Teaching & Learning Page
Ms Charleston & Mr Chapman (Learning Specialists) Gill & Kellie
Surfside Primary School
A Morphology Christmas!
In 2026, students have been building their vocabulary, spelling confidence, comprehension and reading power by exploring morphology.
MORPHOLOGY: Magic Inside the Words
Morphology helps to understand that many words are built from meaningful parts: ✨ Prefixes (fixed before the base) ✨ Base words (the base meaning) ✨ Suffixes (fixed after the base)
This year, students have been “unwrapping” words the way you might unwrap a present — discovering prefixes, base words, and suffixes that unlock meaning.
Festive Fun: A Christmas Word Matrix
Here’s one you can play with at home!
en + joy –. enjoy
over + joy → overjoy
en + joy able → enjoyable
over + joy + able → overjoyable
en + joy + ing
A Warm Thank You to Our Community
Thank you for your support, encouragement, and partnership throughout the year.Your children have worked hard, grown beautifully, and made us proud each day.
We wish you a safe, happy, joyful Christmas, filled with laughter, stories, and magical wordplay.
The Surfside Teaching & Learning Team
Mathematics at Surfside Primary – 2025 Highlights
This year has been an exciting one for Mathematics at Surfside Primary, with students across all year levels engaging in rich, challenging and highly motivating learning experiences. We are proud to share some of the initiatives that have strengthened mathematical understanding, boosted confidence and sparked curiosity in 2025.
Project 25 – Extending Mathematical Thinking As part of Project 25, our Year 4 and 5 students had the unique opportunity to collaborate with Bellarine Secondary College’s SEAL students. This partnership allowed our budding mathematicians to explore extension tasks, engage in higher-order problem solving and experience mathematics in new and exciting ways. The program has not only deepened students’ engagement but also strengthened their confidence when tackling unfamiliar challenges.
Celebrating Competition Success Surfside students enthusiastically participated in a range of national mathematics competitions throughout the year, including:
- KSF
- Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge
- Australian Maths Competition
These events provided valuable opportunities for students to stretch their thinking, apply problem-solving strategies and celebrate their mathematical achievements on a national stage.
Fact Fluency – Building Strong Foundations Fact fluency continues to play a vital role in strengthening students’ number sense and reducing cognitive load during more complex tasks. When students automatically recall number facts, they free up working memory to focus on problem-solving, reasoning and applying strategies.
This year, participation in Numbots, Times Table Rock Stars, and our Surfside Rocket Facts program has been outstanding. In 2025, we also introduced the Arithmagician program, allowing students to extend their fact fluency beyond whole numbers into fractions, decimals and percentages.
Families are encouraged to support students by using Numbots and Times Table Rock Stars “little and often”—even five minutes a day can make a meaningful impact on retention, confidence and fluency.
Surfside Primary continues to be a place where mathematics is inspiring, engaging and achievable for all learners. We look forward to building on this momentum as we move into an even bigger and brighter 2026!