Year Three/ Four 

Communicating with the Year Three/Four Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2020, and welcome your input:

Mel Rowe (Class 34A) Melinda.Rowe@education.vic.gov.au

Meghan Henchley (Class 34B) Meghan.Henchley@education.vic.gov.au

Melissa Woollard (Class 34C) Melissa.Woollard@education.vic.gov.au

Meghan Henchley
Melinda Rowe
Melissa Woollard
Meghan Henchley
Melinda Rowe
Melissa Woollard

An Overview of our Learning

As we return to face-to-face teaching, we have asked our students to commit time to reflect upon their Remote Learning experiences. The video below is an extract of a learning task posted to Google Classrooms, which provides the students with simulated in-class teacher modelling. 

 

 

Returning to face to face teaching – Mel Rowe

 

As the above article explains, routine is so important for a child. It provides safety, structure and meaning to their daily schedule. It can remove some of the uncertainty to their day and allow a child to be aware and prepare for what is going to happen in the next part of their day.

 

Returning to the classroom and school may be a big change from the routine that children have had whilst completing their Remote Learning.  Some students may be used to completing their tasks by lunch time or having more say in when they complete particular tasks. Even going back to wearing school uniform may feel a bit weird. 

 

As students return to the classroom, we will be treading slowly to help students readjust to the learning environment at school and in being back with classmates. Your child/children will be supported in this step back to face to face teaching and will continue to be a valued and important member of their class. 

 

Teachers will revisit classroom expectations through regular Circle Time. We will discuss our Positive Behaviours for Learning and look at our school values. How can we demonstrate these values within the school and home environment? What is the same or different about learning from home and learning at school? We will continue to follow the Berry Street Model in supporting our students’ wellbeing. 

 

We are very much looking forward to having our students back in the classroom and be able to teach the whole class face to face once again. Your children have made us so proud in the way they have adapted to this new way of learning and interacting. Thank you so much for all of the support you have shown both your child/children and us as teachers. 

 

If you have any concerns or questions about your child returning to learning at school, please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s classroom teacher.  

 

The Importance of Routine in Childhood

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services, Port Melbourne

 

Routine.

It may sound simple and general, and that’s because it is…

But developing your own family ritual will give your child consistency and security in the home, as well as setting them up with good habits for life.

‘Building routines with your children helps them to feel safe’, says Dani.

‘They know what to expect when they go home, and it provides them with clear boundaries, expectations, and consistency.’

 

In what some researchers have described as an ‘epidemic of anxiety’, the predictability and familiarity that comes with routine offers the perfect ‘safe space’ that kids need.

While school provides a form of routine, each day is also filled with uncertainties.

A consistent routine in the home will have far fewer variables, so your kids can relax in knowing what to expect.

 

And that’s why it is so important to develop and stick with a routine in challenging times, such as through a divorce or loss in the family.

With all the changes that come with a separation, the consistency you incorporate into the situation will help your kids to feel safe and know what to expect.

 

And not only is routine hugely helpful in making your kids feel safe, it’s also fundamental in the development of good habits.

Some parts of your family routine will already be there – such as meal times and sleep times.

And one of the easiest ways to make new habits stick is by pairing them with other rituals that are already in place, says Gretchen Rubin, author of Better than Before, a book that looks at the science of habit creation.

 

So whatever habits you would like to add to your child’s routine, frame them around the ones that are already there.

For example, if you’d like them to start cleaning their room once a day, have it become the ritual before dinner time.

If you’d like reading to be part of the daily routine, incorporate it before bed time.

 

The key to making good habits stick is to do them regularly.

So pick a new ritual, and keep with it. Make it simple, make it fun, and don’t add too many new activities to your routine at once.

It’s much easier to commit to one new activity at a time; adding too many changes to the mix will be overwhelming and make you and your child less likely to stick to the schedule.

 

Importantly, routine also teaches and creates boundaries.

While conversely, a lack of routine gets in the way of respecting boundaries.

This is because the habits that come with routine show kids that there are consequences to their behaviours.

For example, perhaps part of the routine is that play time only starts when homework is finished, or that dessert is only served when all their vegetables are eaten.

 

At home is the easiest place to learn long-term behaviours, and to understand the concepts of consequences, boundaries and rewards.

So keep ritual and routine in place wherever and whenever you can, to make the constantly changing nature of growing up as safe, predictable and easy for your child as possible (and making your life a little easier while they’re at it).