Curriculum Day Professional Development Learning

Term 1 Curriculum Day - Misty Adoniou

On Tuesday 10 March, staff participated in a Professional Development day led by Misty Adoniou, Associate Professor in Language and Literacy from University of Canberra. The session focused on strengthening the teaching of reading, writing and grammar through close reading of high-quality texts.

Staff engaged in a rich shared text, closely examining the author’s language choices and considering how these can be used to support and extend students’ writing. Through this process, teachers explored a selected passage in depth, analysing the grammar, vocabulary and language techniques used. The day also provided practical strategies for embedding this approach into our literacy blocks, with a strong focus on enhancing students’ writing through purposeful, text-based instruction.

Our incredible teachers have already begun implementing their new professional learning across the school. Students explored author models by adapting sentence structures and changing vocabulary to create their own sentences. Through scaffolded writing and guided practice, they are building increasing independence.

Year 1:Students were provided with a sentence from a text which they had to use to create their own sentences by changing words using rich vocabulary. Students shared, “We liked this activity so much because we got to create our own interesting sentences.” Students across the school felt a strong sense of success and described the experience as helping them “write like real authors.”

Year 3: Students read the text ‘Stellaluna’ by Jannel Cannon and then completed a patterned writing activity that focuses on ideas and vocabulary without having to worry as much about sentence construction. They were extremely proud of their writing saying “I can’t wait to use this in my narrative writing and make my stories more engaging”. 

Elle Avery

Literacy Learning Specialist