Dear Parents

It was great to see so many of you at the Meet the Teachers’ evening last night. It is nice for you to be able to put a face to the name when your child comes home and tells you about something their teacher did or said.

At my presentation, I talked about the in depth spelling review which was undertaken by Anne Maree Miller and her great team. At the end of 2014 it was apparent that the spelling results were not at a level which was acceptable to me. If our children are doing so well in reading and writing, why was our spelling achievement so low by comparison?

This is the very reason we undertake schoolwide assessments. Yes, it is to find the strengths and weaknesses of individual children, but it is also for senior management to see where gaps are across the school. In this instance, it was spelling.

Anne Maree and her team were tasked with investigating spelling programmes, resources and teaching across the school. She delved deeply into achievement, student and teacher attitudes to spelling and surveyed teachers about the way they taught spelling and the resources they used.

Anne Maree and team also undertook research and professional reading around spelling which has provided a very strong research base to the recommendations.

The recommendations from the review are:
• Boost teacher effectiveness and confidence in teaching spelling
• Develop effective spelling programmes
• Increase the explicit teaching of spelling (ie rules and patterns)
• Facilitating the integration of spelling into other learning areas ie greater transference of spelling skills to student’s writing

We intend implementing all the recommendations during 2016 through:
• Professional development for teachers
• Investigation and trial of spelling programmes (action research / teaching as inquiry process)
• Purchase resources, both hard copies and on line resources (apps etc)
• Implement recommended spelling programmes following the outcomes of the action research undertaken

This year, spelling may look different to how it has looked in the past. Please bear with us and understand if your child doesn’t bring home 10 words to learn and have tested each week. We may still do that, but only after we have researched the effectiveness of this in retaining long term knowledge of how to spell those words. The achievement results suggest that learning spelling this way has not transferred to great assessment results. It is important for us to find the most effective ways to ensure spelling knowledge is retained, which is our goal for the year.

So, lots of spelling teaching still happening in 2016! Just more effective spelling teaching!

Kind regards

Janice Adamson

Road Safety

It is great to see children coming to school on their scooters and bikes but they must wear a helmet. The children all know they are supposed to wear one, so please ensure they wear it (not carry it on the handle bars!)

Last Friday I was on road patrol. It was an absolute nightmare! The poor girls who were trying to see whether it was clear so they could put their signs out. And why couldn’t they see? Because some of our parents thought that it was perfectly acceptable to park on the broken yellow lines each side of the pedestrian crossing, thereby completely blocking the children’s view of the road. I’m not going to name and shame, but I recognised most of you! Please be mindful of all children’s safety and think about your driving and parking outside the school.

I strongly suggest that you arrange a place somewhere further up Victoria Ave where you can actually find a park and your children can walk the very short distance from the school to meet you there. The short walk will do them good and you won’t be stressed trying to find a park right outside the gate!

Stationery

This year we trialled a different way for parents to purchase stationery. We wanted to give parents more choice. If you ordered your stationery on line, we would really appreciate feedback about the process from parents’ perspectives. Please email me [email protected] the good, bad and ugly please, I need to know.

Uniform – Named Uniform

The children have come back looking very smart. Relaxed as we are about the colour of trainers, please remember that socks need to be black, white or navy. I smiled when I saw the knee high black and white striped socks this week – just plain colours please, stripes are not acceptable. Hats are mandatory this term.

Please name every single piece of uniform. Children get changed into PE gear, or take fleeces off and leave them lying around. It is sad to see so many un-named fleeces languish in lost property then get thrown out at the end of the year.