Learning and Teaching 

Welcome families to the 2023 school year. It has been wonderful hearing the buzz around our school as everyone settles into the new year. The Learning and Teaching section of our newsletter is where find important information about the learning approaches at St Thomas More.

Please see below for some helpful information and reminders as we begin the new school year.

Specialist Classes for 2023

Each class will attend the following specialist lessons in 2023. These lessons will begin next week.

Tuesday (sports uniform optional)

Performing Arts with Mrs Wicks

STEAM with Mrs Saville

Wednesday (sports uniform required)

Physical Education with Mrs Wicks

Thursday 

Japanese with Bawden Sensei

Brainfood, Drink Bottles, Hats

Students are encouraged by their teachers to eat brainfood each day at around 10:00 am. Please send fresh fruit or vegetable, one whole piece or chopped, that your child can easily snack on during the morning learning session. For example,  an apple, carrot or carrot sticks, celery stalk or sticks, capsicum, banana, grapes or berries. Please place any chopped brainfood in a small, separate container for easy access and to encourage independence and organisational skills. 

Please provide your child with a water bottle each day. Students are encouraged to drink water throughout the day to stay hydrated. Students are expected to wear the wide-brimmed school hat for outdoor play in Term 1 & 2.

Concept-based Inquiry

This year we will be implementing a Concept-based Inquiry approach at St Thomas More School. Concept-based Inquiry is driven by “big ideas” rather than a set subject area. Concepts are open-ended, explored through a variety of curriculum areas, enable exploration of big ideas, provide opportunities to use and develop higher order thinking and skills, and promote the transfer of information, ideas and understandings to other contexts and experiences.

Over a number of weeks, students participate in a variety of workshops addressing different areas of the curriculum to help spark their curiosity, deepen their understanding and to develop connections. These workshops are tailored to each year level and enable students to identify areas of interest which can be used to develop and drive individual and/or collaborative projects based on the guiding concept.

Our first concept for 2023 is Identity. P-3 students will explore this concept through personal experiences and workshops to answer the big question - Who Am I?  Who are We?.  Year 4/5/6 students will investigate the concept of Identity through various workshops and learning experiences to answer the big question - How does culture and environment impact a person’s identity?

Concepts drive teaching and learning that is significant, relevant, challenging, and engaging and transcends subject boundaries..

                                                                                                                                        Kathy Short 2011

School-based Assessments

As of next week, teachers will begin to complete a range of student assessments in English and Mathematics to help identify the various strengths, and possible supports, of each student. These assessments are completed within an individual, small group or whole class setting. We use this information as a school to identify classroom supports and to determine small group or individual interventions sessions and goals. 

Home Learning

Home Learning will begin over the coming weeks and class teachers will send home information to help support students and parents.

Home Learning for Prep to Year 2 consists of nightly reading to, with and by parents. Some phonics and spelling tasks may be sent home to help build skills. Home Learning will not exceed 20 minutes per night.

Home Learning for Year 3 to Year 6 may consist of nightly reading, spelling, maths skills and research tasks. Home Learning will not exceed 30 minutes per night.

Student Diaries

Schools can be extremely busy places and communication with families is very important. This year each student will receive a St Thomas More School Diary to help keep families up to date with classroom and school events and to provide another means of communication between school and home. 

Classroom or Intervention teachers may use these diaries in variety of ways. For example;

• as a Reading Log to record nightly reading
• to record homework activities and due dates
• to share classroom or school events
• to celebrate and share your child's success with a learning task or skill

We ask parents and guardians to sign their child's diary each night to acknowledge the completion of any nightly reading or homework, the communication of any class or school events, and to ensure they do not miss any potential messages from teachers. Classroom staff will sign your child's diary on a weekly basis.

We thank Saskia (STM Art Leader for 2022) and Keira (Sports Leader 2023) for their creative designs which decorate our diaries.

Help Needed

Help is needed to collate and assemble many decodable readers for our students to use at school and at home. It would be wonderful to form a working group to do this. Please contact me at dgeorge@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au  if you are able to assist.

Thanks

Danielle