What can you do to support your child's learning?

Homework and Study

Homework often varies in amount and type but most students will complete some homework each night. It could be completing an unfinished exercise from a class or starting to prepare for a new assignment, essay or group project.

Study requires a student to review the day’s lessons, read additional information from texts or create summaries of key ideas. Study requires a student to revisit and re-engage with material covered earlier in a unit and consider its relevance in relation to future formative and summative assessments.

There is no one ‘best’ way to study. Students will find different methods and times to study to suit themselves. What is important is to study regularly and to avoid cramming before an ALT or SAC. 

All students in all year levels should form regular study habits. As our VCE students finalise their Unit 4 assessments and move towards their final examinations, they are well aware of the need to organise their time to include regular study sessions.

Here are a some ideas for study from The State Library of Victoria: https://ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/learn-skills/study-skills

Read on for more information about supporting your child's learning provided by our Learning Specialists Denholm Pickering and Laura Suckling.

Literacy

Term 3, the final main term for Year 12s before their exams, represents an opportunity for students to showcase their learning capabilities and dive into the content for their classes. With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for how to support your child in what can be a stressful time through literacy (and some other) strategies:

• Read for Understanding. This is a method of reading that involves slower, careful reading with pauses for clarifications on unknown terms or phrases, as well as an emphasis on note-taking for higher year levels. 
• Promote a note-taking system. Cornell Notes are perhaps the best-known example, and are taught at Sandringham College, but reinforcing the importance of studying efficiently through frequent reviewing and summarising of notes actually saves time in the long run.
• Create concept maps or graphic organisers. These are great literacy strategies that help you to remember content through organising and sifting through relevant info. 
• OFFTIME phone app – this app creates profiles that block your calls, texts and notifications. You can also restrict access to any apps and limit your phone usage to increase focus.

From a whole-school perspective, the Teaching and Learning team are analysing the recently released NAPLAN results to determine strengths to celebrate as well as areas for improvement. Focusing on Literacy, I am pleased to report that the most recent data seems to indicate a statistically significant boost for students’ reading when enrolled in the Advance Literacy support program at Year 7 and 8. An endorsement of the Advance program’s viability, we will next be using NAPLAN data to determine potential areas of literacy focus for 2024.  

Denholm Pickering 

Learning Specialist - Literacy

Getting Students thinking

Getting students to learn by thinking and making mistakes is important in all subjects but especially mathematics. 

Thomas Edison said that he did not fail at making the light bulb one thousand times, but rather that "the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot... and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed."  (Michael Jordan)

Making mistakes is a natural part of all learning. Those who we consider to be "great" are clear that mistakes lead to learning.

The latest research on mathematics shows that mistakes are a very important part of learning math! When a person makes an error in math and they have the opportunity to learn from it, they actually develop a much stronger understanding. In fact, the research states that students learn more from making mistakes than from getting all the right answers. When your child makes an error, it offers insight into what understanding your child has about a mathematical idea. It allows parents and teachers to talk to the child about what they know, and ask questions to stretch their thinking around where they are currently developing their understanding. Parents can ask "How do you know that? What was your thinking here? Is there another way you could solve that? How did you think about X (an element they may be missing or have misunderstood)?" This conversation helps to develop the crucial skills of reasoning and communication and is therefore more helpful than simply showing a child how the math is done. When you support an attitude that values learning from mistakes, you are telling your child that mistakes are a valuable and natural ingredient in learning and lead to deeper understanding. Research shows that this attitude supports stronger achievement! Here are some maths problems for students and parents to try at home in year 7-9. These are based on some NAPLAN style questions. 

Problem 1

Oliver, Neil and Elizabeth each measure the heights of their tomato plants.

Oliver’s plant is 45 centimetres tall.

Neil’s plant is 0.38 metres tall.

Elizabeth’s plant is 420 millimetres tall.

Who has the tallest plant?

Problem 2

In 2018, the population of Beijing was approximately 22 million people.

In 2018, the population of Whyalla was approximately 0.022 million people.

How many times as large as the population of Whyalla was the population of Beijing?

Problem 3

A Ferris wheel has 12 metal rods.

They are equally spaced around its circumference and meet at the centre.

The angle between the centres of two of these rods is marked by X on the diagram.

What is the value of X?

Laura Suckling

Learning Specialist- Data, Assessment and Reporting