Filter Content
- Important Dates & Events
- Principal's Page - Pat Ellis
- Annual Improvement Plan Update
- Numeracy Update
- Literacy Update - Reading
- Community Council Events
- RE News: Meaghan Younger
- Sports News: Erin Hardwicke
- Library News: Erin Hardwicke
- Walk Safely to School Day
- The APPetizer - Jess Figura
- Classroom Support, Seasons for Growth - Jo Krippner
- Playgroup @ St Michael's
- Harmony Awards
- Canteen News
- Happy Birthday
- Woolies Earn & Learn
- Entertainment Book 2019/20
THIS WEEK | |
16 May | NAPLAN catch up |
NEXT WEEK | |
20 May | NAPLAN Year 3 (Language Conventions) @ 9am |
20 May | NAPLAN Year 5 (Language Conventions) @ 10am |
20 May | My Body, My Life - Year 5/6 Child and Parent Night 6pm |
21 May | My Body, My Life - Year 5/6 Class Sessions |
22 May | NAPLAN Year 3 (Numeracy) @ 9am |
22 May | NAPLAN Year 5 (Numeracy) @ 10am |
23 May | NAPLAN Catch Up Day |
24 May | WSPT - 1/2M @ 2.25pm |
COMING UP | |
30 May | Belconnen Region Cross Country |
31 May | Year 5/6 Excursion to Parliament House |
31 May | Assembly 3/4YM @ 2.25pm |
31 May | School Disco (5.30-8pm) |
4 June | Athletics Carnival |
6 June | Eucharist Parent/Child Prep Night @ St Monicas |
14 June | Vinnie's Winter Woolies Day & STAYOUT |
21 June | Awards Assembly @ 2.25pm |
22 & 23 June | Sacrament of First Eucharist |
28 June | School's Fun Day with St Monica's |
28 June | Trivia Night (7.30-10pm) |
1 July | Arts Showcase Assembly @ 12.40 |
NOTES GONE HOME THIS WEEK
- Trivia Night note
- Yr 5/6 Excursion Note
We hope everyone enjoyed their Mother's Day on Sunday. Thank you to all the families who attended Mother's Day Mass last Thursday and the special afternoon tea. It is always great to see everyone at school. My apologies if the timing didn't suit with work and other committments. As you can appreciate, we do our best with all our events to vary times to ensure we can connect with as many families as possible and ensure over the course of the year, everyone gets to attend something whether it is a breakfast, morning tea, during the day, afternoon tea or night time event. It can be disappointing for some students if a family member can't attend an event at school, however, we explain the importance of work and other committments to our students and they understand. If any child is upset, please rest assured that we have systems in place to ensure we flipped that around as quickly as possible.
We have had a great start to our 'Enrolment 2020 Campaign'. Through letterbox drops, signage, social media, emails and word of mouth we have had several new families visit our school over the last week. The feedback has been extremely positive. I would like to thank our Year 6 Community Leaders who have represented us well, showcasing our school on the tours.
This week NAPLAN has started for Years 3 and 6. Whilst this is a 'moment in time' assessment and a requirement for us to faciliate, it is not a true indication of your child/ren's abilites, skills, knowledge or understanding. It does provide data that can be used, along with other assessment pieces, to create a profile of a student. It is useful to look at trends that are occuring and student growth from Year 3 to Year 5 and so on. Please know that whilst we have prepared our Year 3 and 5 students for NAPLAN, including completing practice tests, no pressure is placed on students before or during the testing period. Please feel free to discuss this further with your child's teacher, Mr Webb or myself.
On Tuesday, we again hosted 30 teachers from across the Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn to participate in a Numeracy professional development day with Leonie Anstey, a Numeracy consultant. Focus of the day was on K-2 Numeracy. Mrs McCann and Miss Frogley attended from our school.
Uniforms
We have been notified by Lowes (our major uniform suppier), that as of tomorrow Lowes Gungahlin will no longer be supplying our school uniforms. All uniforms with our school logo will only be sold from Macdonalds Schoolwear at Jamison. Any uniforms without our logo ie. pants/dresses can still be purchased from Gungahlin.
As the weather is now turning colder, a reminder that students should be attending school in full winter uniform with a jumper/jacket and long pants. A beanie and/or gloves are also allowed. Please ensure that these items are school items and are of navy blue colour.
Recently I have had conversations with Principals from some of our Catholic High Schools where many of our Year 6 children end up going. All have said that they have a huge demand and not enough spaces with waitlists being a possibility. I would encourage any parents looking to enrol their child into a high school, to ensure the enrolment application is completed prior to due date to ensure you give yourself the best possible chance of being accepted.
On Friday and Saturday this week, the school Leadership Team (Damien Webb, Meaghan Younger and myself) will be attending the Hawker-Brownlow Educational Conference in Melbourne. This is an opportunity for us to engage in current research, network and continue vissionary and strategic discussions to support St Michael's moving forward. Jo Krippner (Classroom Support Teacher) will be keeping an eye on things in our absence. I look forward to sharing our learnings with you all next week.
Lastly, St Michael's is now on Instagram. Follow us @stmsps
Enjoy the week ahead.
