Newsletter Week 4 Term 2 2024

Principal's Message

Dear parents and carers

It is hard to believe we are at the end of week 4.

I hope you and your family are keeping well.  Please remember as we move into the colder weather to keep your children home if they are not well. This helps to limit the spread of seasonal illnesses to other children and to our staff.

Book Fair

What an amazing buzz there was during our Scholastic Book Fair! I loved helping out at the fair and watching so many children pick out books to add to their reading collection.  A huge thanks to Belinda Kowalski and Jackie Ward for their organisation, coordination and hard work every day that the fair was open!  I know they are still finalising the rewards for our school but at last count it was around $10 000!

Thanks to everyone for supporting this event.

ACT PYP Job-A-Likes

Last week all teachers from Forrest spent time connecting with IB colleagues from across the ACT PYP Network of schools. Teachers were invited to attend year group meetings where they spent time sharing and discussing the IB Framework and teaching in the Primary Years Programme.

At Forrest our teachers hosted a number of sessions for teachers across the network.

Sessions included:

Small group program- how to scaffold literacy development

Yr 2- How to use teacher questions to drive student thinking skills

Yr 5- Updates to the Australian Curriculum and the impact on Units of Inquiry

Yr 6- Supporting students through the exhibition process

PE- Teaching PE in an inquiry context

EALD- Scaffolding literacy development

Establishing Professional Learning Communities at Forrest.

According to research, what is the single most effective way to ensure high learning for all students? The answer is to establish a process for collective teacher efficacy, whereby teachers share their understanding of best practice, based on data. In many schools this process is known as Professional Learning Communities or PLCs.

Enthused by the positive impact that PLCs achieve, Forrest has is now part of a pilot program run by the ACT Education Directorate, supporting our school to run our PLCs in a streamlined and rigorous manner, based on up to date academic research. We have access to coaches who guide the staff through the steps of the PLC process, assisting us to ask the right questions, gather data effectively, analyse the data, choose interventions, and reflect on student achievement.

Our current focus is on the school goal of improving student writing, assisting our students to become more competent communicators and developing skills to apply to various modes of written communication. Goals throughout the school include improvement in sentence structure, text structure, and letter formation.

We look forward to seeing the improved results this process will deliver for our students. 

Writing Priority

This semester our teachers are focused on Priority 1 from our School Improvement Plan which is to improve student performance in writing across all year levels.  Teacher inquiry on writing is being undertaken through Professional Learning Communities.  The Professional Learning Community (PLC) model at Forrest Primary is based on the core understanding that we learn together to improve student outcomes.  This week I would like to share some information about how we teach spelling at Forrest.

Teaching spelling at Forrest through a word-conscious approach

Our values and beliefs:

At Forrest Primary School we believe a word-conscious classroom ‘presents spelling as an engaging inquiry process exploring phonological (sound), orthographic (visual) and Morphological (meaning) relationships in words. Students’ interest in words can be fostered through developing word-conscious classrooms where words are noticed, discussed and thoughtfully connected to other words with similar sound, visual or meaning patterns’ (Topfer, 2017, pg iii).

Word-consciousness is developed through learners inquiring into the big ideas in spelling (Guiding Thinking for Effective Spelling, Topfer, 2017)

The five key spelling strategies are sound, visual, meaning, connecting and checking. These strategies are mapped from Preschool to Year 6 and guide the teaching and learning at Forrest Primary School. These strategies form the foundation of the inquiry spelling programming at Forrest.  The direct spelling inquiry is combined with direct instruction into high frequency words, words derived from the students’ own needs, and/or vocabulary development.

The taught curriculum (pedagogy)

A word-conscious learner develops knowledge and dispositions that enhance their learning of other words beyond that particular topic or word (Scott et al. 2008). Teachers at Forrest create a culture of word noticing, naming, thinking and explaining when it comes to word exploration. The transdisciplinary approach of learning spelling in context is a key strength of the pedagogy at Forrest. Learning about spelling occurs through writing (providing opportunities to apply spelling strategies) and reading (providing chances to notice words).

