Principals Message
Welcome back to school for 2024
We hope you have all had a well deserved break and opportunity to spend time with friends and family over the school holiday period. We look forward to seeing you all again when students begin on Wednesday 31st January.
We particularly welcome new students and families to our school community. As well as our new Foundation students, we warmly welcome a number of new students at other year levels. A number of our new students were able to join us on orientation day.
This January edition contains important information about the daily operations of the school. Please take the time to reacquaint yourselves with bell times, attendance, uniform requirements and other policies and procedures that help our students make a positive start to the new school year.
Staff Professional Development
Before students return to school our staff will be participating in an intensive two days of professional development.
Day 1
At Trafalgar Primary School, we're proud to implement the Orton-Gillingham Approach to help all students succeed in reading, writing, and spelling. Teachers at Trafalgar Primary School are expected to hold qualifications in this approach and on the 29th February most of our staff will undertake advanced training.
The Orton-Gillingham Approach is designed for individuals facing challenges like dyslexia. Unlike a specific method or program, it's an approach guided by decades of proven knowledge and scientific evidence about how people learn to read and write.
Named after pioneers Samuel T. Orton and Anna Gillingham, who recognized dyslexia's educational impact in the early 20th century. Dr. Orton focused on reading difficulties, and Gillingham, an educator, developed instructional materials. While often associated with one-on-one teaching, at Trafalgar Primary school we use this approach in the classroom settings.
Our teachers will complete their Advanced Morphology training on the 29th February. This course is designed to provide our teachers with strategies to enhance the higher-level literacy skills of students with special emphasis on morphology for developing, decoding, encoding and vocabulary development.
Day 2
At Trafalgar Primary School our approach to classroom teaching is based on the Explict Direct Instruction Model (EDI) developed by Dataworks founders, Dr. Silvia Ybarra and John Hollingsworth.
During EDI lessons, teachers utilise ‘engagement norms’ to motivate students and hold them accountable for their learning. Engagement Norms ensure children are doing something every minute, whether it be discussion with a partner, reading text aloud, showing responses on a whiteboard or gesturing. These norms are designed to keep students actively engaged in their learning.
Our teachers will be learning more about this approach on their second day of professional learning before students return.