News From Mr Smith

Dear School Community Members,

All students should be into the habit of reading regularly as part of their Home-Reading program (both independently and being read to). As parents and role models, we have the opportunity to project and model the importance of reading onto our children. Professor Anne Bayetto from Flinders University in South Australia highlighted students who read:

Less than 1 minute per day will read 8000 words a year

4.6 minutes per day will read 282 000 words a year

20 minutes per day will read 1.8 million words a year

How can they ever catch up? Our role, as teachers, is to explicitly teach students how to decode the text and comprehension strategies that children require to be successful readers. As parents and role models, your job is to give the opportunity for them to practise these skills. We expect all students are engaged in a regular home-reading program. For our Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 students, this will include a prescribed program where they bring home a ‘take-home book’ co-selected by the student and their teacher. Our older students should be engaging in a more independent home-reading program where books have been borrowed from the school library, local libraries or a home library.

Please contact your child’s classroom teacher if you require further support with your child’s Home Reading program.

School Values – Safe Sally: As we continue to promote our school values at Mano within classrooms and at assembly, I encourage families to continue the promotion of our values at home. Safety is anything that people do to protect themselves or others from harmful accidents. A safe person prevents accidents or harmful events by following safety measures. Our students will continue to learn, through explicit lessons and role playing, about ‘safety’ and how being safe will enhance and enrich their life. We look forward to the support of our community in promoting our values.

School Improvement Plan 2024 – Writing: As communicated early in the year, our 2024 School Improvement Plan is guided by our strategic intent that every student has access to high quality instruction with minimal variation between classrooms. Our school improvement plan states that we will “implement and embed the Mano Writers Workshop approach consistently across the school.” While we are in the very early stages of the implementation, our Writing School Improvement Team have initiated the ‘Mano Writer of the Week’ award. I was thrilled to observe Mila Kirby receive our first ‘Writer of the Week’ at assembly on Monday. Each week, a student will receive an award at assembly, their writing published in the newsletter and displayed in the office. This will continue to promote writing across our school and reward the incredible writing achieved by our students.

Sunsmart Hats: It is that time of the year when we need to ‘dust’ off the Mano Sunsmart Hat. All students are required to wear their Sunsmart Mano hat during all outside activities. This is part of the ‘Student Dress Code’ and ‘Sun Smart’ policies of our school. Students will be required to play in a designated shaded area if they don’t have their Sunsmart hat. 

Gr 6 Camp: Congratulations to our Grade 6 Learning Community on their camp last week to Cave Hill Creek. Highlights from our students and staff include the Bike Riding, Canoeing, Ropes Courses and the opportunity to strengthen their friendships (and hang out in the cabins). The camp coordinator contacted me to congratulate our school on the behaviour and maturity of our students, and the care, attention to detail and sense of fun from our staff. Thank you to all six staff members and Rachel Swanson (parent) for providing a wonderful program of activities for our Grade 6 students. 

Literacy and Numeracy Week – Week of 2nd September: Mano will celebrate Literacy and Numeracy Week from Monday, 2nd September. Many fabulous activities have been planned to continue to develop the love of reading and books and a strong appetite for all things maths. Key events will be our Grandparents and VIP afternoon, along with our celebration of our favourite book. Further details regarding the week and the other events will be provided in the coming days.

Trivia Night: Our Trivia Night raised $4,570.00. These funds will go towards improving our school grounds. Thank you to our amazing Parents and Friends Committee for their coordination of the Trivia Night.

Thank you for supporting our school and have a great week.

Christian Smith