Curriculum Updates
News from around the classrooms by our Learning Specialist, Jess Goward.
Artwork by Alkina Edwards' Creations.
NAPLAN
NAPLAN has now concluded! Students celebrated the end of their testing period with party popper and a cheer! Lots of students reported that NAPLAN wasn’t something stressful or worrying for them and that they actually enjoyed it!
Grade 3s and 5s Celebrating their efforts!
Grade 3s and 5s Celebrating their efforts!
New English Model
This year at Ceres, we are implementing a new English Model, which is in line with Victoria’s Approach to Teaching Reading. I’d like to congratulate our teachers who, as always, embrace change and challenge with a ‘can do’ attitude.
One of the features of the new model is dedicated daily time to teaching Phonics.
Students in Grade F-3 spend 30 minutes daily working on explicit Phonics instruction. The Phonics lessons follow our whole school scope and sequence, which ensures code is taught systematically and sequentially across the year.
Foundation teachers are drawing on the knowledge and support from the Phonics Plus resources, created by the Department of Education. The Grade 1 resources are due to be available this month.
Students in Grade 4-6 are also receiving explicit phonics instruction, which involves learning more complex code and studying morphology (word parts). They spend 20 minutes daily working on this.
Teachers have completed professional learning on SMART Spelling to support the Phonics instruction across the school. They have also completed training in the use of DIBELS.
DIBELS is an assessment which involves short (one minute) fluency measures that can be used to regularly detect risk and monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills in kindergarten through to Year Eight. The assessment allows teachers to evaluate individual student development as well as provide grade-level feedback to inform their teacher judgements.
We are in the works of ordering and resourcing decodable texts for students to take home for reading and we have dedicated a large portion of our School's English Budget to do this. For now, decodable texts can be accessed for home reading through the Sunshine Online platform, which students can access with their username and password they have been given.
When the books arrive, we'd love for some helpers to contact the books to ensure they stay in excellent condition and can be used and enjoyed for years to come!
You can see a larger version of our English Model on the School's Website.
Harmony Day
Last Friday we celebrated cultural diversity with 'a touch of orange' and some classroom activities.
Everyone Belongs at Ceres Primary School!
