Principal's Report

Dear Parents,

What a privilege it was to witness our Year 4 students receive their Sacrament of Eucharist on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Our sacramental program is central to our Catholic identity at St Finbar's and are always reverent, beautiful celebrations. 

Teaching for Impact in Mathematics

Today I attended the Teaching for Impact in Mathematics (TIM)  course for Years 3 to 6 teachers, along with Jo Fraser our Mathematics Leader, Peter Tyndall and Bianca Antonio. In a recent newsletter I talked about Explicit Instruction and how we are reintroducing these principles into our practice at St Finbar's. Today's  professional learning also centred on explicit instruction, but specifically how this would look in a mathematics classroom. A key feature of this approach, and one with a lot of scientific evidence behind it is the use of Daily Review. Students who revisit taught concepts regularly, with frequent opportunities to practice skills have a greater likelihood of transferring their learning to long-term memory. This in turn reduces the cognitive load that they experience when introduced to new learning. Jo and I will attend a second TIM session specifically for Principals and Maths Leaders on Monday, and over the coming weeks  Peter and Bianca will share their learnings from today with the rest of the Years 3 to 6 team. 

Podcast 

It was an honour to be interviewed as the first guest for the St Finbar's student podcast last Friday.  Podcast leaders Isla, Dane and Ariana asked me about my recent appointment as principal and my career before St Finbar's. The podcast will be uploaded to the website shortly. 

Over the coming weeks, the Podcast Leaders will be hard at work preparing their next episodes, including a chat about Leadership with Alastair Clarkson from the North Melbourne Football Club and a discussion with the Hon. Ms Zoe Daniel about political issues that affect youth in our society.  

Baby News

Congratulations to the Russo family on the recent arrival of baby Hudson. Poppy (Yr 1) looks thrilled with her new baby brother - what a proud big sister!  

Pre-Service Teachers

We farewell three pre-service teachers this week who have been working in 2Z, 3K and 4M over the past six weeks.  These three teachers fully immersed themselves into St Finbar's life and impressed us all with their commitment to their classes.  We wish Megan Mackinnon, Ciara O'Meara and Ashlyn Reeves all the best for their teaching careers. 

Around the classrooms

This week I've witnessed some wonderful learning happening in our classrooms.  In Prep P, I was amused to see students with sentences attached to their foreheads. When I questioned them about this they were able to explain that they were working in pairs - one person would read the sentence aloud and their partner would write the sentence on their whiteboard. 

I came across 4A in the John Ashe who had taken their Maths lesson outdoors to learn about capacity. I overheard some great conversations about whether certain containers would hold more or less than a litre of water.  

 Year 2s were using number lines to solve addition problems; they were also able to explain to me the steps they used to solve each problem.   Year 5 are preparing for their upcoming biography project at Mayflower Aged Care Home and when I visited their classroom, they were writing a list of interview questions to ask their resident when they meet them next week.

Uniform

It has been great to see so many of our students wearing their Winter uniform with pride in recent weeks. Thank you to Mr Anderson who has been offering an added incentive by randomly giving out Deputy Principal stickers to students who are spotted wearing their uniform correctly. 

Take care and God bless. 

Michelle Hill,

Principal