PRINCIPAL'S NEWS

Welcome to Murputja Staff Bulletin Number 5

SIP Progress - Week 5

Week 5 has been another successful week where, collectively, we have taken a number of small (but important) steps in our 'reading improvement' journey. This is really important work. As we have discussed, reading is the key to our students improving their life outcomes. 

The teaching of reading is our key purpose as educators at Murputja!

Thank you to Astrid and Anthony who have worked to charge, connect and 'set-up' our iPads in readiness for their use to support the teaching of reading in our classrooms. 

Thank you also to Shelly for investigating and arranging whole-school subscriptions to two iPad Apps, Reading Eggs and Reading Doctor. These apps are now available to support the teaching of phonics throughout the school. I encourage you to access the links below to familiarise  yourself with the apps. 

I cannot stress enough that apps such as Reading Eggs and Reading Doctor are by no means a comprehensive reading programme, rather they are to be seen as a helpful tool designed to supplement your teaching programme aimed at reinforcing the concepts that you have explicitly taught. 

To access the Reading Eggs website click here.

To access the Reading Doctor website click here.

Wall mounted charging cabinets have also been purchased and will be fitted in the three classrooms enabling students to access iPads for learning/reading.

A significant investment has also been made in purchasing a range of decodable readers for use throughout the school, including high interest, low ability decodables suitable for our older readers.  Decodables support the teaching of reading by using a structured synthetic phonics approach. They are designed to build on the pre-reading skills of oral language and phonological awareness needed when learning to read. Decodables support the learning of letter-sounds and blending in a sequential phonic order, helping students to develop their independent decoding skills. 

Decodables contain a limited number of high frequency words that need to be taught before reading the book. The questions and activities focus on increasing a student’s vocabulary and fluency and encourage the student to make deeper connections with the author’s message.

The SPELD decodables are a great resource as they are culturally appropriate, but also come with online resources, including PDF and PowerPoint documents which are great to help engage students.

I encourage you to click here to checkout the SPELD website and the support materials available for free from their website.

These are all small pieces of a large jigsaw enabling us to focus on the teaching of reading. 

This week's PLC time will see us building our understanding of 'Learning Sprints' as we work towards establishing our PLC Group Norms. Time will also be given to developing a 'Learning Sprint Line of Inquiry'.

PDP Plans

I would like to thank everyone for the work and thought that has gone into the development of their PDPs. It is particularly pleasing to see the high degree of alignment between each teacher's professional learning plan and the 2021 Site Improvement Plan. Plans show a personal commitment from each  teacher towards the building of professional capacity, particularly in the priority area of reading. This shows the importance given to our own learning in the areas of oral language, phonics and phonological awareness. It really is great knowing that we are all on the same page with The attached document 

100 Day Plan

Thank you also for everyone's work over the past couple of weeks as we continue to work towards completing the tasks outlined in the 100 day Plan. It has been very pleasing to see just how quickly we are transforming our school as we work through the tasks. 

Please see an updated version of our 100 Day Plan.

Covid19 Safety Plan

Each DfE site is required to develop a Covid19 Action Plan to ensure sites remain as COVID safe as possible. Attached below is a draft of the Murputja Anangu School Safety Plan which will be shared at this week's staff meeting. Please make yourself familiar with the plan prior to this week's staff meeting.

I WORK FOR SA – Your Voice survey

The I Work for SA Survey spans the entire South Australian public sector and aims to improve your experiences at work. All staff are are encouraged to complete the survey by Friday May 28th. To access the survey please click here.

Sports Activities

Please find attached a document sent through by Mitch Vanson from Amata Anangu School. There are some great suggestions here which I am sure our students would find engaging and enjoyable.

Information Regarding Berry Street Training

Berry Street Education Training Dates: 

Day 1 Tuesday, 22 June - Body

Double Tree, Alice Springs

Day 2: Wednesday, 23 June - Relationship

Double Tree, Alice Springs

You will receive emails from Plink with a calendar invite for each of the separate days.

Daily routine:

8.30 arrival refreshments for a 9am start and finish by 4pm each day.

Preparing for your training:

All of the course materials will be available to you at the venue each day. There are no prerequisite readings for this program.

Tea, coffee, morning tea and lunch will be provided. 

You can access this program in your  My Content area on plink. 

Staff Induction/Handbook tab added to Bulletin

You will have noticed that a new ' Staff Induction/Handbook' tab has been added to the staff bulletin. This tab will serve as a permanent resource for staff to Murputja Anangu School. The resource will be built over the coming months so that new (and existing) staff are able to easily access the necessary induction material as they join the Murputja Anangu School community. This will support the induction of new staff, but will also serve as our electronic staff handbook.