Assistant Principal

Dear parents and carers,

It is great to be back at MEPS after my Long Service Leave last term and reconnect with members of our school community. At our Week 1 Assembly, we celebrated the effort and achievements of students, and I encouraged students to set themselves a goal to ‘be their best’ through thought and action this term.

Teaching and Learning Playbook

As a staff at MEPS, we strive for quality teaching routines in every classroom every day. Our teaching and learning playbook plays a key role in establishing core routines that are embedded into learning from prep to year 6. This means that students are familiar with the actions, responses and steps with each routine to enable them to more readily focus on the content or skills being taught. The Australian Education Research Organisation state the importance of establishing “consistent, constructive routines associated with checking for understanding so students know what to expect and how to respond, and feel safe taking risks, making mistakes and learning from them”. Similarly, you may have routines that you use every day at home from getting ready in the morning to a bedtime routine, a teaching routine follows the same principle. A series of steps that students are familiar with that become almost automatic. At home, you may signal a routine with a regular verbal cue, visual or action. In our classrooms we use ‘Playbook Cards’ displayed in print or digitally and these are consistent across our school and signal to students what is coming next.

It has been wonderful to see these routines in action across the school and we look forward to building upon them through continued professional learning and staff observations. I had the pleasure of working with our prep classes to share in using the Mini Whiteboard and Multiple Choice/True False routines and our littlest learners have certainly set the bar high for how confidently they are able to implement the routines as a tool for their learning.

Term 4 Integrated Curriculum

Across the school, our integrated curriculum will see students exploring Digital Technology, Health and Economics and Business.

Prep Digital Technology & Health
Year 1 Digital Decisions
Year 2 Our Stories, Our Places
Year 3 Identify & Belonging
Year 4 Healthy me & Healthy Communities
Year 5 Leaders of Today and Tomorrow
Year 6 Economics & Business

We look forward to these learning experiences that will see students explore these themes also during literacy and numeracy.

With the sunshine coming out, Term 4 feels like it is really getting into full swing and in true MEPS style there is lots to look forward to both in classrooms and beyond the gates. I am looking forward to a successful term of learning and growth, please say hi if you see me at assembly or at the front gate!

Kind Regards,

Jessica Merritt

Assistant Principal