Day 5 St Rita's - Vanessa Crouch

How do you see the school’s educational and faith vision and mission informing and shaping daily practice?

• Christian meditation as part of prayer in Year 2

OTHER NOTES

• Yr2 - Ask 3 before me
• Chair bags.., not flexible learning space
• Reading 2 learn this is a reading a writing process that is very specific and focused. This is a very particular way of teaching. the school has invested a lot of time into this process. They will continue to inservice teachers. Each teacher attended 8 workshops. 
• The parts of the process we observed were
  
  
  

  

  Part of the reading to learn process

  • Make predictions
  • Have read other books
  • Lots of teach.this displays
  • Look at similarities compared to other Bear books of Nick Bland
  • Four highlighters and a pencil
  • Teacher has types up the text for the R2L task.
  • Create a key first colour TEXT STRUCTRE colour 2 NOUNS, colour 3 ADJECTIVES,  colour 4 VERBS
  • Disucssion about type of text
  • Look at each paragraph teacher reads then students read togwther with teacher.
  • After reading one sentence look at marking using key. Look at orientation - where happening, who, what was the character doing, box and lead pencil write orientation, writing the different aspects about text highlighted eg where

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Day 4 St Rita's - Vanessa Crouch

I know it's been a week but life as a teacher can be very busy! I've now got some time to finish processing the experience :)

How do you see the school’s educational and faith vision and mission informing and shaping daily practice?

The prayer experience in prayer with Prep today was beautiful. Not only was the experience beautiful but the Preps have clearly learned what it means to be part of the St Rita's community. They were certainly showing they can know more, do more and be more. The process was as follows

•  After the school prayer. There was then a special sharing about the student of the week. Each student thanks God for something special about the student.

Give your readers an idea of the application range of ICT/digital devices in the learning spaces.

• Www.highlightkids.com - website for Preps/ Yr 1 
• ELEARNING COMMITTEE MEETING
  • How did they get started with 1:1
  • ICLT -information communication learning technology
  • They have a technology levy that starts at prep to update all technology
  • They were able to secure some support from Bendigo Bank as part of their community program.
  • Meraki for ipods
  • Surface pros for teachers were purchased recently. 
  • CAST - connection alignment stewardship transformation
  • Idea of coaching and PLT arose from the need for teachers to be able to keep up with changes that are occurring. 
• In Yr 5 they were using Skitch to write over an image to create a map showing specific information on a country they are inquiring about in geography. The students then upload the image to Thinglink and add marks which show various pieces of information. 

What approaches are taken to cater for the diverse range of student learning needs?

• In Prep I noticed in some class they use a  Montessori and Reggio Emilia, combined philosophy of teaching. Play based but activites focused on very specific skills. The games and activities are not random choices they are specifically chosen to develop specific skills. Students have choice in the activities they can do.
• Teaching sentence construction and development of oral language skills. The have a wall for sentence making. Using noun and verbs terms to teach the language of grammar. 

Creating sentences in Prep

• Another great activity was the Voice Spinner. They spin the spinner and students say sentences in different ways, happy, sad etc. Then talk about why they might be using that voice. This was great in developing an understanding of why we use different voices as well as helping these you learners understand appropriate times to use these voices. 

When considering your own class teaching/organisation, what might be three approaches you have observed that could be adopted?

• I really like the Prep idea of creating sentences. I think I could modify this to make it useful in Stage 2. Have a focus on creating complex sentences maybe ...

Why are the learning environments engaging? What is going on to ensure each student progresses?

• For the Preps and Year 1s there is close monitoring of learning goals and use of visible learning techniques. 

Bible Text types

Helpful writing idea organiser

Learning Goals in Year 1

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Leadership Team Debrief

Leadership Team Debrief:

On the last day of our placement, we were given the opportunity debrief with the Leadership Team. It was a great opportunity to ask a few final questions and discuss the week. It was also an opportunity to report positive experiences and observations back to the school.

One of the questions we had was around the use of textbooks within the school. In most Mathematics lessons we saw, textbooks were the main teaching tool observed. Each grade had different text books which they worked through. We didn’t observe many hands on opportunities within Maths. Anne explained that they attempted to break away from textbooks but the use of photocopy sheets increased dramatically. They decided to bring them back and looked closely at the type of textbooks used to ensure there was inquiry based activities which were worthwhile and provided valuable teaching opportunities. Anne recognised that this was an area that they may need to reflect upon in the future.

