Assistant Principals' Report

Hello everyone and welcome to our newsletter article,

The Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series (VCES)

The VCES provides funded extension activities for high-ability students in Victorian government schools from Prep to Year 12. Within the series, education expert partners are delivering a suite of face-to-face and virtual incursions and excursions, such as workshops, tutorials, conferences, lectures and competitions, across all areas of the curriculum. 

A group of students from Years 3-5 along supported by Nicola Colgate-Jones, Learning Specialist participated in mathematics workshops today provided through The Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series (VCES).

Students who participated from Year 3 & 4 completed Dizzying Spirals and Squares and Year 5 students completed All Tangled Up.

If you would like to find out more about VCES, please click here: https://arc.educationapps.vic.gov.au/channels/VCES

Foundation - Year 2 Phonics 

Phonics Plus is a program used in Victorian government schools to teach reading using a systematic synthetic phonics approach. It focuses on explicitly teaching the relationship between sounds and letters (grapheme-phoneme correspondences) to help students decode words and develop reading skills. The program is designed for students from Foundation to Year 2 and includes a structured scope and sequence with daily explicit teaching of phonics and phonemic awareness. 

As part of the implementation of Phonics Plus here at HPS students in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 are reading fluency passages daily during the literacy block. Reading fluency incorporates reading accuracy, reading rate and prosody (tone, expression etc.) and is strongly linked to literacy development. Daily reading, reading aloud and repeated reads of texts are evidence based approaches and examples of strategies which improve reading fluency. 

Partner reading in a Foundation classroom:

For more information related to phonics and to access a helpful guide for families, parents and carers, please click here: 

https://www.academy.vic.gov.au/resources/understanding-phonics

Have a lovely weekend and week ahead.

Helen Thomas & Monique Rankin

Assistant Principals

Heidelberg Primary School