Literacy and Numeracy News

WEEK 9 - END OF YEAR REFLECTION AND CELEBRATION

The Grade 2s have been reading The Wild Robot as their class novel this semester. A 

delightful read from the author Peter Brown, our students have been exploring the theme of community as they learn about the robot Roz, lost on an island of wild animals. Reflecting on my last newsletter contribution, this theme resonated with me. The work that the teachers have put in this year, has continued to prove what a strong community South Melbourne Park Primary School has, where ‘Kids at the Heart’ is lived. Being able to be part of and to support such a strong community of learners has been a privilege this year. 

In The Wild Robot, Roz is an excellent learner and studies the animals to understand how to best not just survive, but to become an integral part of the island. As a teaching staff, we have similarly valued the professional learning opportunities that 2025 has brought us and embraced enhancing and deepening our understanding of the Science of Reading, and strengthening our practices of teaching reading in the classroom. In particular, teachers have implemented DIBELS assessments to clearly identify students' points of needs and effectively planned whole class and small group instruction to best target students at their point of need. At our final reading Professional Learning, we celebrated how much we have learnt and grown this year and how our confidence in teaching Word Recognition and Language Comprehension has increased. We also set goals for ourselves for next year, with teachers excited about being able their learning right from the beginning of 2025. This has already been evident in planning conversations for next year! 

I won’t dig too deep into the metaphor of Roz building a community with the animals on the island and teachers building communities with their students. However, I will say that across 2024, teachers have created classroom cultures that celebrate learning, in a safe and challenging environment, where we help each other to do better every day. Our students have grown and changed after a year of new experiences and are more knowledgeable, more confident and are also bigger and taller. I am sure that every student could tell you something they have conquered this year and how ready they are for next year. As teachers, we are enjoying our final weeks with our little community and getting ready to say goodbye to our students as they are soon to head off to their new teacher and grade. 

And just like in The Wild Robot, Roz alone does not build a community. It takes the work of all of us here at South Melbourne Park Primary School, to support our students. We would like to thank all the teachers for their work across the year, all the parents who have supported their students' learning and all the students who have applied themselves to such a high level. Thank you for a wonderful 2024 and we look forward to new classes, new teachers and new work in 2025!