Principal's Report

Dear Parents,

Well the hype of Twilight Sports is well and truly underway … from the outskirts there is plenty of work that has gone into making this event such a success and we thank Mr Frank Stokes and Mr Anthony Adaman for all their time and effort. It has been great to see the students practising their skills and refining the art of ‘track and field’, I am looking forward to seeing everyone on Friday! If you haven't indicated that your child will be attending the sports tomorrow night via nForma, please do so today.

Last week, Mrs Foale, Mrs Jolly and I attended the Literacy Leaders Network and launch of the MACS professional learning suite. This was an opportunity for us to listen to key presenters Professor Rauno Parrila, Professor Saskia Kohnen and Emina McLean surrounding Reading and Writing and the alignment to MACS Vision for Instruction. 

To develop successful and proficient readers and writers, we systematically teach the Seven Essential Components of Reading, often referred to at the 7 Pillars of Literacy. These skills work together to unlock the world of text for your child. What are the 7 Pillars?  

1. Phonemic Awareness ⇒ The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. (e.g., blending the sounds /c/-/a/-/t/ to say cat).

2. Phonics ⇒ The relationship between the sounds we hear and the letters/letter combinations (graphemes) that represent them in written language.

3. Fluency ⇒ The ability to read text accurately, at a good pace, and with appropriate expression (prosody).

4. Vocabulary ⇒ Knowing the meaning and correct use of a wide range of words, both spoken and written.

5. Comprehension ⇒ The ability to understand and make meaning from what is read - the ultimate goal of reading!

6. Oral Language ⇒ The system through which we use listening and speaking to communicate knowledge, ideas, and feelings.

7. Spelling / Writing ⇒ the ability to arrange letters in the correct sequence to form words that are communally understood. 

During the sessions, we unpacked these ideas and discussed what these look like in our everyday classrooms. A big discussion point was around ‘take home readers’ and assessing the students reading level. Traditionally this was done quite frequently within the classroom, completing Running Records and assigned, levelled books were sent home. While we know this supports the ‘Whole Language’ approach to English, as we move towards the Science of Learning, there are adjustments that we are going to need to make to the take home reading program. What this looks like is evolving at St Leonard’s and as we continue in our learning we will continue to refine our practice and processes to best align with the current research and our students.

nForma Parent Portal Update

As mentioned earlier this year, we are moving to the nForma Parent Portal for all school communications, newsletters, attendance and reports. We are currently in the process of transitioning to this new platform.

Many of you may have already noticed that this term’s newsletters have been sent via the portal. Information about Twilight Sports was also sent at the end of last week for you to respond to. Some of you may also have received First Aid notifications about your child attending Sick Bay. You will receive notifications in the following ways:

• On your phone: If you’re using the nForma for Parents app, (and depending on how you set it up), you will receive both banner notifications on your phone and an email prompting you to log in.

• On a computer: If you prefer to use the desktop version (without the app), you’ll receive email notifications only.

   

IMPORTANT - Please read and complete the following:

We need families to enter their children’s medical information on nForma ASAP. We will no longer have access to our data on Operoo from December so it is imperative that your child’s medical information is updated by December 1st.

At the moment we aren’t using the chat feature on nForma, so if you are messaging teachers please continue to either message them via email or Seesaw - otherwise they may not see your message. We will no longer be using Seesaw at the end of this year.

Next year, we’ll share more information about the other exciting features of the portal and how to use them.

As we make this transition, we appreciate your understanding. If you happen to receive duplicate notifications or if something doesn’t work quite as expected, please just let us know. If you are using your phone and experience an issue, please try logging in from a computer or laptop to check whether the issue is on our end or device-related.

You can log into the nForma Parent Portal using this link: https://portal.nforma.com.au/login

Thank you for your support and patience as we begin this new journey together!