Teaching and Learning

Spelling Mastery

This year, students in grades 2/3-6 are learning to spell using Spelling Mastery which is a differentiated spelling program. Students attend their Spelling Mastery group 3-4 times a week for 30 minutes of instruction time.

The program uses an explicit, teacher-directed method of teaching called Direct Instruction. Spelling Mastery is an effective, research-proven spelling program that teaches students the strategies they need to become successful, life-long spellers. Spelling Mastery helps students to understand the relationship between sounds, word parts and spelling patterns and encourages them to become proficient writers. 

Through Spelling Mastery, students learn to spell in three ways: 

1. Students learn words using a phonemic approach. This sound-symbol method teaches students predictable spellings for different sounds.

 2. Students learn using a whole-word approach. This whole-word method teaches students common, irregularly spelled words. For example, words like friend, answer and people, whose spellings can’t be figured out. 

3. Students learn rules about how to put different word parts together. These word parts are all called morphographs. Once they have learned to spell a few morphographs, students can mix them up to spell many words. They also learn the rules of putting morphographs together.

As part of our Spelling Mastery program, students complete a review test every five lessons to assess their understanding of previously taught content. We are seeing strong progress, with many students achieving mastery and developing confidence as successful spellers.

Semester 1 Reports update

On Tuesday, our staff participated in a dedicated Assessment and Reporting Curriculum Day. Teachers worked collaboratively in teams to moderate student work, refine progression points, and craft meaningful comments for Semester 1 reports. With the introduction of the new Victorian Mathematics Curriculum 2.0 and the move to a single teacher judgement score for Maths - valuable professional dialogue took place to ensure consistency and accuracy across year levels.

In Literacy and Mathematics, classroom teachers are continuing to assess students with DIBELS, PAT and Essential Assessment testing to ensure all teacher judgements are based on up-to-date evidence of teaching and learning. Semester 1 reports will be made available to families via XUNO in the final week of Term 2. More information and updates to come in future newsletters about our Semester 1 reports.

Victorian Premier's Reading Challenge

The 2025 Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge (PRC) is now open and Ballan Primary School is excited to be participating once again this year. The PRC website offers a range of exciting features including:

• access to a library catalogue (including book images and blurbs).
• a modern user-friendly interface.
• rewarding students with badges as challenge milestones are achieved.
• the option for students to mark books as a favourite, give them a star rating or complete a book review.

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 in recognition of the importance of reading for literacy development. It is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by Friday 5th September, 2025.

Children from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books.

All children who meet the challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklist and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit: https://www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge

If you would like to log any books read from home, simply log into the Premiers’ Reading Challenge website using the logins that will be sent home with your child/ren, enter the titles and authors of the books your child has read and the classroom teacher will verify those books before the challenge deadline.

Please note, at this stage Grade 3-6 classroom teachers will be sending home logins with their students. For P-2 students and families, if you’d like to participate in the challenge at home and log books via the website, please request your child’s login from your classroom teacher.

There are 86 days to go in the challenge!

Literacy and Maths Challenge

Get your brain buzzing every day with our Wordle and Numble Challenge of the Day - fun, quick puzzles to sharpen your vocabulary and number skills!

Wordle - https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html

Numble - https://numble.wtf/

Book Club - Issue 4

Issue 4 is now available for ordering via the LOOP system and you can view the catalogue online. Issue 4 loop orders are due by Thursday 19th June, 2025.

https://scholastic.com.au/book-club/book-club-parents/issue-preview/

Scholastic Book Club is a service offered to students, parents and teachers. Brochures advertising a variety of books and computer software are sent home with each student, approximately twice a term.

Purchase of the books is not compulsory and there is no obligation. If you do wish to purchase any goods simply log into the Book Club site www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP and follow the prompts. All Book Club orders must be ordered and paid for via LOOP. Do not send order forms and cash to school. When the order arrives at school, books are sent home with students.

The School earns “Bonus Points” for each order which can be used to purchase new resources for classroom libraries and the school library.

Click here for the Scholastic Book Club Parent Log in page or to register for new users.

How to order 

Click on ORDER in the top menu or REGISTER first to save your details for the first time.  Select Ballan PS and your child’s class.  Add your child’s name and last initial. Enter the item number from the brochure.

You can order for multiple children at once. All orders are linked directly to the school.  

Our school receives bonus points, which are redeemed for a variety of books for the children therefore we thank you for your continued support.

If parents wish to collect orders personally from the office, please let the school know.

Please go to www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP and find Ballan Primary School to order or alternatively you can download the LOOP app via the App Store or Google Play.

Happy learning!

Mr Baker