Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope everyone has well and truly settled into Term 1. As I have visited classrooms, it has been wonderful to see students engaged in their learning and welcoming new members of our community.

THE TEACHING OF READING

One of the most important skills our children need to learn during their time with us is the ability to read. Our brains don’t naturally learn to read in the same way we learn to walk, talk and listen. As babies, our children can hear our voices and begin to interpret what we are saying, regardless of language, and by about the age of 2 years old, begin to converse with us. The brain is not wired to do this with reading. Therefore, as educators, we need to explicitly and systematically, teach the foundational skills of reading to the students.

Throughout last year, our teachers spent a lot of time learning about ‘The Science of Learning’ and ‘The Science of Reading’. This year, we are now applying our learning to change the way we teach reading at St Benedict’s Primary. In Kindergarten – Year 2 we will be introducing InitiaLit, which is a whole class structured literacy program. It incorporates the essential elements of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension) in a systematic, explicit and age appropriate manner as well as teaching spelling and writing.

In Years 3-6 our teaching pedagogy will also be based on ‘The Science of Reading’ and will incorporate the above mentioned elements. As part of our refined practice, our first modification will involve the introduction of a short 5-10 minute daily focus on phonological awareness. This short, sharp oral instruction focuses on the sound structures of language and includes skills such as rhyming and alliteration, sentence segmentation, syllables, and onsets (the initial phonological unit of a word) and rimes (the string of letters that follow). As our older students further strengthen their skills in this area, it is expected that the need for such targeted teaching in this area will reduce. After embedding this practice in Term 1, we will then turn our focus to the way we teach vocabulary, reading fluency and comprehension over Terms 2-4.

In conjunction with these changes across K-6, we will continue to implement both the MiniLit and MacqLit programs that provide targeted, small group instruction to students requiring specific reading intervention. In 2021, which was our first year of their implementation, we saw significant growth in student reading ability through these programs and so we are excited to continue with their implementation.

Whilst teachers at St Benedict’s have always incorporated the essential elements of reading instruction, the use of both the InitiaLit program and our revised practice in Years 3-6 will ensure that our reading instruction is more consistent, systematic and explicit across the school. We know that we have great teachers here at St Benedict’s, but we are always striving to do even better and we are excited to be commencing this journey.

ANNUAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN 2022

Each year, the school looks at areas of improvement and sets improvement goals based on data and feedback. This year we continue our work on the goals from 2021 but introduce some new programs and initiatives in support of these goals.

1. To improve the Literacy and Numeracy of all students.

We will implement InitiaLit K-2 and a reviewed approach to the teaching of reading in Yrs 3-6. We will also introduce some new assessment practices in Literacy. All teachers will further develop their use of high impact teaching strategies, especially within the areas of Literacy and Numeracy.

• Strengthen the use of inquiry and develop a culture of learning.

We will continue to embed our use of inquiry learning across K-6 for the teaching of Religious Education and aligned areas of other curricula.

• To enhance the social and emotional wellbeing of our students.

We will strengthen our Behaviour Management Policy and further align it with our ‘5 Ways of Being’ and strategies developed through our previous professional learning in the Berry Street Education Model and MAPA programs.

Note: Berry Street focuses on increasing student engagement, improving their self-regulation, relationships, wellbeing, growth and academic achievement. MAPA strategies are designed to prevent behaviour escalation through proactive, non-physical interventions.

MEET AND GREET SESSIONS

It was terrific to see parents of Years 3/4 students in our first ‘Meet and Greet’ MicroSoft Teams meeting yesterday. Thank you for taking the opportunity to meet teachers and find out some important information about the learning that will be taking place and classroom organisation. We really value a positive, collaborative relationship with parents and so we look forward to seeing many more parents online in our meetings for other stages. Links for these ‘Meet and Greet’ sessions will be sent out by classroom teachers through COMPASS.

COVID-19 UPDATE

Please continue to monitor for any symptoms of COVID and use RAT tests during the week they are provided.

You are reminded that staff and students cannot attend school if they are showing any symptoms of COVID-19. These include fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose, loss of smell/taste, muscle/joint pains, diarrhoea, nausea/vomiting, extreme tiredness, unexplained chest pain or conjunctivitis (eye infection).

If symptoms occur at any time, you should not attend school and should undertake a Rapid Antigen Test. If a Rapid Antigen Test is positive, you/your child should isolate as someone who has tested positive to COVID-19. If you cannot access a Rapid Antigen Test, you can attend a PCR (nose and throat swab) testing clinic.

Please remember to inform the Front Office or myself if there are any positive cases, and a reminder that further information can be obtained from the ACT Health website.

Please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s teacher/s directly if you have any concerns or questions.

We thank you for your continued support.

God bless.

Alana Quirk

Principal (Acting)