Teaching & Learning 

Successful Return to Learning at School…. Now What??

You may have seen some signs in your child over the past week that indicate they are feeling more comfortable being at school and are engaged in the regular routines and rigours of learning. During the first few weeks, your child has re-engaged with the rigours of learning including the need to problem solve, collaborate and  communicate with staff and their peers. Some have found this an easy transition, while others have found it more challenging. Parental support has been outstanding and it is pleasing to report that generally we are seeing settled and hard working classes.

So what now?

Teachers will be slowly increasing the rigour of learning during the next few weeks in order to support your child at their point of need. This will mean that the explicit teaching opportunities will become more obvious and learning tasks will be moving from the known to the unknown. Feedback will increase and the opportunity for your child to self reflect and peer assess will increasingly become part of regular learning tasks. 

With this increase in rigour, your child may demonstrate different behaviours from what you have seen in the first few weeks. It is important that we provide support as your child goes through this challenging period by having regular chats about the learning, keeping our feedback based on the process rather than the outcome and discussing strategies that help to build organisation, resilience and self reflective strategies.

Teachers are aiming to maximise the time spent on explicit teaching before assessments are conducted later this term.

Thanks to all parents who are working so hard to support their children in these challenging times. Your efforts to assist your child to return to school in a relatively smooth way has been greatly appreciated.

Academy 1270 

Last week we had a number of students participate in our student excellence program which falls under our Academy 1270 banner.

Some Year 5/6 students from both campuses participated in a Biomimicry session conducted by the education officers of Melbourne’s Royal Botanical Gardens. During this event our students were exposed to the challenging concept of using nature’s design to solve human problems. The day started with students looking at some of the weird and wonderful patterns and designs we see in nature and how these have been copied to create man made structures. A good example is how the Eiffel Tower design is based on a structure of a human bone. 

Some Year 4 students spent a session going back in time to compare and contrast the life of student’s from the 1890’s. A virtual excursion conducted by the education staff from Coal Creek Community Park set the scene for students to learn about the struggles of life in the past. Topics included how students travelled to school, their daily school lives and the 3 R’s curriculum.

Today some senior students are spending time studying marine science with an Ocean Scratch project.