From Marie

Apologies for the sending the newsletter a day later than expected.  

Encounter Program

We are thrilled to have nineteen students from Foundation to Grade 6 join us in our classrooms, joining in on all of the activities.  Next week the whole school will work together  in their Kooramook groups for the day to design and fly kites, each reflecting one of the 12 Chinese zodiacs.  We will start the day with assembly where a group of students will act out the story behind the Chinese zodiac.  The launch of the kites will happen after lunch, at about 2:45, all families are welcome to come and join us down on the basketball court.  Here are a few photos with their buddies:

Mullum Primary's approach to teaching reading

This week Jenny Verheijden gave School Council an overview of our approach to teaching reading.  This presentation has been prompted by the extensive coverage of the Department of Education's shift in thinking about teaching reading, in all media outlets. Jenny explained that three years ago, Mullum Primary commence the journey all schools are now being asked to undertake. Phonics and fluency are two important aspects of teaching reading, along with knowing letter names, decoding words, activating background knowledge, increased vocabulary, handwriting and understanding morphology (the small meaningful parts of words).  All aspects of teaching reading requires direct, explicit instruction and nuanced assessment tools to determine what has been learned.  I am very pleased to say that our staff have developed their expertise in all areas of literacy instruction and are diving deep into the data of individual and cohorts of students to understand how best to support them.  These are exciting times to be in education for students and teachers.  The board shown below is on display in the office area, come by and catch Jenny for your own personal explanation or you can check out this link to find out more information.

https://fivefromfive.com.au/parent-resources/

We want you to tell us what you think.

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.  Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement  in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies. The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 29 July to Friday 30 August 2024.  All families are invited to participate in the survey. The link and code will be sent to each family via Compass on Monday 5 August.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.  

Camp Australia

This week I was visited by Camp Australia management to present a 10 year partnership certificate, with thanks.

Downball Community Club

I would like to inform the community that the Downball Community Club has unfortunately made a decision to not run the program in Term 3.  Despite interest in the Club there were an insufficient number of enrolments for Term 3.