Although I don’t necessarily condone the use of textbooks, I think at times some of our current teaching practises within Mathematics is too hands on and practical and doesn’t give the opportunity for students to read and analyse questions in a variety of different ways. When they then go to complete NAPLAN style questions, many find it hard to relate their practical/hands on knowledge to written questions. Obviously there needs to be a balance and worthwhile connections need to be made.

Another question asked was regarding the support around Beginning Teachers/Provisional teachers. Within St Rita’s their APA (Shane) is a mentor who works with the teacher weekly, to look at their portfolio for registration, assist with planning/programming and any other issues that may arise.

Although we were pretty clear on the areas of focus for 2014 within the school, we asked for clarification about this. The main priority areas include:

- 1:1 notebook program: continuing this with a focus on how to use the technology within the classroom to improve teaching and learning.

- Reading to Learn (Victorian based program) Continuing the PD of this area across the school.

-Visible learning to improve teaching and learning.

All of these were clearly evident as we moved around the school throughout the week, including within the classrooms as well as the Team Meetings.

Another question we raised with the Leadership Team was in regard to how communications from team meetings and general communication occurs. Anne explained that every week Shane sent out a weekly overview of known events. All team meeting minutes were emailed to staff and all other communication was generally via email.

We also enquired about professional development opportunities and staff meeting focuses. We wanted to know how professional development opportunities were offered. There are several modes of delivery. There are opportunities offered by BCE, some which are required and others which the Leadership Team decide on which opportunities are needed to address school needs. Each school is also allocated a dollar amount called ‘School Renewal Funds’. The school converts this to  number of days and looks for opportunities which help achieve school initiatives. One major focus is the Learning To Read program which is PD intensive (8 days per teacher). Staff meetings are sometimes a focus on PD and sometimes on administration matters.

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Day 3 St Rita's - Vanessa Crouch

Day 3 St Rita's

How do you see the school’s educational and faith vision and mission informing and shaping daily practice?

• Sue Maclean STIE Support Teacher Inclusive Educator took us through the behaviour learning process. There is a clear restorative practices evident.

How are they using data to inform decision making?

• Data very prominent. Used in particular by Sue to demonstrate and determine students which need adjustment. The Business Intelligence (BI) tool can produce data from reports showing all students.
• This tool is very comprehensive as it contains data from NAPLAN, PAT and other sources.
• It is used by all BCE schools and allows for students to be tracked and transferred if they change schools. This is very useful as any data already collected about a student stays with them.

What approaches are taken to cater for the diverse range of student learning needs?

• Sue active in this process ensuring that students with additional needs are catered for. Wendy (the other STIE) focuses on those students needing extension.

OTHER NOTES

One area in particular I found interesting after our discussions with Sue is the way the school reinforces positive behaviour and restorative practices in the approach used to manage and maintain student behaviour. 

• The management policy is called Behaviour Learning. I particularly like this as the name recognises that behaviours are learned and therefore can be altered.
• Behaviour Learning is divided into three tiers 
• Tier 1 regular expectation
• Tier 2 those not following teir1 ARK and DROP IN ZONE
• Tier 3 more serious behaviours functional behaviour assessment is completed. What is the purpose of the behaviour? Finding this our is the goal of a Functional Behaviour Assessment.

POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR FOR LEARNING

• Emphasis in instruction and teaching 
• Function type approach

ARK

• Awesone Rita's Kids

  

  ARK goal achievement tree.

  • Check in check out process. Students check in the morning and then again in the afternoon.
  • Start with a goal and monitor daily over 4 weeks
  • Shared understanding for behaviour  throughout the school.
  • Request for assistance page what are the situations, what are the problem behaviours, what do you expect?
  • Daily record sheet one or two goals. Each hour teacher provides feedback. At the end of day TA looks at goals with students.
  • Friday check in sheets copied and sent home.
  • Students take on ownership of their behaviours
  • Matrix a really good idea. Clearly spells out what is expected.

• This is a really interesting and positive process. I spoke to some of the children on this program and they were really

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Day 2 St Rita's - Vanessa Crouch

How do you see the school’s educational and faith vision and mission informing and shaping daily practice?

The ST RITA mission

It is very evident from observations in all classrooms that the ST RITA vision and mission is an integral part of the daily life of the classrooms and the school. This week the focus is How can I be the best I can be? During the HPE prep class lesson the teacher - Dan Kenyon  discussed question of week with the preps and they discussed how this applies to HPE. The responses of the little ones were very clear and specific. It is obvious they regularly have these discussions in HPE.

