Learning & Teaching

NAPLAN

Congratulations to all Year 3 and Year 5 students for completing NAPLAN assessments this week. Any student who was absent during the scheduled testing period can sit 'Catch-up Tests' next week. The NAPLAN results will be available in July and will be sent home to families via post.

Prep-2 News

Classroom Helper Course

Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend the Classroom Helper Course on Tuesday. The course outlined what English looks like at Sacred Heart, in particular Little Learners Love Literacy, Heggerty and Spelling Mastery in the Prep-2 classes. Classroom visits took place to see these programs in action. 

Classroom teachers will send communication in the next few weeks asking for your availability to help in the classroom from Term 2. A reminder to please check that your Working with Children's card is up-to-date and that the School Office has a copy. We are looking forward to welcoming our Classroom Helpers next term. 

Little Learners Love Literacy (LLLL)

At Sacred Heart in Prep-2 we use the program Little Learners Love Literacy (LLLL). LLLL an explicit and sequential literacy approach for teaching our children to read, write and spell. 

LLLL focuses on the following:

• Phonemic awareness and phonics for spelling and reading, supported by the Heggerty Program
• Handwriting including letter formation, pencil grip, starting position and sequence
• Reading Fluency which focuses on reading quickly, accurately and with expression
• Vocabulary and comprehension (once a word has been decoded, children need to know the meaning of the word in order to understand it and progress.)

Heggerty Program

Used alongside LLLL to support Phonemic awareness and phonics

Heggerty is a Phonological and Phonemic Awareness program used in Prep and Year 1 to support LLLL. It is an oral and auditory program. Each lesson goes for 8-10 minutes with a focus on:

• Rhyme
• Phoneme Isolation (initial, final, and medial)
• Blend words, syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes
• Segment words, syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes
• Add syllables and phonemes
• Delete syllables and phonemes
• Substitute syllables and phonemes

Decodable Readers

A decodable reader uses specific grapheme–phoneme that correspondences to what students have learned. Decodable books encourage children to sound out words using decoding strategies rather than guessing from pictures or predicting from other cues. 

Spelling Mastery

Spelling Mastery is an explicit instruction spelling program used in Years 2-6. The program helps students understand the relationship between sounds, word parts, and spelling patterns. Spelling Mastery encourages students to learn strategies to spell correctly rather than rely on memory alone. 

Celebration of Maths

In recognition of both International Day of Mathematics (14 March) and World Maths Day (25 March), Sacred Heart will be celebrating Maths on Tuesday 24 March. Thank you to our Mathematics Leader, Miss Bilney, for organising a number of fun maths acitivities and games that the students will actively participate in throughout the day.