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.