Teaching & Learning 

Start of Year Learning Procedures

Thanks to everyone for the support provided to get the year off to a smooth start. Over the first 7 days of school your child will be involved in many activities that will assist them to build connections with their peers and teachers, understand the routines and rituals of the classroom and school and also ensure their learning space and resources are organised for a term of learning. By doing all of these things allows for your child to build a solid base from which they can launch into learning.

Year Level Newsletters

This is a reminder that every term a year level newsletter is sent out on Compass at the end of Week 2/start of Week 3 to help parents to understand what to expect for the term. Included in the newsletter are helpful reminders, timetables, key dates and learning focus areas that are specific to the year level. This newsletter is great to keep handy (On the fridge door for instance) so that important information is kept at the front of mind. 

Meet and Greet

Every term we conduct a formal opportunity for parents to engage with their child’s

 learning. In the first term it is a Meet and Greet session to be held on Tuesday February 16th. On this day students will finish school at 1pm to allow for the Meet and Greet sessions to occur. 

Bookings for the Meet and Greet will be made available to parents from this Friday on Compass.  After a year of virtual meetings, no community transfer and low case numbers, we feel that the current COVID situation is safe enough for face-to-face meetings to occur, however if you would rather conduct a virtual Meet and Greet, please contact your child’s teacher directly to arrange a suitable time.

The purpose of the Meet and Greet is to provide an opportunity for:

● Teachers and parents to meet

● Teachers to explain routines and what to expect for their children

● Parents to ask questions

● Teachers to get to know more about the student 

 Homework

In recent years, the Homework policy was altered to reflect feedback gathered from students, parents, teachers and what current research says. The homework procedures for 2021 will once again be consistent across the school with it set to begin in Week 3. In Week 5 of each term normal classroom homework will be replaced by a specialist homework task. The following points summarise the homework policy:

·      At Buninyong Primary School our Homework Program aims to provide students with the opportunity to:

·                Develop effective study habits and organisational skills.

·                Practise and revise skills learnt in class

·                Tune-in to future learning opportunities.

·      The parental role is essentially to foster the love of learning with their child.

·      Homework will be consistently applied across the school. It will be sent out on a Friday and will be required back at school on the following Thursday.

·      Teachers will provide a dedicated Homework session to share student work, discuss strategies to assist in completing homework and provide feedback to students. A focus will be put on positive discussion to promote what effective homework practices look like. 

·      Homework will be recorded as a Learning Task on your Compass portal. Parents will be able to track completion of homework throughout the year.

·      Feedback will be provided to students each week appropriate to the task set. This could include correction, stickers, stamps, signature, comment or a rubric score. If your child requires more feedback on their homework please encourage them to ask their teacher.

·      The table below is a guide as to the amount of time to spend on homework each week on top of the expected 15 minutes nightly reading. 

Book Pack Information 

Thanks to everyone for supporting the new procedures surrounding book packs for your

 children in 2021. We have had a relatively smooth transition to this new process with only a couple of issues, which are currently being worked through.

As you know, our new model is based on reducing the amount of supplies, reusing spare and left over materials and recycling as much as we can. Your child’s classroom teacher will be managing this process as the year progresses.

As the amount of resources on the booklist have been reduced there is a  chance that your child will run out of stationery throughout the year. The most likely cause will be materials being lost or broken. For this reason, the following organisation is in place:

• All resources have been labelled and managed in the classroom.
• Students are being taught about the importance of taking care of their belongings.
• Should your child run out of materials, a message will be sent home via Compass asking for items to be replaced. Please do so ASAP.
• A stationery shop has been developed at the school office so that replacement items can be ordered and paid for quickly.

Thanks for your understanding and support of these procedures.