High Expectations, Inclusivity, Students with a Voice, Excellence for All!

Dear Families

Professional Learning at St Anthony’s

Teaching is a complicated occupation. We deal with many aspects of a child's development on a daily basis and at St Anthony’s School we are committed to doing this to a high standard. With the advances in technology and our understanding of the brain, teaching is moving into a scientific base. As a result there is mountains of research and evidence to back up what we are doing as teachers and how best to teach students. This research often comes in the form of scientific research articles and as a staff we need to unpack the research and convert it into a classroom practice that is manageable, to deliver a curriculum that is ‘top-notch’. Occasionally, we purchase a program that is underpinned by research to assist us in unpacking the research and we also participate in professional development with MACS to assist us with understanding the research.

Projects that we have been involved in so far this year include:

Initial Lit, an evidence-based literacy program that was developed by Macquarie University to ensure that oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension are systematically and explicitly taught to ensure reading success. This was also underpinned by several years of unpacking the ‘Science of Reading’ to ensure that teachers had the necessary knowledge to teach reading. As Louisa Moats, a reading researcher, would say “ Reading really is Rocket Science”. It is a complex process that we are better at understanding all the time and as a result it takes a lot of time and energy to understand this research.

Early Number & Algebra, teachers from P-2 have been involved in a MACS lead professional development around the teaching of mathematics in the early years. This work is developed from the research completed by Robert Wright into how students learn mathematics and the misconceptions that students develop and how that impedes learning.

The Writing Revolution, teachers P-6 have been involved in improving writing through the explicit teaching of sentence structure. The Writing Revolution is an American Based writing method that aligns with the latest research into the best way to explicitly and systematically teach writing.

Writing with MACS, as a school we are also working with consultants from MACS to develop our understanding of using mentor texts as a model for writing.

Comparative Assessment, research study, P-6 in which our teachers worked with Daisy Christodoulou, a prominent education researcher and author, to develop a better way of assessing writing. This study was incredibly successful and gave us data to assist with driving improvement in writing.

Numeracy Project

This study has been opened up to more teachers from Years 3-6 who are working with MACS to better understand the most effective ways to teach fractions and multiplication. This is done by reading the latest research to assist us with understanding the most effective ways to teach and which assessments give us a clear picture of students' knowledge. The lessons are developed to assist students with deepening student understandings of these mathematical areas.

As you can see at St Anthony’s we are working incredibly hard to ensure that the students are getting the best possible education using the most well researched methods of teaching. This approach takes a committed group of teachers who are consistently striving for e in excellence.

Due to our rigorous approach to teaching, learning and assessment and our dedicated group of parents who support us, we are confident that our explicit approach has enabled us to plug any learning gaps that arose from Distance Learning. As a result our expectation of 12 months growth for 12 months of school is being consistently observed across the school. Our rigorous assessment in both mathematics and literacy suggest that our academic success is the same and in some years better than pre-Covid. We attribute this success to closely following the evidence in mathematics and literacy and the commitment of our teachers to all that we do.

Democracy at work at St Anthony's School.

Over the last few weeks our School Captains, Deputies and SRC members have been involved in reviewing the various plans for the new playground equipment design. Their input has been of the soundest and honest critique making sure that the design was child friendly. The School Captains and Deputy Captains also had the opportunity to meet with the designer to give their insight, for which we are very grateful.

The school voted this week on a selection of design layouts and colours and have elected the following design as seen below.

An immense thank you to all the students led by their leaders under the guidance of Ms Peta Overbury. We take great pride in assuring that student voice is part of who we are at our school.

We have reached the end of another term and give thanks for the steadfast and proficient partnership that we have endured. Working together has allowed us to ensure that the students' education in all areas has been sound and meaningful..

Have a safe and restful two weeks and we will see everyone back at school on Monday 12 July.

Kind regards

Margaret Carlei

Principal

Year 5/6