Teaching & Learning

Last year, Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) worked through our Teaching and Learning Model (revised version shown above), starting with ongoing Formative Assessment strategies in Writing for responsive teaching, moving onto child-friendly Learning Intentions, co-created Success Criteria and Visible Learning Goals and Writing Instructional Practices within the Explicit Teacher Modelling and Shared Activity part of the lesson.

This year, we will embed this professional learning and focus on how these skills are applied in the Differentiated Focus Group and Independent Learning parts of the lesson. This is to strengthen staff understanding of reflective, responsive teaching for differentiated learning in preparation for the Disability Inclusion roll-out. Collaborative and collectively understanding the individual learning needs of each student will be the professional learning priority this year. In PLTs and Jackson Learner sessions, we will use the FISO improvement cycle to provide universal adjustments, support strategies and interventions in order to plan the next steps in learning and monitor progress and growth over time.

Assessment & Reporting

To reduce teacher workload, we decided to remove the requirement of Summative Assessments in Term 3. Teachers, instead, have been employing some of the Formative Assessment strategies we launched last year. It is recommended that P-10 teachers mark student's ILP short term goals (progression statements) as achieved and not-achieved as you go to reduce the admin burden as you begin to write reports. Kelly has developed a Formative Assessment Toolkit with explanations of each strategy (see above).

New ILP revisions will be published in Week 5 of Term 1. These will be available to families through the Xuno Parent Portal. Staff can modify long term (content descriptions) or short term (progression statements) goals in Accelerus before these are published (Friday 8th March. Drafts due on 1st March). Parents will also be given an opportunity to discuss their child's new ILP goals with you in their Term 1 SSG (Tuesday 20th February). As part of the Disability Inclusion Reform, students funded under the PSD/DI are required to have four SSGs a year. We will maintain our two complusory SSGs in Terms 1 and 3 in a parent-teacher night style. Optional SSGs will be offered to families in Terms 2 and 4. Time has been built in (Wednesday afternoons) for teachers to complete SSGs with families as required and other Department mandated tasks and activities. Time-in-lieu for whole school events will be acquitted in subsequant weeks.

Time has been allocated in the first two weeks of Term 1 for staff to get to know their students and establish clear routines and expectations. These activities may include:

Relationship building activities
Establish Ready to Learn / Zones of Regulation Check-ins
Classroom Environment and Adjustments
Classroom Expectations (create your own from the PBIS posters)
Explicitly teach Whole Body Listening
Positive Greetings/Primers
Establish Orderly Transitions
Develop Differentiated Student Groupings (physical/ academic)
Formative and Summative assessments (new students)
Discuss what it measns to be a Jackson Learner
Activity around students' aspirations
Activity around students' likes/dislikes/interests
Understanding what helps students learn
Develop Visible Learning Goals

Smart Notebook Software and Interactive Whiteboards

We have purchased Smart Notebook as our consistent software package for the interactive whiteboards due to different versions of the Epson compatible projectors across the school. New projectors have been installed in our new rooms in Term 4. We have an additional professional learning workshop this term to familiarise staff with how to use the interactive functionality of your projectors and not just as an AirPlay projector screen. Following this training, we will release a school-wide Jackson Teaching Toolkit as a template with consistent teacher tools including LI and SC backgrounds, paper backgrounds, timers, visuals, schedules, PBIS posters etc. We will also include activities for the 9am-9:20am morning circle session with a calendar, weather, Zones Check-in, Jackson Social etc. In the meantime, below are some training videos and a teacher guide to get started.