Education News

VCOP stands for 

V=Vocabulary, wow words

C=Connective, words that join ideas together

O=Openers, amazing ways to start a sentence. Words that end in ‘ly’ or ‘ing’ are power openers. 

P=Punctuation 

When put together with GHaSP  - Grammar, Handwriting, Spelling and Punctuation, 

VCOP gives students building blocks to write with success. VCOP adds the icing on the cake- excitement, pizzazz and flow to keep the audience engaged throughout the piece.

Big Write is just one, of the many, writing sessions in the fortnight- ideally at the end of the week.  It’s a special start/stop piece of writing, where the students ‘show off’ and celebrate all the skills they have been learning in English lessons that week. Each classroom teacher creates a special atmosphere to promote calm and creative writers. Afterward, students work on up-leveling their work and setting future learning goals.

Our next BIG Write will be held next week.

VCOP - THE BIG WRITE

Talk Homework

For Big Write in Week 5 all students Year 1 to 6 will be writing about 

All students Year 1 to 6 need to talk about their ideas and opinions with as many family members as possible. A great time to do this is when you are sitting at the table for dinner. (Could we please not have the TV on so you can concentrate?  

Your child would love to hear your opinions and ideas as well as help with their ideas.

Can you help with some up-levelled V.C.O.P. for the writing? Suggestions for WOW words, great sentence openers, connectives and good punctuation?

I am looking forward to hearing about all of the talks the families have about this “Big Write’ topic. 

Karen Halket

Expert Maths Lessons

You may have remembered lots of talk about our school working with Michael Minas the maths expert last year, well we finally got to have him in person visit our school! Last week, teachers had the opportunity to watch a maths expert in action across the school. Michael Minas from Love Maths came to show teachers how to teach amazing Open-Ended Tasks, that challenge students to push beyond single answer problems. 

Not only did the teachers learn a lot, but the students enjoyed the lessons too. They also looked up to Michael as a You Tuber because of his maths youtube channel. Michael said, "The students made him feel like a rock star." 

The teachers reflected afterwards on what surprised them, what made them think more about their practice in maths and what could they implement right now? The Discussions were valuable in that it challenged us to try something new. 

Delvina Waiti