Welcome!

Welcome to all wonderful families to the 2024 school year! All staff are looking forward to another fantastic year full of learning and memorable experiences for each and everyone of our students!

A little about me!

I thought I would take the chance to introduce myself to all of our new parents, welcome to our beautiful community!

My name is Tim O'Mahoney, and I am the English and Education in Faith Leader at St Anthony's as well as a classroom teacher. I'm passionate about education as not only an academic pursuit but also a space for the personalities, ideas, opinions and dreams of our students to flourish.

In terms of myself, last year was a big one for me! I was very fortunate to marry my partner Chloe last year which was a nice occasion, although I think many members of my class would have preferred the ceremony take place on the playground at a lunchtime so they could watch!

Chloe and I have two bosses at home Sadie the dog and Dottie the cat, who despite not speaking the same language, still combine to be menaces each day!

You will always find my contact details in this newsletter so please always feel free to reach out you wish to have a chat about English, Religious Education or anything really in regards to school!

Testing and Starting the Year

We were very fortunate to start our year off with some testing days which greatly assist our teaching staff.

As I have discussed before, testing is no longer a silent room, questions on a page scenario in which it may have been in the past. Testing takes place almost constantly at school as teachers monitor how each of their students are progressing.

This is across subject areas and also across different skills. We know that we are all different and unique! We each have a set of things we are able to achieve as well as things we may find a bit more tricky and need to work at and practice. Teachers at our school develop a solid understanding of each of their students and how to continue to encourage and promote their learning.

What can we do at home?

This is a common question from our parents, what can we do at home to help support the learning of our children? Firstly even the question itself is a fantastic sign of support for our teachers and school! Below are a few tips that not only apply to English, but really each of our subject areas:

Encourage Reading: not only with school readers and library books but a range of resources. Ask students to read from newspapers, magazines, and websites on topics they find interesting!
Chat after Reading: Encourage students to actively discuss what they are reading, and try to have a conversation beyond simple answers. What did you learn? Did you enjoy that reading? What did that reading make you think about? Were there any words in that reading you didn't know or found interesting? These are all examples of fantastic prompts which have students reflecting on what they have read and practicing their speaking and listening skills.
Just chat!: Further to this having a chat and speaking in general are fantastic activities! We know that sometimes, especially when talking about something they are passionate about, students might have a hard time stopping talking! Encourage this but build on the information with more prompt questions. For example: Why do you love this game so much? Do you think there is anything that would make it better? Do you think everyone would like this the same way you do?
Short writing practice: This might assist students with continuing to practice handwriting, or with specific skills such as spelling and punctuation. Ask students to help write the shopping list, write down three things they enjoyed from their day or even draft a short email to a friend or family member!
Keep Track of the Classroom Topics: Teachers will continue to update parents across the year on the topics being covered in class. This will often include homework in middle and senior years which will directly reflect what is being taught at the current time. This allows conversation at home to help support what is taking place in the classroom. For example our integrated topic this term is Geography. What a great time at home to get out some old photos of holidays or places you may have gone as a family! An awesome opportunity to discuss life in Australia, including the weather, culture and food we eat.
Don't hesitate to ask: Our teachers are here to work with you! We love the opportunity to share learning tasks, talk about topics and skills and more. If you ever are curious please reach out.

This is only a very small list of strategies, and to be honest are things we see a great deal of within our community already. As always we greatly appreciate all of your support!

We look forward to continuing to keep you in the loop with all of the fantastic learning taking place at our school.

Take care!

Tim O'Mahoney

English Leader

tomahoney@santglen.catholic.edu.au

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