News From Mr Smith

Dear School Community Members,

Reading, Reading, Reading: Earlier in the year I promoted and shared an article by Professor Anne Bayetto on the significance of all children developing an effective and regular home-reading routine. By now all students should be into the habit of reading regularly (both independently and being read to). As parents and families, we have the opportunity to project and model the importance of reading onto our children. Professor Anne Bayetto from Flinders University in South Australia highlighted students who read:

Less than 1 minute per day will read 8000 words a year

4.6 minutes per day will read 282 000 words a year

20 minutes per day will read 1.8 million words a year

Recently, our staff conducted a ‘health check’ of our home-reading program across the school. On average, 91% of students have an embedded home-reading program in place. The expected amount of minutes per week is: 

Prep – Grade 2

• At least 10 minutes per night (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs and Sun)
• Reading log completed, including signed by parent/guardian, by each Friday morning

Grade 3 – Grade 4

• 20 minutes per night (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs and Sun)
• Reading log completed, including signed by parent/guardian, by each Friday morning

Grade 5 – Grade 6

• 20 minutes per night (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs and Sun)
• Submit reading log via SeeSaw, including signed by parent/guardian, by each Friday morning

Reading 20 minutes per day provides children with a massive advantage when compared to children who read 5 minutes or less a day! How can they ever catch up? Our role, as teachers, is to provide the explicit reading strategies that children require to be successful readers. As parents/carers, our job is to give the opportunity for our children to practise these skills. We expect all students are engaged in a regular home-reading program. Please contact your child’s teacher or myself if you are needing some support to maximise your child’s home-reading program. 

School Improvement Plan: The next aspect of our School Improvement Plan that we would like to share with our community is: 

Key Improvement Strategy 1 - Writing:   Implement and embed the Mano Writer’s Workshop Approach consistently across the school.

Leaders:  Tom Fleming

Achievements: 

• employed ‘critical friend’ and writing consultant, Deb Surkarna, to support our Writing School Improvement Team and all teachers
• provided professional learning to all staff on the Writers Workshop approach
• provided professional learning on the Writers Notebook
• collaborated with all teachers in the moderation of writing across the school

Current Work: 

• designing further professional learning for teachers on the Writers Workshop approach
• exploring contemporary practices to the assessment of writing
• beginning to audit our current writing assessment strategies used in teams
• 1:1 Coaching of staff has begun with a focus on the Writers Notebook 

Thank you Parents and Friends:  On behalf of the Mano community, I thank, acknowledge and applaud the work of our Parents and Friends Committee (P&F). Through the ongoing efforts of our P&F, we raised an amazing $28,500.00 in 2023. These funds were raised from the Hot Cross Bun Drive, Bunnings BBQ, Mother’s and Father’s Day Stalls, Trivia Night, Colour Run and Referendum BBQ and Cake Stall.

These funds were allocated to our School Ground Improvements budget which funded the new Junior Playground we installed earlier in the year. 

Thank you!

Term 2 Social Service Activity:  Following Mano tradition, our Junior School Council invite our community to partake in a Social Service activity each term. 

A Social Service activity is where our Junior School Council identify a charity they would like the Mano community to support.

We are pleased to inform you that our Term 2 Social Service activity has been finalised by our Junior School Council.

Date:                     Friday, 28th June

Charity:                Andrew Love Cancer Centre  

Donation:            Gold coin

Students and staff are invited to come to school dressed in their favourite ‘movie character’!  Please see poster in this edition of the newsletter for further information. 

Thank you for supporting our school and have a great week.

Christian Smith