Principals' News
Dear Armadale PS Community,
Our Year level Bulletins focus on Wellbeing. Each year level is addressing Emotional Literacy. Learning experiences planned and delivered in these sessions are designed to support our children to understand their emotions, learn strategies that will help them to manage these emotions.
Please take the time to read your child’s Year Level Bulletin as you will get an insight into what they are learning in the classroom and how you can support this learning at home.
If you would like further information, please refer to our Student, Wellbeing and Engagement Policy. This can be found on our website or via the following link:
Student-wellbeing-engagement-policy-
CURRICULUM PRESENTATIONS
You can access short videos explaining our approach to specific curriculum areas and we also offer ways in which you can be involved in. Please take the time to watch the following presentations. They can now be accessed on our website:
- Maths – What does Maths teaching and learning look like at our school?
- Reading – What is reading? How can we partner to promote enthusiastic and willing readers?
- Writing – Our writing program and unpacking the 6+1 traits
- Spelling – Our whole school approach to the teaching of spelling
- Wellbeing –Whole school approach and classroom programs
- Assessment and Reporting - What we report on and how to read the report.
STAFF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Our staff have scheduled professional learning sessions every Tuesday. We are halfway in Term 1 and our staff have:
- Trained in CPR and First Aid
- Strengthened our understanding of Explicit Instruction and how we can apply this in our teaching
- Our team recently compared our school's instructional model to the newly mandated Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0 (VTLM 2.0), which all Victorian Schools are required to implement this year. We were pleased to find that our current practices align closely with the VTLM 2.0's emphasis on evidence-based teaching strategies. This includes planning, enabling learning, explicit teaching, and supported application. This alignment reassures us that our approach is in step with the latest educational standards.
Additionally, our teachers participated in peer observation sessions focused on enhancing our instructional methods. These collaborative efforts have been instrumental in refining our teaching practices and ensuring we provide the highest quality education to our students.
Rochelle and I are attending a 2 day Principal Conference where the speakers' focus is on implementing the new Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0.
We listened to the following speakers:
- Vic Zbar – Driving school improvement
- Dr Lorraine Hammond – Explicit Teaching – What is it? And what it is not
- Ben Jenson – Developing high quality, content rich curriculum
- Dr Nathaniel Swaine – Cognitive Load Theory What do Leaders need to know?
- Sam Collyer and Janine Shipard, AERO – Implementing and leading change
We look forward to sharing our learnings with our teachers.
Rochelle Cukier and Connie Apostolos
Principals