Learning & Teaching

Parent Engagement Session: Take a Moment for Maths

Last Wednesday we opened our doors and invited families in to learn about and observe some of our evidence-based practices in Mathematics. The main focus was around our Daily Review Practice at the beginning of our Maths lessons. We began the session by delving into the scientific principles that underpin our Daily Reviews (see below dot points), then we went for a walk around the school to see Daily Reviews in action across different age groups.

• Scientific definition of learning: Learning is a change to long term memory. Encoding skills, strategies and conceptual understandings in our long-term memory takes multiple exposures over a period of time. 
• Spaced Retrieval Practice:To assist children in encoding skills and strategies in their long term memories, we provide them with regular opportunities to 'retrieve' previously taught skills and strategies from their memories to solve problems. We space these opportunities over a long period of time.
• Participation: There is a large body of research proving that the students who are actively participating in the learning experience are the ones who are learning. At Holy Cross we use strategies to foster full participation from every child in every class. This way all children are engaged in the learning process. Some of the strategies we use include choral responses and mini whiteboards for working out.

Watch the below video to see Daily Reviews in action at Holy Cross.

Teachers from Mother Teresa Visiting Discovery

This week a team of teachers from Mother Teresa Catholic Primary School came to visit and observe a Discovery session at Holy Cross as part of their developmental process. Throughout the session our visitors walked through our spaces, listening to our Holy Cross educators influencing the children's learning and building positive relationships with all children . The team from Mother Teresa provided the Holy Cross Discovery Team with lots of positive feedback around how we set up stations and Heart Spaces with carefully designed learning provocations, and how the educators across the Discovery spaces consistently used rich language when having conversations with the children. We would like to thank the Holy Cross Discovery Team for their enthusiasm, and willingness to share their learning and expertise with the wider community.

Year 6 Maths: Cross-sections of Objects.

It's not often we see clay being used in a Year 6 Mathematics lesson, however our creative Year 6 teachers found it very useful in their recent Shape lessons. One of the Maths skills our senior school children explore in 'Shape' is visualising and sketching cross-sections of 3D objects. What better way to explore this concept then to make prisms out of clay then slice them up? Through these hands-on experiences the children were able to strengthen their visualisations skills, make predictions around what different cross-sections would look like and sketch their results.

The Year 3/4s Investigate the Physics Involved in a Marble Run.

This term our Year 3/4 children have been investigating the different kinds of contact and non-contact forces around them. To begin their explorations the children were set the challenge of building a marble run that would enable the marble to slow down or stop on its own at the end of the run. The children set to work designing their marble runs and experimenting with different designs to see which were more effective. Following the completion of this early stage of the challenge, the children then engaged in some explicit teaching around the different kinds of forces and how they work. After this new learning, the children were invited to re-visit their marble run designs to see if they could utilise their new knowledge of forces to make improvements to the design. Throughout this process the children were prompted to explain the forces at play in their marble runs as they continued testing and improving them. Later in the term the children will examine our Olympic athletes in action to determine the various forces at play in some of our favourite sports.