News from JLC

The Junior Learning Community together with the rest of the school have a whole school approach to learning spelling through the Sound Waves Program.  It is a phonics and word study program designed to develop reading, spelling and writing skills from Prep to Year 6. 

Here at St Bridget’s, we believe that Spelling, the art of correctly assembling words from their letters, is one of the essential components of successful writing. Being a confident speller and recognising the links between word origin and word relationships leads to confidence in all aspects of literacy including reading and comprehension skills. The children do a pre-test on Mondays in order to get their words for the week. 

Each child’s words are catered to their level of competency.  They are encouraged to practise their words each night at home.  They complete the Sound Waves spelling activity sheet and interactive activities on Literacy Planet at school to help them learn their words. On Fridays, with the help of the Senior students, the children complete a post-test.  

J LC really look forward to being tested by their peers in a non threatening environment.

Over the last four weeks, the children in the Junior Learning Community have enjoyed participating in the Netball Clinic run each Thursday morning.  Netball is a ball sport played by two teams of seven players on a rectangular court with goal rings at each end. The players are assigned specific positions and are restricted to certain areas of the court.  The object of the game is to keep the ball away from the other team and the winning team is the one that scores the most goals. During the Clinic the children learnt some basic netball skills such as hand-eye coordination and the correct technique in passing and catching the ball.  

They learnt about footwork and movement and landing on one or two feet and pivoting. The children practised the skill of shooting goals which is one of the main skills in netball. They had the opportunity to play a game of netball and to put into practice what they learnt. It was great to see them applying their game specific skills such as passing and shooting and to see them having fun playing a team sport.  Well done everyone!

On Monday the 7th of March, JLC students along with the Prep students attended the Kew Traffic School to learn about road safety. Our host Kate welcomed us and she talked to us about how to be safe on the roads, as pedestrians and passengers in a car. She spoke about how to be safe when riding our bikes and the importance of not only wearing a helmet but wearing it correctly. 

Following that, Kate checked the children’s helmets and the children were able to choose a bike or scooter to ride around on. The children were encouraged to obey the road signs and traffic lights and to ride safely.

Kind regards

Signora Gina Michieli and Miss Carly Wills

JLC Classroom Teachers