A Spotlight on Learning

Spotlight on Learning 

I can’t believe that it’s nearly midway through Term 4 already! There is definitely a buzz around the school with so much learning happening, from both students and staff. 

Student Excellence Program

Students from Years 3-6 have continued to extend their maths learning into Term 4. The majority of this work is within classrooms, with teachers offering extension opportunities to all students within their usual maths sessions. Beyond this, selected students are finishing up their Maths Challenge (Years 3-4) and Maths Enrichment (Years 5-6) submissions. Year 4 took to this very quickly, finishing all sections of the challenge in record time! Our Year 5s and 6s have been working through their tasks independently, and the Year 3 group will finish this week.

After our efforts have been submitted, groups will meet over the coming weeks to synthesise their learning from the concepts across the year. 

Thank you to all participating students for your persistence and enthusiasm as we engage in this model for the first time. We have learnt a lot and look forward to continuing to support academic excellence for all students at ACS into the future.

Professional Learning

It is not just the students who love learning at ACS, our staff are also keen learners! Last week, ACS staff participated in a Curriculum Day, however it is not just Curriculum Days where ACS staff learn together. Below are just a couple of the ways ACS staff collaborate for continual improvement. 

Professional Learning Communities (PLC)

Each week, staff meet as a year level/specialist team and engage in a PLC meeting. During this time, staff look closely at student learning data and discuss any supports or adjustments for planning required to ensure skill mastery from the students. These meetings are filled with professional conversations and collaborative problem solving to ensure all students are receiving the opportunities that they need to progress their learning.

Professional development

ACS regularly seeks out experts to provide sessions for our staff. Last week ACS was able to reach out to international mathematics education expert Dr. Amanda VanDerHeyden to provide a masterclass for staff. 30 ACS staff members were at school for a 7:30AM start and spent the morning learning about research based maths intervention. ACS opened up the session for other interested schools, and ended up with 500 attendees from Australia, New Zealand and America! This session underpins our maths direction for 2023 and we look forward to sharing this with our school community next year.