How are they using data to inform decision making?

In one of the year four classes the teacher has issued lanyards with red, green and yellow paddles to check for student understanding. This is a form of formative assessment and helps the teacher determine which students she needs to support in the lesson.

Formative assessment tool

The year 7 class which was learning about St Augustine had very clear learning intentions which were regularly referred to and checked off as sections of the lesson were completed. This made things very easy for the students to focus on what they needed to do. 

Give your readers an idea of the application range of ICT/digital devices in the learning spaces.

YEAR 7

• Powtoon used to create a document about St Augustine. Powtoon is available to us through our Google Drive - there is an EDU version.

• Padlet used for precamp post its and ideas about what students are looking forward to.

• 1:1 in class not take home.

• In one class all tasks in morning session related to ICT.

YEAR 4

• These students are part of the 1:1 program. 
• The students used Answer Garden and Tagexdo to share ideas and create a word cloud in response to a task for science. Answer Garden and Tagexdo are linked making it easy to export the answers to a word cloud. 

When considering your own class teaching/organisation, what might be three approaches you have observed that could be adopted?

Furniture in the Yr 4 classrooms, very flexible.

• In the classes visited today there were no teacher desks. The Year 7s had a separate office space but the Year 4 teachers either had a small space or nothing at all. This decision was taken by some teachers to allow greater space in the classrooms. The Year 4 classes in particular were quite small spaces.

Why are the learning environments engaging? What is going on to ensure each student progresses?

• today I noticed that the classes all seem to have maths text books. Does everyone use maths texts? Why have they chosen this approach when it seems like all other curriculum areas are planned in a opposite way.

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Day 5 - St Rita's Victoria Point Group Reflection

This morning we visited Year 2. Their main focus for this morning is the Reading To Learn program. The program involves a focus on one text for three to four weeks. This texts provides learning activities for reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation. The introduction of the text involves a whole class reading of the book and then a focus on the text, looking in particular at the structure and the grammar. The children were involved in highlighting, discussing and identifying text features. In another classroom we observed another part of this process where the focus was on the characters and their actions. This was leading to the students doing some independent writing. In the third classroom was saw yet another part of the process focused on spelling. It seems to be a holistic approach to teaching all aspects of literacy using one text as the stimulus. All children are involved and using the same text for their learning.

Part of the Reading to Learn Process

The Year 2 prayer included Christian Meditation as part of the routine. There were slight variations to what we had have been shown in Lismore recently. All children we sitting eyes closed and focused… even when we entered the room.

This program is quite different to what some of our schools have within their literacy block structure. Guided Reading is not as much a critical component within the block and there appears to be much less group work.  The focus is much more on a whole text and class focus. Although the text is at one level, they scaffold and support the students within the different ability levels. All students can achieve reading the text by the end of the 3 week process.

In the different Year 2 classrooms we also observed the use of learning goals. Some of these goals were long term, whole year goals while others were short term focused goals around one particular aspect of learning. There are some nice ideas about how to display these goals.

Writing goals in Year 2

We also met with Wendy who is part of the Student Support Team. She discussed the gifted and talented whole school approach within the school. This is a reasonable new focus area. It involves a process of pre-assessment (across different curriculum areas), collecting data, meetings between Wendy and the teacher and then Wendy and the parents and then an action plan is developed as to how they will differentiate within the classroom. (CDP - Curriculum Differentiation Plan)

Wendy also withdraws groups of children within the school. A gifted and talented committee has been established who meet once a term. Wendy includes a section in the newsletter as a support for parents.

In the Year 3 classrooms we observed a Mathematics lessons. The school uses a variety of textbooks to support mathematics learning. This was very different or opposite approach to what we use in our schools. We are wondering how often or how much concrete ,materials are used to support mathematics learning as we haven’t observed many mathematics lessons. Our approach in Lismore is to use concrete materials and hands on experiences to expose learners to the ideas without the support of text books.

One interesting idea in the Year three room was the word tree which had rings with word and spelling patterns and story starter ideas. They also have hanging various resources to on ‘ladders’ for Religion (text types of the Bible) and writing.

Bible Text Types

One Year 3 class was in the eSpace working as a whole class on Study Ladder revising skills they have worked on. It is an opportunity for all the class working on the laptops at the same time. The only have a few laptops per class therefore they have to access the eSpace (a room with a class set of laptops.

