Primary News

Wow, I can't believe how quickly this term has flown by. It feels like only yesterday we returned from the Easter holidays. The high level of teaching and learning across the primary school has certainly helped the term speed along.

As part of our instructional leadership approach, we regularly observe lessons in the classrooms. This continuous observation promotes the ongoing development of teaching skills and allows students to witness lifelong learning in action. We demonstrate that making mistakes is a natural part of learning. For example, we laugh together when I misspell something on the board and need to look up the correct spelling. These small moments model resilience, a growth mindset, and the understanding that everyone faces challenges.

Our teaching staff have refined their delivery of the Reading Hierarchy warm-up this term, which is an integral part of our school curriculum. I often tell students that some parents might struggle with terms like digraph, trigraph, and mnemonics, let alone recite, recall, and apply them quickly.

In our Year 6 art response warm-up, students can confidently identify six types of ancient art and recognize Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns. This content-rich learning builds students' confidence in their ability to tackle difficult subjects and pursue their interests. We are very proud of our students' learning mindset at ACC and the supportive learning environment that is contributed to by the students.

Our value for the past two weeks has been Curiosity. At ACC, we define curiosity as the eagerness to ask questions and seek knowledge. We encourage and nurture students' natural curiosity, helping them to seek answers, conduct thorough research, explore alternatives, challenge assumptions, think deeply, and test theories. I have enjoyed hearing from students in the playground about what excites them in their learning and what they have researched at home.

NAIDOC Week activity

During the final week of term, we commemorate NAIDOC Week, throughout the primary school. The students look forward to cooking damper each year and learning about the history of Australia. The Year 5 class have led up to the week with investigations 

Mountain Bike Trail

At Australian Christian College, we are committed to providing not just academic but also experiential learning opportunities. The new Mountain Biking Track is a testament to this, offering our students a chance to explore their interests and develop skills in a safe and controlled environment.

We will open a Mountain Biking Track on the oval in line with this vision. This track will be open on Tuesday during Lunch break. This will be a replacement for Wheels Wednesday which has been a popular initiative. Scooters, skateboards and rollerblades will not be suitable for Track Tuesday.

 For students to be on track, there are a few requirements:

Students must have their own bikes. No sharing will be permitted.

All students must be wearing a helmet.

Students must follow the track's direction and ensure others' safety. 

Beep Test

The termly Beep test was conducted in week 9 with most students beating their personal best. Two students even broke the school record with a score of 11.5. The focus is on personal best and ownership of the student’s personal fitness. Mrs Bresanello modelled this value by running with 6 sessions of beep tests.

Dibels

Across the primary school, we have completed a new assessment for reading and comprehension. This is a quick, individual test that will give us a wealth of knowledge on individual students’ reading ability. This test will replace the Fountas and Pinnell test we have used in the past.  The test will identify strengths and weaknesses in the following key components.

Key Components

1. Phonemic Awareness:

   - First Sound Fluency (FSF): Recognises initial sounds in words.

   - Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF): Segments words into individual phonemes.

2. Alphabetic Principle and Phonics:

   - Letter Naming Fluency (LNF): Names letters quickly.

   - Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF): Decodes phonetically regular nonsense words.

3. Accuracy and Fluency:

   - DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (DORF): Reads a passage aloud with speed and accuracy.

   - Retell Fluency (RTF): Retells the passage to measure comprehension.

4. Reading Comprehension:

   - Cloze: Chooses words to fill in blanks in a passage, assessing comprehension.

The test will give a reading level though, with any change over of assessments there may be a period of adjustment of levels. The classroom teacher will be happy to discuss reading levels and the DIBELs data at the Parent/ teacher meetings, next term.