Teaching and Learning 

Celebrating World Teacher's Day!

Today as a school community we celebrate the wonderful educators we are extremely fortunate to have within our school each and every day. 

When I think back to my own primary and secondary school years there are certain teachers who come to mind straight away. Those who left a mark by molding my thoughts, nurturing my talents and imparting wisdom that I still think about to this day. I'm sure many of you also have particular teachers who have also left an everlasting impact on your lives.  

Today we celebrate the teaching staff we are privileged to work alongside here at Karoo PS, and we thank them for engaging our students in their learning, for believing in the potential of all students and for being a part of the culture that makes Karoo such a wonderful community to be a part of!

In the Classrooms: Number Fluency

As a staff we have been exploring ways we incorporate Number Fluency throughout the week to build the confidence and mental flexibility when solving mathematical problems. 

At Karoo, teachers and students have been working across the year on developing our common understanding of Number Fluency. We understand this as:

Number Fluency is the ability to accurately and efficiently make connections between numbers in a flexible way.

Number Fluency involves:

Efficiency: the ability to select a strategy that allows the student to solve the problem with ease.

Accuracy: knowledge of number facts and the ability to double check their answers.

Flexibility: the ability to explain and use more than one strategy to solve a problem or to check their results.

Talking About Number Fluency:

I spent some time in the Year 3 and 4 classrooms this week talking to students about how they work on their Number Fluency, and what impact it has on their approach to mathematics. Here were some of their responses:

"Working on Number Fluency makes it's easier for us to identify what the problems are asking and how to solve them quicker. It is helpful to share ideas with one another." Olympia, 4M

"This is a time where we share our knowledge and our strategies with one another. We can learn from the teacher, and we can learn from each other." Hafiz, 4M

"It helps us with developing our skills to work quickly and be able to work out problems without having to struggle and think hard." Deeshan, 3B

"Working on my Number Fluency helps me work faster and get the answers correct. When we do a quiz and we discuss the answers and how we worked them out, that helps me a lot because it improves my maths skills." Zara, 3B

Students and teachers alike are recognising the impact regular number fluency sessions are making to student achievement and confidence in mathematics.

Please see the following attachment for more information around how you can support your children at home in Numeracy: Mathematics Teaching Toolkit - Parents and Carers

Maths Talent Quest and ICAS

Last Thursday 12 of our students were invited to Storey Hall at RMIT to be presented with their certificates for receiving High Distinctions for their investigations. We are incredibly proud of high standard our Karoo students have shown throughout the process. 

We were honoured to receive on the day a Most Outstanding School award - one of only 8 awarded! What a big surprise and one we are extremely excited about. 

We look forward to acknowledging all Maths Talent Quest and ICAS participants with their certificates throughout Term 4. Due to the high number of certificates to be awarded, we will be presenting these to students on the following dates:

Friday 3rd November: Maths Talent Quest certificates at our Sub School Assemblies

Friday 17th November: ICAS certificates @ our Whole School Assembly

Both assemblies start at 2:40 should you wish to attend. We invite parents and carers along to celebrate our students on these days!

Have a wonderful weekend, 

Kylie Middlemiss

Acting Assistant Principal

Teaching and Learning