One area we noticed across the school which didn't quite fit with the overall pedagogical approach to learning was the use of mathematics text books across all grades. We are curious about why textbooks were used and how often hands on activities are used across the school. We have not seen many lessons where concrete materials were used to support learning. The lessons were focused on completing text pages. This is opposite to the learning witnessed in literacy, history, geography and religion.

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Great Use of Different Furniture

Had to post a short clip of my favourite furniture layout. This is the Year 2 Class quietly reading after their visit to the church to celebrate the Feast Day of St Aloysius. I love how they comfortably use the variety of seating arrangements.

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Day 4 - St Rita's Victoria Point Group Response

Day 4: St Rita’s Victoria Point

Our day today started with a beautiful prayer and sharing session in Prep. Today was a special day in that it was ‘Share and Prayer’. The parents are invited to hear about what the students have been learning and be involved in prayer. The prayer focused on the student of the week where each student was given an opportunity to say thank you to God for for the student of the week. Each child was encouraged to share something different they were thankful for.

Prep prayer space. The cloth has all hand prints of the class and their names. 

One way Prep are using data to inform their decision making is by displaying learning targets based on Australian Curriculum standards. Students names are placed on what they are able to do. As they learn or are able to demonstrate the standard their name is moved to the next goal. This is a great way of tracking progress visually for all children but is not always practical if you don’t have space available.

Tracking student progress against standards in Prep

The Prep is the first year of school (age 5-6) but it is not compulsory. It is therefore very play based and involves lots of oral language. They have a focus on sounds and sometime sight words but it is not as prominent as Kindergarten. This is then evident in the Year 1 classrooms, as it is their first formal year of schooling. The appear to take it a little slower in regards to expectations in these early years. This may change with the new system which starts next year.

Oral language task constructing sentences using pictures and words.

The planning is based on the needs of the students within each individual classroom. Therefore each classroom had very different focus areas and teaching activities.

This afternoon we were part of the E- Learning team meeting which occurs once a week. This is one of the teams which operates within the school as a PLT. The group shared with us where they have come from since the group formed in 2011. The strategic plan was supported by significant funding from BCE which allowed the school to significant

Preps using iPads

ly upgrade the technology tools in the school. This upgraded include projectors for all rooms, around 10 laptops per class and an upgrade of the wireless network. The school has been very lucky to have secured the funding to be able to do this program of improvement. They also managed to secure support from Bendigo Bank which has allowed the purchase of laptops for the 1:1 program. The have also implemented a technology levy P-7 which helps with continued support and upgrading of hardware. Currently, four grade levels have 1:1 (upper grades), there are no plans to push this out throughout the whole school. The P-3 classes will get more devices as time goes on.

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DAY 4 at St Joseph's Como. Prue and Anne-Maree

When considering your home school what might be some approaches you could put to your staff for consideration? Why are the learning environments engaging? What is going on to ensure each student progresses?

1.

Today we were able to see part of 'AIM' (Achievement Integration Model) in action in one of the Year 4 classrooms. It was great to see engaged students working at their own pace and level. AIM was developed by a number of teachers and authors one of whom works at St Joseph's. The link to the academic paper can be found here. This model is about enhancing academic self-efficacy and metacognition skills. Students must as part of this process develop their own inquiry question to explore as part of the unit. It has a range of supports that can include models such as Bloom's Taxonomy, Kaplan etc to differentiate learning activities and uses an 'understanding by design' planning process around the syllabus outcomes.

-learning intention shared students via google doc on learning log

-students develop a critical inquiry question related to a unit they have been working on  (HSIE/S&T/PDHPE etc) this question guides their learning

-they are not allowed to 'google' the answers and must use a variety of sources of information.

-after developing a question they must choose a a Multi modal method of delivery. 

-they are given 10 hours over two weeks to work on research and presentations.

-Assessment and evaluation can include a range of rubrics, testing, learning/reflection journals (created in Google Docs)

-The daily learning journals are powerful with students reflecting on what went well, what didn't and the teacher is able to feedback through the journal. They record these via a google doc shared with the teacher. 

-Students present their work to a variety of audiences at the conclusion of the unit. The students present simultaneously each setting up their own area using a variety of multi-model designs to students from other classes. Students and parents move freely from project to project and underperformance is also presented. 

Yesterday we saw this at play in year 6 and today in year 4. One of the students we spoke to had created a PowerPoint for her presentation but was working on palm cards for any questions that came as a result of the presentation. 

2. Teacher Dashboard - a great tool for sharing google drive with students and manage student work. Teachers are able to see what students are doing through their account and when. It creates an easy, paperless way to share learning. It's something that think would have an endless capability within our schools.

