News From Mr Smith
Dear School Community Members,
As a dad, I regularly reflect on my parenting and how I can be the best parent I can be. This reflection includes engaging in advice and ideas from experts in the field of ‘Parenting’ and ‘Relationships’. Cathy Quinn is an expert in ‘Parenting’ and ‘Parent Engagement’. Cathy has many practical ideas on ‘Parenting’ and below is some of her advice on how we, as parents, can develop the love of learning in your child. She suggests that:
- Parents need to show that they value learning and model the behaviours of successful learners to children.
- Help your child develop a good attitude towards learning, especially to be motivated and engaged in learning.
- Help them to develop strong work habits and the skills of persistence, planning, and organisation to become autonomous learners.
- Encourage them to ask for help.
- Establish routines that promote health and wellbeing, such as regular bedtimes, regular exercise, early dinner times (5:30-6:30pm), regular study times and regular attendance at school.
Professional Learning – Writers Workshop: Our teaching staff engaged in the first of a number of professional learning sessions focused on the writing approach of, Writers Workshop. Our Writing School Improvement Team have worked with writing consultant, Deb Sukarna. The Writers Workshop approach is an instructional practice designed to help children become confident and capable writers. During a Writers Workshop session, students have time to work independently and with their peers. They engage in the writing process by selecting topics, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their original work. To ensure students have access to consistently high-quality instruction in writing, each of our teachers are committed to the Writers Workshop approach. We look forward to sharing writing samples throughout the year.
School Improvement Plan: The next aspect of our School Improvement Plan that we would like to share with our community is:
Key Improvement Strategy 1 - Numeracy: Develop and implement an evidence based and whole school approach to the teaching of Mathematics.
Leaders: Mrs McLeod and Mrs Geary
Achievements:
- audited current practices in teaching Maths across the school
- research evidenced based Maths approaches
- through collaborating with staff, we have identified the Launch, Explore, Summarise as the evidenced based approach we will implement and embed at Mano
- begun exploring and investigating the new Maths 2.0 curriculum, including Professional Development within our School Improvement Team
- explored a variety of engaging warm up games and tasks that can be used in the ‘connect’ phase of our Teaching and Learning Model
- family maths challenges have returned, strengthening home school partnerships
- Mrs McLeod has visited many classrooms across the school, modelling warm up games and assisting in Launch, Explore, Summarise lessons
- collaborated with staff to analyse current assessment data and how this data can be used for planning and teaching
Current Work:
- designing professional learning for teachers on the Launch, Explore, Summarise approach
- preparing to collaborate with teachers to ‘map’ the new Maths 2.0 curriculum
- 1:1 Coaching of staff has begun with a focus on Launch, Explore, Summarise
Student Reports and Parent/Teacher Conferences: As many of you will be aware, our Student Reports and our Parent/Teacher Conferences are fast approaching.
Student Reports
Our Student Reports will be available via Compass on Friday, 21st June at 4:00pm.
Families can request a ‘paper copy’ from the Office if required – please contact Georgia if you would like a ‘paper copy’.
Parent/Teacher Conferences
Our Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Thursday, 27th June from 2:00pm until 7:40pm. Families are able to secure a booking for their Parent/Teacher Conference via Compass.
A reminder that students will be dismissed at 1:30pm on this day.
Pupil Free Day – Friday, 7th June: A reminder that our next Pupil Free Day is on Friday, 7th June. This day is dedicated to our staff formalising their assessments of all students and compiling their student Reports. Care is available on this day through VillageOHSC. Please visit their website to ‘book’ care for this day.
Thank you for supporting our school and have a great week.
Christian Smith