Regards,
Pat Ellis
Principal
Annual Improvement Plan Update
This week teachers began our LIFT (Learning Improvement Focus Team) journey. This process is an action research cycle, where teachers will identify a need within their classroom, look to current research for ideas/strategies, implement a new practice, invite other teachers in to observe, explain changes through observations/data, and then feedback/reflect.
This process will allow us to unpack our Annual Improvement Plan further and identify the academic needs across the school.
We look forward to sharing our findings as we journey through this process.
Teaching Learning Communities (TLCs) – through Lesson Study at St Michael’s
On Tuesday St Michael’s hosted a Teaching Learning Community (TLCs). These communities take place in classrooms in real time. The structure brings educators together from across schools to build knowledge and skills and to engage in mathematics tasks designed to deepen their understanding of the concepts, structures, patterns, and relationships that underpin all of the mathematics they are expected to teach.
Participants came together at St Michael’s to refine their pedagogical content knowledge through collaborative discussions. All participating teachers are then encouraged to try the refined lessons in their own classrooms. At subsequent sessions teachers bring artefacts to demonstrate the impact on learning for their students and build next steps improvement goals. These communities typically meet once per term. (4 times per year)
Last term 1/2F were the class chosen to work with Leonie who ‘borrowed their learning’ for teachers to observe and discuss. This term 1/2M worked with Leonie and the feedback by both Leonie and the wider teaching community over the last two sessions highlighted that we are so lucky to have such engaged, persistent and deep thinking students.
Leonie is an Educational Consultant in Instructional Leadership and Mathematics & Numeracy Education. She currently holds a Masters of Education, based on research of the Skills and Knowledge for Mathematics Teacher Coaching. Leonie was formally a Principal in Victoria/Australia for 6 years and has worked as a Teacher/Principal Coach for 5 years. Leonie’s teaching background includes Senior Secondary (Mathematics/Physics), Primary. She has also supported Early Childhood settings to implement Mathematics and Science strategies.
In 2010, Leonie was presented with the prestigious Lindsay Thompson Fellowship for her work in raising mathematics achievement for middle years students across a network of schools. The fellowship focused on Instructional Leadership at the school, district and national levels in America, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom.
Leonie has presented at National and International conferences on Mathematics, Leadership and Thinking. Topics have included Professional Learning Teams, Questioning, Australian Curriculum and Leadership practices.
We look forward to future Teacher Learning Community Numeracy Cluster meetings and sharing further learnings with you.
We often get asked what reading looks like at school. When teaching children to read, there are many strategies that we use at different times to ensure we engage students with the love of reading. Like at home, it is important for us to connect students with 'hot reads' or books they are interested in. It is also important to expose students to a range of quality literature both fiction and non-fiction.
A typical reading block at St Michael's would contain some of the following;
Modelled Reading occurs when an teacher reads a difficult text to students, enabling the teacher to model how effective readers sound, solve and think about texts when reading. The “think aloud” strategy is used strategically by the teacher to model thinking and problem solving actions.
Reading Aloud occurs when a teacher reads a difficult text to the students for the purposes of:
- building a community of readers,
- creating shared experiences amongst students,
- exposing students to new ideas, story lines, characters and contexts,
- exposing students to new vocabulary, text and language structures,
- building a love of reading.
Shared Reading occurs when a teacher reads a difficult text and students follow the words with their eyes
- provides opportunities for the experienced reader to explicitly teach or demonstrate a strategy or strategic action
- enables the teacher to use the same text for multiple teaching purposes
provides opportunities for students to join in with the teacher to read a hard level text
- involves reading to, with and by students.
Guided Reading occurs when a teacher differentiates reading instruction to suit the needs of learners
- enables a teacher to select a text which matches the specific needs of a small group of students
- enables a teacher to support the small group of students to apply problem solving actions in order to solve the text
- provides opportunities for all students to independently problem solve the text
- provides opportunities for a teacher to revisit the text for particular teaching purposes and monitor student progress
Guided Reading/Reciprocal Teaching occurs when a small group of students work cooperatively to independently problem solve an instructional level text
supports students using the framework
- predicting
- reading
- clarifying
- questioning
- summarising
Independent Reading occurs when students independently read easy or familiar texts and enables students to build stamina and apply problem solving actions with greater efficiency and accuracy.
Please feel free to discuss how you at home can support your child's reading with your child/ren's classroom teacher.
Mothers’ Day Mass
Thank you to 1/2W for your beautiful Mass for Mother's last Thursday. It was a special time to thank God for the gift of those special women in our lives who, like Mary, care for and love us.
Whole School Prayer Time
1/2M are already preparing to lead the Whole School Prayer Time on Friday 24th May where we will celebrate the feast of Mary, Help of Christians. Mary Help of Christians remains Australia’s first patron saint.
May – Month of Mary
May is the month of Mary in the Catholic Church. We spend time this month reflecting on the gift of mothers, praying the Rosary and deepening our connection with Mary, mother to all. In our parish, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, this month is particularly special as we pray with our Patron Saint.
