As part of the shift in education towards a Systematic Synthetic Phonics Program, we’ve recently updated our entire collection of Take Home books. All Foundation to Year 4 classrooms have now received new boxes of decodable books.
Decodable books are specially designed to help children use their growing knowledge of phonics to "decode" words on the page. This is quite different from the predictable texts we’ve used in the past, where children could often guess words based on pictures or repetitive patterns. With decodable texts, students are encouraged to truly engage with the written code, strengthening their reading skills in a meaningful way.
In light of this change, we’ve been carefully reviewing our existing Take Home library. Many of our previous books have been re-labelled and moved to a different part of the program. These will be used later on, when students are ready for uncontrolled texts. However, some books are no longer aligned with our approach and won’t be used at SKiPPS moving forward.
Because I have a deep love of books, I couldn’t bear to recycle them! Instead, we’re donating as many as we can to St Kilda Mums. The only challenge is that the drop-off location is in Clayton, and donations can only be made during school hours.
If you happen to be available and willing to help by delivering two boxes of books, I would be incredibly grateful. Here are the drop-off details:
Location: St Kilda Mums – 14 Winterton Rd, Clayton 3168
Drop-off times: Monday to Friday 9:30am – 12:30pm1:00pm – 2:30pm
If you’re able to assist, please let me know and I will book a time for the delivery.
Spreading Joy to Sacred Heart Community
Thank you to the students who have shared with me the amazing letters they have written for community members at The Sacred Heart Community. I am still waiting on a few more letters before we will organise delivery. Please bring any new letters to me by Friday May 30.
We warmly encourage all families to help their child write a short, cheerful letter addressed to “Dear Pen Pal,” to brighten someone’s day.
If your child wrote a letter last term, please check in with me to let me know. As we only received a small number of letters previously, those will be included in this new round of responses.
Thank you for helping us spread kindness and connection across generations.
Book Reviews
The Garden of Broken Things by Freya Blackwood
One of my favourite authors, Freya Blackwood has published another beauty! This one has been short listed for the 2025 Children's Book Week Awards in the Picture Book category and a copy will be made available to many of our classroom libraries.
The book blurb for The Garden of Broken Things says it’s about curiosity and the joy of listening—which it definitely is—but I think it goes even deeper. This story touches on so many layers: grief and loss, how we see the world versus what’s real, finding where we belong, remembering and honouring the past, nature, resilience, personal growth, and even ageing. It’s a gentle, joyful book that quietly celebrates life and all the ways we connect with others and make our world a little bigger.
Laughter is the Best Ending by Maryam Master
To be honest, the blurb on the back of this book did not grab my attention, but the reviews did!
Karen Foxlee, author of Lenny's Book of Everything (one of my all time favourites), said, 'Laugh out loud material, whip smart writing, and meaningful. I had a little cry at the end.'
Anna Fienberg, author of Tashi and the visiting author at SKiPPS in 2024 said, 'I found it so energising! Zee plays with words like a gymnast. We click with her from the very start - she's funny, frank, fair and feisty! This story will be a hit with young readers.'
Laughter is the Best Ending is another one of the 2025 shortlisted books for Book week in the Younger Readers category. This will also be available in the Years 4-6 classroom libraries along with the school library.
Zee is a bit of a loner. She’d much rather spend her days reading Oscar Wilde and bingeing documentaries than doing what her parents think is “normal” for a 13-year-old. So naturally, they sign her up for a five-day holiday camp, hoping she’ll make at least one friend.
Zee would honestly prefer a bath in Tabasco sauce over going to a place called Youth Fusion. But once she’s thrown together with influencer Tiffanee and brainy duo Jonah and Moses, things take a wild turn. Suddenly, she’s caught up in a hair-raising mystery, diving into detective work, and coming face to face with the legendary—and slightly terrifying—Old Bat Viv.
Jac Morphy
Assistant Principal - Curriculum and Instruction