Curriculum News
School Leader News
Learning and Teaching Update
What a different week we have had. I hope that the learning made available to you on our school’s Google Site was useful and worthwhile while learning from home Tuesday and Wednesday. Hopefully we will be learning together again soon.
Assembly
A huge congratulations to our School Leaders who have successfully led our school in two assemblies. Maddy, Noah, Abby and Joel and doing a fantastic job in preparing, organising and ensuring our students are engaged while at assembly. I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to work with these young leaders each year and I cannot wait to watch them grow and challenge themselves as the year progresses. Well done!!
Also, Congratulations to student leaders who received their badges at our outside assembly last Friday. Wear these with pride and enjoy the challenge of being young leaders at Holy Spirit.
We are looking forward to congratulating our Grade 5/6 Prefects and our Prep - Grade 6 Student Representative Council (S.R.C.) members in the upcoming assemblies. (We are in the process of electing these candidates and will keep you informed).
Please note that Assembly is held each Friday at 2:40pm on our school oval (weather permitting). You are welcome to attend. We will inform you each Friday, via Dojo, if assembly will need to be held in our school hall. Unfortunately this means that parents will be unable to gather with us.
Parent - Teacher Meet & Greet
Thank you for your participation in our Google Meet Parent-Teacher Meet & Greet sessions. If you were unable to attend, please contact your child’s classroom teacher to organise an alternative mutually agreeable time.
Curriculum Overviews
Please find attached our Term 1 curriculum overviews. These overviews provide you with a snapshot of the learning that will take place this term. Thank you to our teaching staff for preparing these for you.
Please note: These overviews may alter slightly this term depending on the ever changing situation that we are all experiencing.
Parent Information Nights
This year our Information Nights will look different. Each year level (Prep, Grade 1/2, Grade 3/4 and Grade 5/6) will send home a presentation to each family with information about this year. This presentation will also have a Google Form attached to provide you with the opportunity to ask any questions that may not have been answered in the presentation. These questions will then be collated and made part of a year level FAQ sheet. These presentations will be sent home in week 5.
SMART Spelling
Last year Holy Spirit started our SMART Spelling journey and we are pleased to advise you that this journey has continued. New staff and returning members of staff will undertake their training in the next few weeks to ensure our students are taught spelling in a consistent way.
What is SMART Spelling?
SMART Spelling is an approach that supports teachers with the systematic teaching of spelling using the SMART acronym: Say, Meaning, Analyse, Remember, Teach. SMART spelling provides a clear Prep – Year 6 scope and sequence that is well established and embedded in our school.
In a SMART Spelling classroom, students are explicitly taught one spelling pattern at a time. Teachers choose a range of words (from simple to complex) from a suggested list. Students are then guided to choose words from that list that meet their specific needs. Personal words are also a focus in SMART Spelling. These are called B.O.B. words (Back of Book). SMART spelling also encourages teaching the meaning of words to expand vocabulary and then breaking words into syllables, sounds and letter patterns (graphs, digraphs and trigraphs) following a simple routine that is in the SMART Spelling course. Our Prep students are beginning their SMART Spelling journey where they have a word and sentence to focus on each week. This spelling curriculum is slightly different to the spelling curriculum offered in Years 1 - 6.
You will notice that the following statement will be placed in your child’s writing book. This enables us to work in partnership with you, to ensure that our students develop a love of literacy, where they understand that making mistakes and having ‘a go’ is encouraged at Holy Spirit.
Hopefully you will have the opportunity to come and learn with us in the classroom this year so you can see SMART Spelling in action for yourselves!
For more information on SMART Spelling please visit: https://www.smartspelling.com.au/
Have a great week everyone & Keep smiling!
Kayla Flindt-Petersen
Learning & Teaching Leader
Wellbeing / Behaviour Update
On Monday as a staff we completed a whole day of Professional Learning (online), with a focus on Wellbeing and Behaviour. We focussed on the following topics:
- Teacher Wellbeing, ensuring we are at our best both mental and physically for student learning to be maximised and evidence based practices on how we can achieve this.
- Student Wellbeing Data analysis, reviewing our December Wellbeing Student Data and analysing for patterns and students needs. This will direct our scope and sequence curriculum creation for Social and Emotional learning as well as specific interventions. This data will be shared with our commuity shortly with our planned curriculum for the year. This is the first time our school has collected whole school data on Student Wellbeing and the first time we will be creating a dedicated curriculum that is planned based off our students voice.
- Resilience Project Implementation, unpacking TRP curriculum and align it with our current Respectful Relationships curriculum to best cater for our student needs which was outlined in our data.
- Managing Behaviour Consistently, unpacking our behaviour flow chart for consistency and strategies around behaviour management and accountability.
Resilience Project
We are all very exciting to begin implementing our Resilience Project learning which will begin at the mid point of the term, pending any disruption with lockdowns.
As part of the program students will be shown a number of mini digital incursions focusing on Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness and Emotional Literacy. Parents will also have an opportunity to join an online Parent Webinar for the Resilience Project, we are waiting for TRP on a date for which will be confirmed some time in the near future.
CyberSafety Webinar:
A big thank you to all parents who joined us for our CyberSafety webinar focusing on Raising Kids in the Digital World.
A recording of the webinar is available for only a short time longer. Video below:
Our students will all participate in an onsite incursion with Marty and Carley this semester pending any lockdown restrictions.
Lunchtime Indoor Sessions:
Our students welcomed back our Indoor activities which now include an activity each day from Monday - Friday.
A reminder that our timetable for indoor sessions are:
Monday: Choir (Alison's room)
Tuesday: Lego Club (With Lee in Library)
Wednesday: Mindfulness (Performing Arts room with Sherree)
Thursday: Chess and board games (With Ben in Library
Friday: Garden Sustainability (With Gracie in School Garden)
All the best for the year ahead,
Benjamin Lannen
Wellbeing and eLearning Leader
Education in Faith News
Coming soon