Assistant Principals' Report

This week our youngest learners had a very special celebration.  It feels like it has snuck up so quickly, however, on Wednesday our Preppies celebrated "100" Days of School, making them 100 days brighter and 100 days smarter.  I loved seeing our students take so much pride in making and decorating their headpiece and of course their smiles whilst wearing it.  Ms Baillie and I got into the spirit with our very own 100 days of school T-Shirts too.  I would like to congratulate our families for the terrific effort you applied in creating your child's T-Shirt.  We certainly had a lot of fun sharing these, not to mention all the counting! 

Year 1 and Year 2 have been learning all about information reports, including reading and writing them. They are using the Pakenham Springs writing process of plan, draft, edit, revise and publish to achieve confidence and success.  I really enjoyed students sharing all the new facts they have discovered during their research with me.  

In numeracy, it has been all about reasoning our thinking.  Staff have been using 'number talks' and problem solving tasks to open our student's minds to multiple ways of thinking and verbalising how students make sense of maths in their world. Above is an example of a problem J25 have recently worked on. Students were encouraged to explain their thinking and record the different strategies they used.  Below is an image of a number talk you could try at home. Once you have a solution, try verbalising your thinking to someone else. Could you think of another strategy to find the same answer?

Students in Year 3 and Year 4 have been working hard over the last fortnight with a focus on report writing across both year levels. I have had the pleasure of students making visits to my office to share their writing with me as well as seeing the action take place in classrooms.  In Numeracy, students in Year 3 are focusing on skip counting, multiplication facts and the related division facts.  You can help at home by supporting your child to learn their timetables 2, 3, 5 and 10.  These multiplication facts are essential for students to move more easily in their number understanding, problem-solving and fluency.  Try recording multiplication facts in multiple ways and linking the related division facts at home, for example, if:

3 rows of 8 is the same as 24 (3x8=24 and 8x3=24) then 24 divided between 3 is 8 and 24 divided by 8 is 3.  Students get the hang of this quite fast when they use materials and practise.

In Year 4, fractions are all the rage!  Our clever Year 4 students are looking at equivalent fractions.  I even spied groups of students in each classroom exploring mixed fractions. Being able to visualise the Fraction Wall greatly supports our student's success in this area.  I am not sure if I have shared this with you before, I love fractions.  I really enjoy teaching fractions and find students make so much growth in their mathematic understanding when they begin to understand that there are numbers between zero and one! 

Year 5 and Year 6 students are also focusing on report writing and literacy.  They have been researching, using our school library resources, digital texts and teacher provided reading material to produce some very impressive factual and informative reports.   Our Year 5/6 electives program has been very successful with all students participating in their new elective for this semester.  Please ask your child about the elective that they are participating in, it really is a unique opportunity offered here at Pakenham Springs.

We know we have leapt back into remote learning and whilst we acknowledge that everyone has likely had enough of the disruptions, I also know that our students, our staff and our school community are amazing.  Please know that the Assistant Principal team continues to work with our learning specialist - Kelly Utting, our Team Leaders, and all staff to ensure our focus on academics and wellbeing remains strong.

Until next fortnight, stay in contact, stay safe and reach out whenever you need.

The Assistant Principal Team