Learning and Teaching

Teaching & Learning

Olivia Hodgetts

Student Voice in Action: Introducing Our New Suggestion Box

At our school, we believe leadership is not just about wearing a badge — it’s about making a difference. I am delighted to share an example of this in action through the initiative of our School Captains.

In their speeches last year, our School Captains discussed a thoughtful and well-prepared proposal: the introduction of a student suggestion box. Their aim was simple but powerful — to create an accessible way for all students to share ideas, raise concerns, and contribute positively to school life.

What impressed us most was not just the idea itself, but the reasoning behind it. The Captains explained that while many students feel confident speaking to teachers or representatives directly, others may prefer a quieter way to express their thoughts. A suggestion box ensures every voice has the opportunity to be heard.

The process includes:

writing your suggestions down and putting them in the box (outside the office)
submissions can be named or anonyous
appropriate suggestions would tables at SRC meetings
outcomes would be communicated back to the student body via their SRC

This proposal reflects the very qualities we strive to nurture in our learners — initiative, empathy, responsibility, and problem-solving. It also aligns with our commitment to meaningful student voice and shared leadership within our school community.

I would like to commend our School Captains for identifying a need, proposing a solution, and following it through with such maturity and professionalism. Their leadership reminds us that positive change often begins with a simple question: How can we make things even better?

We look forward to seeing the creative and constructive ideas that emerge from this new initiative.

English 'Around the Grounds' with Miss Cardillo

Little Learners Love Literacy (F-2)

Our students have been hard at work learning how to decode and encode words to improve word recgnition and fluency. We are learning how important it is to 'break the alphabetic code' so we can access information when we read and move to a space that we can 'Read to Learn.'

Word Origins: Morphology & Spelling (3-6)

We have now completed two weeks of learning using the Word Origins program which is designed to build understanding about morphemes (the smallest parts of meaning in a word) and how this helps us with reading comprehension and spelling.

Please see below some information about how these two programs align to the progression of learning in this area

Text Responses

We are working on many different skills in reading and writing when responding to texts. Sometimes we use the text as a thinking prompt to guide our own writing and other times they inspire us to be creative in our thinking and illustrations.

Here are some samples from Foundation who were reading Possum Magic and were learning the vocabulary words invisible and visible. They did an amazing artwork with a 'magic' crayon where their drawing went from invisible to visible!