3. Robotics - 

Robotics is used as a whole class intervention but is specifically designed for working with underachieving students. From year 3 students at St Joseph's have one session a week. It is highly engaging and encourages 

- problem solving

- basic programming

- responsible  risk taking 

- mathematic calculations and graphing

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Reflections Day 4 - Abbie

When considering your own class teaching/organisation, what might be three approaches you have observed that could be adopted?

·       *  Flexible working spaces: (More obvious within upper grades) students can choose to sit where they want and this changes regularly so they are working in different structures with different people all the time. The furniture allowed for this as it was modular/moveable. There were really no “tradition style” tables/chairs etc set up in the “traditional” ways ie: rows etc.

Even their groupings were different: not 6 x groups of 6 desks etc. Some groups had 8 children sitting it in, some had 2. Some had taller style bench seats. Storage was different within the different rooms. Some had furniture where there were trays built in under the lounge style seats where students could sit as well. Obviously within our school, we are limited with our furniture, but there were some ideas which could be implemented such: as a little more freedom/flexibility during the day and different ways the tables could be arranged etc.

                                  

·        * A big focus on visible learning: Many teachers had a clear learning intention on their wall/board for each lesson and then the success criteria written as well. This was clearly defined by these teachers at the beginning and during the lessons, referring to this for the students to “check in” on their learning. This has been an area which has been discussed within our school in the notion of…  “What we teach is not a secret” but it was much more visible within this school. There was the discussion about older students even writing their intention down. It was not as obvious in a visible way in the lower grades but the language was used.

  

·        * The last approach was the way some of their early years classes displaying goals on the wall ie: Maths or English. There are many different ways to do this but the way we saw one prep class doing this was by having simple goals written as dot points on separate pieces of laminated paper with Velcro stickers attached where names are moved according to the goals being achieved. It was very simple which was what I liked best for the early years. 

     In one of the classes in grade 5, the teacher explained that the students set their own homework activities according to their classroom goal. This was another good idea which may work well in the older grades. It promotes students taking responsibility of their learning at home.

 

 Give your readers an idea of the application range of ICT/digital devices in the learning spaces.

This afternoon we were part of the E-Learning team meeting. During this time, Jess explained where the school has come from, where they are now and where to next. 

This is an area which has developed considerably since 2011. It has been a process with focus areas and goals each year. They have an excellent teacher and student portal set up which allows for ease of communication and access to necessary resources by staff and students. They are in the process of developing a parent portal. They were interested in learning about our school app and the information on this. 

The biggest areas that I believe have impacted the school is the 1-1 notebook program, Bluetooth/wireless connectivity between student and teacher laptops and the board/TV’s  and the set up where everything is cloud based as they don’t have a server.

                                      

The focus area for the future is now more about how technology impacts teaching and learning. Some staff members have already started this process but they recognise that it needs to be more established throughout the school. They discussed ways that this can be improved ie: peer coaching etc.

I have been exposed to a number of websites and applications which assists with the teaching and learning. There are so many fantastic resources available which can assist teachers with their teaching pedagogy. They can assist with differentiation and engages students in a variety of ways. We had the discussion about using the ‘teacher experts’ within our schools and trying to tap into this resource so that more teachers can become exposed and confident to use technology within the classroom.   

I consider myself quietly confident in many areas of IT but I learnt so much more this week about different ways technology can be used to improve teaching and learning.

When considering your home school what might be three approaches/systems/practices that could be put to your staff for consideration?

* Thoughts into establishing a school based club for environmental issues within the school such as St Rita's Rangers. There are a variety of initiatives which could be implemented within the area looking at sustainability and looking after our environment.

 St Rita's Rangers meeting at lunch to build a scarecrow for their gardens: a                                                   suggestion made  by the group, after to losing produce due to birds.

* Exposing teachers to some of the websites and resources which I have discovered during the experience to help with teaching and learning.

* To work with Chris (LOP), giving suggestions about how learning goals/intentions can be incorporated within our school to help with having the students gain a clear understanding about "what will I be learning, why and how do I know that I understand."

* Offering suggestions about how to display student learning goals and how to encourage students to take a level of responsibility for their learning,

- These last 2 points are related to areas of focus for the remainder of the year so it fits nicely.

         

Canvas art used throughout the school to show images and words specific to their beliefs.

