Learning and Teaching
A mesage from Mrs Hodgetts
It is with great excitement that we announce that St Mary's Primary School will be offering students in Year 2 - Year 6, the opportunity to participate in some of the ICAS Assessments for 2026.
What is ICAS?
ICAS stands for International Competitions and Assessments for School. It is a nationally recognised academic competition that stretches students beyond the classroom. It helps build confidence, resilience and a genuine love of learning. The assessments are designed to go beyond the day-to-day curriculum, rewarding higher-order thinking and the application of knowledge in new and challenging contexts.
With more than 10 million students from 16,000 schools across 41 countries having taken part, ICAS is one of the largest and most respected academic competitions in the world.
For 2026, St Mary's will be offering students in Year 2 - Year 6 to participate in:
- English
- Mathematics, and/or
- Spelling Bee
The exact date of when these assessments will take place at school, will be organised once we have the final number of participants. Please note their is a fee for participation of $21.95 per assessment that is paid for by families.
If you would like to enter your child in any or all of these assessment, please visit:
https://shop.icasassessments.com/pages/parent-payment/CQT997
Please note, the turn around is relatively short and students need to be entered and paid for before Monday 27 July, 2026.
If you have any questions, please contact Olivia Hodgetts at the school via email at ohodgetts@smascotvale.catholic.edu.au.
Literacy and Literature
BOOK WORMS LUNCH PROGRAM
Thanks to the initiatives of some of our Year Three students we have started a Book Worms lunchtime group where students who love to read or need some downtime on the yard.
Books will be available or students can bring their own from home to read themselves or with others.
Please encourage your children to be apart of the club on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Remember: "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." – From I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! Dr Seuss
Book Week Costumes @ Lombards!
Book Week will be held in Week 7 of this term and will kick off on the 24th of August with the Dress up Parade after our usual Monday morning assembly. The kids will parade their innovations and costumes from 9am o the Turf.
Lombards has sent us a promotional deal so families can get costumes from them and 5% of the sales goes back to school libraries. This offer is only until September 6th!
Reading Comprehension: The Importance of Background Knowledge
What is reading comprehension? It is extracting and constructing meaning from text.
Comprehension is not just a single skill or strategy. It is the result of multiple skills and knowledge. It is the orchestrated product of multiple linguistic and cognitive processes and skills.
The process to building comprehension as a reader is to work through the following:
- Decode the words
- Access the meaning of the words
- Sentence comprehension
- Text organisation
- Clue words
- Incorporate background knowledge
Background knowledge is critical to understanding a text. If readrs ahve knowledge of the topic they are reading about they are more likely to understand the text and be able to engage in critical thinkoing about it.
Grade Three students are in the process of gaining some background knowledge before they begin their first Novel Study - Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. They have been learning about life on a farm, types of farms, livestock, pigs, spiders...and runts of a litter! We cannot wait to see how their knowledge helps them think more critically about some of the events and characters in this classic story.
See some the work they have done below:
