12-Mar-2021
Dear Families,
Our First Student Free Day for the whole school was held last Friday with two foci for our professional learning and development. The first was run by our Literacy critical friend who we engaged with during 2020. Cathy Harrison’s work has helped us consolidate our knowledge of phonics and assisted us to develop some scope and sequences for teaching the morphology of words in the middle and senior schools.
The session examined ways we continue to effectively use flash cards with substitution of phonemes and digraphs to create new words and expand students’ vocabulary.Our learning was all geared around our Foundation to Year 2 students increasing their letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness, decoding ability and oral reading accuracy.
- Our Year 3-6 students increasing their oral reading speed, accuracy, and fluency. As well as enhancing their vocabulary knowledge and comprehension using morphology.
Tip of the week- Vocabulary
“Vocabulary refers to the words children need to know to understand what they hear and read, and to communicate. Vocabulary is the most powerful predictor of reading comprehension. Knowing what words mean is essential if your child is to understand what they have read.
Children learn new words when they: hear a word repeatedly; hear words spoken by the important people in their lives; and hear words in a meaningful context – during conversation at dinner, in the car, while playing and while reading.”
The attachment includes some activities and suggestions for helping your child expand their vocabulary and comes from the https://fivefromfive.com.au/parent-resources/vocabulary/ website. As well as improving comprehension skills, an expanded vocabulary assists in strengthening students’ writing.
We also undertook Level 2 First Aid training- which we do every couple of years- as another mechanism to help keep our students safe.
Emergency Drill. Last week we completed the first of a series of emergency drills designed to prepare our students and staff to safely deal with an actual emergency if one occurs at school. Our students followed the LOCKDOWN procedures perfectly. Before the end of the term we will conduct an Off-site evacuation to help us check the our processes and procedures are efficient.
Resilience Project –The journals are designed to help us all experience better wellbeing and feel happier. This week we focus on Mindfulness. “Mindfulness activities help us to be present in the moment and often create a feeling of calm. We practice this through slowing down and concentrating on one thing at a time. This includes meditation, colouring in and flow states.” – Resilience Project.
To help our families to facilitate positive conversations about empathy, you may like to ask some of these questions as you sit down for dinner together.
- How did you practice mindfulness today? These are things like meditation, puzzles, spot the difference, colouring.
- What mindfulness activity will you do tomorrow?
- What is your favourite mindfulness activity?
- How do you feel after you do a mindfulness activity?
The link below includes some mindfulness activities that you may wish to practise with your child
https://theresilienceproject.com.au/at-home/everyone/mindfulness/kids/
State Schools Relief (SSR) is a not for profit organisation that has been removing barriers to education for Victorian students since 1930.
“Along with uniform items and footwear, SSR can provide everything from underwear, socks and singlets, to shoes, hats and swimwear. As well as glasses and textbooks for class, they’re helping to create an environment of inclusion for all Victorian state school students.”
Their mission, and ours, is to make sure that no child is left behind and that the pathway to education remains open for everyone.
We know of many families/carers who are currently experiencing financial or personal difficulties. If you are a parent/carer who is struggling financially to provide for your child’s education, please call 9772 1393 to organise a confidential chat with James or Luke to discuss your situation and how we can access support and assistance through SSR.
Twilight Market – A quick reminder that our Twilight Market is locked in for March 26 from 3:30pm – 7:00pm. This will be a great chance to connect with our school, and broader community while wandering through a huge variety of stalls. The planning team have been working extremely hard to make this another successful Edithvale Primary school event. They’d love to hear from you if you are keen to assist in the lead up, or on the day with the school run stalls – BBQ, Cakes, Lucky Jars and Choc o Block- that we will need. Please call us at school and we’ll help direct you to a member of the planning team for more details.
Student Leaders – Our wonderful student leaders will be sending some information out to our community about their first event of the year. Please keep an eye out for information about a FUN SOCKS FRIDAY and the importance of promoting inclusiveness and celebrating differences. There will be a number of awareness or fundraising events that the leaders are keen to run this year and we are hoping that you can support these in any way that you can. They are excited about developing their leadership skills and keen to make a difference- student agency at its best!
FIVE-from-FIVE_resources_vocabulary
James Whitla