SCHOOL CLOSURE DAYS

Monday 4th November (Time in Lieu for staff)

Tuesday 5th November (Melbourne Cup)

Dear Families,

It is wonderful to be back at Holy Family after my leave.

My heart was warmed by many of our students coming up to me saying 'I missed you, where have you been' or 'how was your holiday?' I value this authentic connection that I have nurtured with members of our community. We genuinely care about each other.

I would like to thank Miss King and our staff for supporting and guiding our school community in my absence. Holy Family is fortunate to have capable, dedicated staff who support each other to ensure that learning and wellbeing continues to be our focus.

Please keep in mind that I will be working reduced hours until the end of November. Our Administration staff have the schedule of my work hours so please contact them to make a time to see me if you need to.

2025 Class Structure

Our class structure for 2025 is changing.

Holy Family students will not be grouped in composite classes because our student numbers have enabled our Leadership Team to plan for 'straight' classes.

Please keep in mind that there is never really a 'straight' class. All year levels have students operating at different levels which each teacher plans for.

The direction of teaching at this time aligns with our new class design. Teaching explicity this year has been challenging for some classes as they have needed to be split into 'year levels' for some of the core teaching in spelling and mathematics.

Students will still have the opportunity to continue to work with other classes when the opportunity arises.

I have included information below in relation to what has the biggest impact on student outcomes.

What has the greatest impact on stduent learning and achievement?

Achieving teacher collective efficacy.

To achieve collective efficacy, teachers work collaboratively to plan and work together to critique their expectations, evaluate their impact on students, and decide where best to go next in light of their impact. Teachers are one of the most powerful influences on student learning. Collective efficacy is about teachers believing that by working together, they can have a significant positive impact on student achievement. The research tells us that where teachers have this shared belief, great things happen.

When school leaders create a trusting environment and provide the time and direction for teachers to act in ways that develop their collective agency (by collaboratively planning, sharing their teaching, giving each other evaluative feedback on what is working well or not so well in their teaching, and when they actively seek and act on feedback from their students about how the learning is going), then they can achieve significant effects on student outcomes.

The structure of schools and classes (i.e., class size, ability grouping, multiage grade classes, etc.) makes very little difference to the amount of progress students make in their learning.

(Real Gold vs. Fools Gold, Professor John Hattie & Dr Arran Hamilton)

The class sizes will be 19 - 23 students.

I appreciate that change can be challenging and you may have some concerns/questions. You are invited to a community conversation on Monday 28th October at 2:30pm to address your concerns/questions.

I am aware that you may not be able to attend this session so I invite you to either email me.

This conversation will be held in either our Gathering Space or Principal Office depending on numbers.

Children's Week (19th-27th October)

Children's Week is a national celebration that recognises the talents, skills, achievements and rights of children.

The theme for this week is: "Children have the right to a clean and safe environment”. This theme is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC) Article 24: Children have the right to good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food and a clean environment so that they will stay healthy. Richer countries should help poorer countries achieve this.

World Teachers Day (Friday 25th October

On Friday 25th October, Victoria celebrates World Teacher's Day.

Our school community will recognise our incredible teachers next Thursday 31st October as we have quite a few staff and students offsite on Friday.

I encourage you to send a message of thanks to your child's teacher for everything s/he does to celebrate this day.

Learning and Reading Collective

A productive planning day was held at Holy Family last week.

Staff from 8 other Catholic Primary schools visited our classrooms to see our learning in action. While in the classrooms they saw the following teaching and learning -

UFLI

UFLI Foundations is an explicit and systematic program that teaches students the foundational skills necessary for proficient reading. It follows a carefully developed scope and sequence designed to ensure that students systematically acquire each skill needed and learn to apply each skill with automaticity and confidence. The program is designed to be used for core instruction in the primary grades)

PhOrMeS

Word Reading, or decoding, is taught in a sequential manner. Beginners are taught to read short, simple, phonetically regular words and progress to increasingly more difficult words across their primary schooling.

Spelling is best taught side-by-side with word reading/decoding. This is what PhOrMeS does. Students are taught to spell words with the same target graphemes, spelling rules, morphological concepts or etymological roots they are learning to read.

Phonemic Awareness is both taught separately and embedded in word reading and spelling activities.

Reading Fluency is practised daily from Foundation to Year 3 with opportunities for extended practice from Year 4-6.

Knowledge Rich Curriculum

Cognitive science explains that students learn best when they are supported to acquire, retain and apply knowledge. In line with the science of learning, a knowledge-rich curriculum progressively builds students’ subject knowledge, with plenty of opportunities for practise, review and retrieval to support long-term retention of learning. As students acquire more knowledge, it becomes easier for them to comprehend text, understand new concepts and acquire related skills

After visiting the classrooms the staff gathered to share successes and challenges of their 2024 learning journeys for each of their communities.

Planning for 2025 is underway with Dr Nathaniel Swain leading learning for these 9 schools.

Assembly tomorrow

Due to 1/2 camp day and the year 3/4 excursion, there will be no school assembly tomorrow afternoon.

2025 Prep Transition

Thank you to our Prep teachers and Miss King for hosting a successful Prep 2025 Parent Information Evening and first Transition session. There were a few tears but heaps of smiling faces!

Thank you to one of our parents (Jaclyn) for welcoming our Prep 2025 parents/carers with a cuppa and chat.

Welcome to Holy Family!

Basketball

Congratulations to our Girl's Basketball Team who are now through to Regional Level. We are very proud of you!

Whole School Excursion

We have planned a whole school excursion to Melbourne Zoo on Thursday 28th November. This special day is to celebrate all of the learning and great things that have been achieved this year. Details will come out about this excursion via Operoo in the next week. Please keep your eyes out.

Term 3 Dates

October

Wednesday 16th - Division Basketball

Wednesday 16th - Prep 2025 Information Evening

Friday 18th October- Year 5/6 excursion to Scienceworks

Tuesday 22nd - Prep 2025 (Transition 1)

Thursday 24th - EMR Track and Field

Friday 25th - Year 1/2 Camp Day (Arrabri Lodge)

Friday 25th- Year 3/4 excursion to IMAX & Melbourne Museum

Friday 25th - World Teacher's Day

Tuesday 29th - Prep 2025 (Transition 2)

Thursday 31st - Celebrate 'World Teacher's Day'

November

Friday 1st- Prep Camp Day

Friday 1st- Year 1/2 excursion MCG

Monday 4th - School Closure (Time in Lieu Day for staff)

Tuesday 5th - School Closure (Melbourne Cup Day)

Monday 11th - Remembrance Day

Tuesday 12th - Prep 2025 (Transition 3)

Wednesday 13th - P&F, SAC AGMs

Tuesday 19th - Prep 2025 (Transition 4)

Tuesday 26th - Prep 2025 (Transition 5)

Thursday 28th- Whole school excursion- Melbourne Zoo (Wellbeing focus)

Friday 29th - School Closure Day (2025 Planning)

December

Monday 2 - Swimming Program (Prep-Year 4)

Thursday 5th - Community Christmas Carols

Tuesday 10th- Year 6 Graduation

Friday 13th - End of Year Mass (9:15am)

Monday 16th - Year 6 Big Day Out

Tuesday 17th - Final Assembly (11:30am-1pm)

Tuesday 17th - Last day for students (1pm finish)

Garden Club