First Communion
Our next preparation session is Thursday 6 June at St Monica’s School from 6:00pm. Parents and children will work together in this one hour session focusing on Eucharist as revealed through the story of the Feeding of the 5000.
If you have not already taken part in a commitment ritual at Mass please ensure you see Father prior to the beginning of the Mass you attend this weekend.
Well done to Ada 3/4YM who competed at the ACT Swimming Championships. Ada swam a personal best in the 50m freestyle.
Cross Country Training
Training will be provided at school at 8.30am each Wednesday of Weeks 3, 4 and 5. This training session will be held around the school grounds and students are asked to meet Mrs Hardwicke at the oval gates. Please ensure runners are brought to school for the training session.
Belconnen Region Cross Country - 30 May, 2019
Many thanks to the families who have already returned their permission notes and paid your $10. If your child is not going to attend the carnival, could the permission note be returned by next Wednesday to let us know this is the case. We have been asked to provide a volunteer to assist on the day. The jobs required are easy to fulfil so if you are willing to assist, please get in touch with us.
St Michael’s Athletics Carnival - Tuesday 4 June
Notes came home with each child last week. Please note that a special recess and lunch is available on the day for $4. Permission notes and special recess/lunch orders are due back by Monday 20 May. Please also note that those students who would normally eat more than what is being provided with the special lunch, it would be appropriate to send your child with additional food.
Thanks to all those parents who volunteered to assist on the day, if you are able to help out as a timekeeper we are in need of additional timekeepers.
ACT Sports Trials
There are a number of ACT trials on at the moment. Football (soccer), golf, touch football, rugby league, tennis, softball and hockey are just a few sports up on the School Sport ACT website. Please see the School Sports ACT section of the newsletter for further information about how to register for these trials.
Chief Minister's Reading Challenge
If your child is interested in taking part, please see the display in the library. Congratulations to Josh 1/2W for already reading 30 books. Completed forms can be placed in the box on the library desk. The challenge finishes on 13 September.
Overdue Library Books
There are a number of students with overdue library books, if you could please assist us by returning these books at your earliest convenience.
Thank you to all those parents who have kindly contacted new books over the last few weeks. We have offically run out of contact!
Walk Safely to School Day –Friday 23rd May
Students at St Michael’s are invited to participate in the ‘Walk Safely to School Day’. We will celebrating this day next Friday, the 23rd of May.
We will leave from the Kaleen Playing Field on Turon Place at 8:00 am next Friday. Please make sure you have your children ready to walk by 7:55. There will be a number of staff members walking to school and we will be wearing our high Vis jackets.
Parents, Carers and other family members are most welcome to join us for a lovely walk, but bring a coat as I am sure it will be very fresh.
Please send me an email if you have any questions or require any addition information
Many thanks
Damien Webb
Classroom Support, Seasons for Growth - Jo Krippner
Change and loss are issues that affect all of us at some stage in our lives. At St Michael’s we recognise that when changes occur in families through death, separation,
divorce or related circumstances, young people may benefit from learning how to manage these changes effectively. We are therefore offering an education program called Seasons for Growth. This program is facilitated in small groups and is based on research that highlights the importance of social support and the need to practise new skills to cope effectively with change and loss. The program focuses on issues such as self- esteem, managing feelings, problem-solving, decision-making, effective communication and support networks.
Seasons for Growth runs for eight weeks and each weekly session is 40-50 minutes. The program concludes with a “Celebration” session.
If there is an interest for Seasons for Growth we hope to commence this term, facilitated by Jo Krippner who has received special training in the use of this program. If you think your child would benefit from Seasons for Growth we would encourage you to talk to them about this. Should they decide to participate please email Jo at jo.krippner@cg.catholic.edu.au
St Michael’s is pleased to be able to offer this important program and we are confident it will be a valuable learning experience for those who request to be involved.
Congratulations to the following children who have achieved a Harmony Award in Week 3 and will receive their award this Friday at morning gathering (weather permitting).
KL | Hunter |
1/2F | Arietta |
1/2M | Olivia |
1/2W | Chiara |
3/4AK | Beth |
3/4YM | Jackson |
5/6B | Tad |
5/6FW | John |
Lunch Orders are to be placed by MIDNIGHT on Wednesday nights.
Friday 17th May (Week 3) | Friday 24th May (Week 4) | ||
9.00-12.00 | YMCA | 9.00-12.00 | YMCA |
12.30-1.45 | Shane/Christine | 12.30-1.45 | Nikola/Cathy |
The canteen still require assistance on Friday's from approximately 12.30-1.45 to help pack lunch orders, if you can assist in anyway, please contact Lisa in the Front Office. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Please feel free to contact Empire Catering on 0408 200 481 for queries with lunch orders or any constructive feedback you have regarding menu items.
The Woolies Earn and Learn program is back running from 1 May till 25 June. For every $10 spent at a Woolworths store you will be given a sticker, the stickers can then be placed on a sticker sheet (available from the Front Office), or placed in the boxes on display in the Front Office or at the Woolworths store in Belconnen Mall. The stickers will then be redeemed for resources from Modern Teaching Aids. Start collecting today to enable us to receive some great resources.