SIR acronym displayed in every room - E- Learning focus

St Rita's Pedagogy which is very clear, concise and simple. Students are aware of the statements, they continually review this throughout the year by having a focus statement each week.

Prep classroom: A great activity where a student creates a sentence each day using pictures and high frequency words along with verbs and nouns. A great activity which can be modified in a variety of ways.

Prep - Part of a display wall where letters are sorted according to the sound it makes ie: quiet letters, noisy letters, vowels, humming etc. (Just a different way to sort the letters)

Prep class: end of week 'Prayer and Share' which is usually held on Friday mornings but this week was held on Thursday.

Parents are welcome to come in on a Friday morning and be part of a "Prayer and Share' session where the students share what they have learnt during the week. It was an excellent reflection process. After this the 'Student of the Week' is celebrated where each student in the circle, passes on the friendship stone and says one thing is special about the student of the week. It was a great oral language activity for this age group which also builds positive relationships within the class family. It ended with the teacher, teacher assistant also giving a positive affirmation to the child.

The last reflection for tonight is regarding the Teacher Assistance (TA's). In most cases it has been hard to distinguish between the Teachers and TA's within the school. Some of them are active members of the teams. Particularly within the early years, I am very impressed with the way they are such an integral part of the class. This is obvious through the activities they are involved in and the interactions which take place. They go with the class to the release from face to face lessons and are actively involved in these as well. 

It is great to see them extremely active and valued within the school. 

I am looking forward to my last day. It has been a very busy but rewarding week where we have not only seen many new and innovative ideas but it also gave us the confidence in knowing that we all are doing wonderful things within our schools as well.

Abbie

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Day 4 – St Aloysius Cronulla – David & Lauren.1

Day 4 – St Aloysius Cronulla – David & Lauren.1

How are they using data to inform decision making?

St Aloysius is very similar to our schools in their data collection using the same methods and very similar tests i.e. ACER, BERT, Torch etc.

They store this data in a central excel document in which this updated so they can track the progress of students and the grades and address needs when necessary.

With their maths programs in particular they pretest to determine their maths groups across the stages and then post test to see how the children have progressed. From this pretesting they develop a core section of students and an extension group. The extension group are withdrawn and extended in the particular area of a fortnightly cycle. The core group gather in the hub where they have a group session on explicit teaching then. They are split into smaller groups to cater for individual student needs. With children at risk being targeted more closely and more directed activities to assist these children.

Literacy Group working on a Google doc

 With in the classrooms in literacy groups children are put into ability groups with the possibility of some overlapping to enable students to model for others and to push and extend children.

Year 6 Working Collaboratively

When collaborative groups are in action students are encouraged and directed to different groups to enhance their learning, with the teacher having in mind the ability of the students. However it is evident that the majority of students make positive choices of their own accord most of the time.

What approaches are taken to cater for the diverse range of student learning needs?

Stage maths

St Aloysius is a single stream school and therefore has had to be creative in creating flexible learning groups to cater for the diverse range of students academic needs. Stages 2 and 3 have created flexible maths groups across the stage. Students are pre-tested for each concept and grouped into an extension and a core group. The extension group is taught in both stages by the Assistant Principal. The staff have expressed how beneficial grouping the extension students together has been as it has catered for their learning needs but also reduced the number of students in the class (every class at St Aloysius is approx 33 students). The core group works in the learning hub and is taught by the stage teachers. Within the core group students are broken into smaller ability based groups to complete activities.

Morning maths club

Each Wednesday morning at 8.15am the Assistant Principal and Year 6 teacher work with a group of students in maths club. This club was created as a support group for students requiring additional practise of number skills. Students were nominated by class teachers and a note was sent home to parents. Year 6 students assist running the club as peer tutors. The morning begins with a maths warm up (generally a counting activity eg counting races). Students are then broken into grade groups and work on number games with a Year 6 student working wih each group. The morning concludes with a game. We witnessed a game "Gladiator Challenge", similar to a shoot out style game.

Reading Recovery

Reading Recovery runs Monday- Friday in the morning.

Flexible learning spaces

Flexible learning spaces are used to cater for students individual choices of work areas. A number of options are provided to students from kneeling, laying, sitting on the floor or at a desk. These are also intentionally designed by the teacher to cater for their lesson needs.

Multimodal lessons

Multimodal lessons are used to engage students in meaningful learning experiences. The teachers recognise that students learn in a variety of ways and utilise a range of modes when teaching to meet these needs.

Gladiator Challenge

Maths Club Game

Maths Club Activity Folder

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