Teaching and Learning

Welcome Back to Term 3

We are straight back into learning this term with many exciting things happening around the school.

NAIDOC Week

We started our celebration of NAIDOC week at our end of term Assembly last term with Kirrily reading Aunty Joy’s ‘Welcome to Country’ to the school and a special Welcome to Country from a member of our school community, Daryl Smith. In week one this term NAIDOC week activities have continued in classrooms with students doing things like creating the amazing artwork you can see in the pictures and reading and listening to Aboriginal stories. Our older year levels did some work on the NAIDOC week poster (Voice, Treaty, Truth) exploring the meaning of the artwork and the artist who created it, while other classes learnt about and discussed important historical events in Aboriginal culture.

Lower Primary recognised NAIDOC Week with a range of activities which included a visit from Piltenggi’s family who came to school to tell us about their Aboriginal history and stories through a dance performance. Students listened to the didgeridoo, learnt some aboriginal words and participated in a range of dances that depicted the kangaroo, emu, snake, brolga and eagle.  Our students were so engaged by this performance and did some great dancing. Some even chose to have their faces painted with traditional ochre.  Piltenggi enjoyed  dancing with his family and friends. Lower Primary students and staff thank Piltenggi's family for coming to school and sharing their stories with us.

Changes to our Writing Program

In Semester one a lot of time was spent reviewing our approach to teaching writing at Concord. As a result of this review a working party was established to create an evidence based overview and some guidelines for teaching writing in our Primary/PreCAL classes and in our Secondary classes. One of the improvements we have made is introducing Writer’s Notebook in the Secondary levels, apart from PreCAL. The aim of this is to provide our students with more choice in the topics they write about, their purpose for writing and the text type or genre they could use to communicate that purpose.

The Writer’s Notebook provides a space for students to store ideas and ‘seeds’ that interest them. A seed could be a photo of significance, a ticket from an event, a picture of something that interests them…. There is no definitive list of what a seed can be. We are spending most of term 3 introducing the Writer’s Notebook to our students, helping them develop an understanding of its purpose and starting to personalise the notebook.

A letter was sent home last week via Compass to all Secondary families explaining the role of ‘seeds’ and how families can support their child in identifying items which they may like to bring in to school and use as a seed. If you have not received this letter please contact your Team Leader. Some Primary classes are also exploring the use of seeds in their writing program and will be sending home notes to families to explain if they are introducing that into their classrooms.

Supporting Literacy at Home

Ask your child about the NAIDOC week activities they did at school in week 1. What did they learn? What did they make? What did they enjoy?

Supporting Numeracy at Home

For younger students go for a number hunt, what numbers can they find in the kitchen? At the shop? Driving in the car?

For older students use a catalogue and see if they can find the most and least expensive items for sale.

Acting Assistant Principal 

Sam Birrell