How good was the school concert?! Thank you so much for coming and being part of the evening. It was wonderful to have our school community share in our gifts and talents and enjoy some light-hearted fun together.

As the year winds down, in many ways we are already looking into how we can continue to extend and develop the progress we’ve made this year into 2023 and beyond. A major focus next year will be in the Teaching & Learning space. As I’ve mentioned previously, in 2023 all schools in NSW, across K-2 (Early Stage 1 and Stage 1) will be implementing a new English and Mathematics curriculum.

Both of these Key Learning Areas have implemented an explicit approach to teaching and learning. One of the differences between the old and new is the approach to how reading is taught. The Science of Reading (SoR) identifies five essential components that make up the simple view of reading:

Phonemic awareness

Phonics

Fluency

Vocabulary

Comprehension

In the new English syllabus, these five areas combine in a structured Literacy approach which research has shown provides a necessary foundation for the success of early readers. Decodable readers support this approach and as a result in Junior Primary next year, decodable texts will be used as take-home readers and also in class. These texts are structured so that they contain sound-letter relationships and word types that students have been taught. They are less repetitive than PM readers and require students to sound out words based on learned sounds. There is also less guessing involved with unknown words by the pictures provided. Students are definitely required to ‘decode’ the text.

Please follow the link to hear about our Learner Profile and school value focus for Term 4