Gathering Evidence of student learning

Teachers at Forrest use authentic assessment practices to ascertain student knowledge and skills in relation to spelling. Assessment processes include:

• Opportunities for students to make their thinking and knowledge about words visible
• Classroom discussions and learning tasks that demonstrated evidence of learning so that teachers know what spelling strategies students are using, in order to devise learning experiences that support productive spelling thinking.

Teachers at Forrest ensure that assessment occurs for the purpose of planning for future learning and for reporting. It is essential that students have opportunities to be active participants in the assessment tasks before the task itself. This means that students have the opportunity to conference with teachers about their thinking. This provides great insight to the teachers about the strategies children are using.

Have a wonderful long weekend.

Kind Regards

Laurel

Blundell’s Cottage and the National Capital Exhibition

This week, Year 3 attended an excursion to Blundell’s Cottage and the National Capital Exhibition. We have been inquiring into how people interact with and influence the changing geographical features of their local area in our “Where We Are In Place and Time” unit of inquiry. 

On this excursion students explored a cottage that was built in 1859. Within the cottage, students got a snapshot of what life was like in the past. Students also did a walking tour, spotting some of Canberra’s landmarks while strolling around Lake Burley Griffin. We finished our excursion with a visit to the National Capital Exhibition, learning all about our city of Canberra and how we came to be. We saw a 3D map of Canberra and watched a short video in a cinema-like theatre. It was such a rich and engaging experience for our learners! Check out some photos of our fun excursion below:

Earlyact Club

Guided by the International Baccalaureate, Forrest Primary students undertake action throughout their units of inquiry. As part of the inquiry cycle, students naturally think of how they can take their learning further and how what they have learned can be applied in the real world. Sometimes students choose to take action by supporting an organisation through fundraising or the collecting of items to donate.

Students frequently wish to take their action further than the classroom, which is how the Earlyact Club was formed in 2022. Over the years, Forrest Primary has had many iterations of action clubs, however in 2022 we partnered with the Rotary Club of Weston Creek to create our very own Forrest Primary School Earlyact Club.

Those students who are passionate about making a difference in our community and around the world, form a committee of Year 6 students who then meet once a week. Formal meetings are held regularly which contain Rotary scripting and are part of official Rotary business. By partnering with Rotary, our school has a connection with a wider range of networks, both locally and overseas. Rotarians are invited to our meetings and support our causes when possible.

At the end of 2022 the Earlyact Club received an Order of Australia (ACT Branch) Student Citizenship Award in recognition of their sustained community service. 

As part of the Earlyact Club, students choose an area of interest to research further, they investigate how they might be able to help a cause and are regularly organising events that involve the whole school community.

These events are then part of a Big Action Week, which are usually held each term. During Big Action Weeks, the projects are brought to life with events such as dress up days, cake stall, discos, no uniform days and colour days. Over the years, we have fundraised for a HUGE number of causes, such as WWF, RSPCA, Cancer Council, The Sea Turtle Foundation, Roundabout Canberra, Lids 4 Kids, Plastic Oceans Australia and so many more. This term our Big Action week is in week 8.

The Earlyact Club is an extremely dedicated group of students who really strive to make a difference and support change in our world, and they take a huge amount of pride in their club.

School Photos Next Week

Online Safety

Bunnings BBQ Fundraiser

Forrest Primary School P&C Events

Community Floriade Programme

Congratulations to the Forrest Primary School P&C Association. As part of the annual Community Floriade Programme, they applied for a bulb and annual flowers allocation to help beautify community areas around Canberra during Floriade. Our P&C made an application for 2000 bulbs and annuals to ensure that our front entry and the FOOSHC garden area will look amazing for this annual display. They were notified in late May that their application was one of the successful community associations to win. They will begin collecting our bulbs shortly so watch our garden grow.  Spring will be full of flowers for all of our parents, teachers and children this year at The Forrest Primary School. Thank you again to our wonderful P&C Volunteers who regularly support our school. To make sure that our display is at its best can Parents please make their children aware that the bulbs will be sprouting, and new plants will be in the boxes shortly. It would be best if children do not touch the plants nor play on the boxes while waiting for pick-up after school. Thanks, parents and children.

Communication Skills For Families

Responding to Your Child's Strong Emotions

Story Dogs