Dear Families and Friends

Next Friday,  we celebrate and recognise what it means to be Under 8!

The theme this year is “Connecting to Culture Through Play.”

This is an exciting theme, as it highlights and celebrates the ability of play to break down barriers and bring children together, as well as helping them to understand more about themselves and each other.

We take great pride in our links with the community and we are so fortunate to have many facets of our community involved in our Under 8’s celebration- our local kindies, our police and emergency services, the Scouts,  local high schools and many more help out on the day.

It takes a village working together to create curious, civic-minded, caring, engaged and successful learners for life. How lucky are we in Dayboro to be able to work together and wrap our support as a community around our learners.

Under 8’s Day this week will be celebrated at Dayboro State School on Friday May 24th. See details below. Parents and friends of our younger children in P-2 are invited to come along and celebrate with us! Many thanks to our hardworking P-2 team who have organised this event!

Pedagogy in Practice- how do our teachers use effective and age-appropriate pedagogies and strategies to move students forward in their learning.

Exciting pedagogies and strategies that help young children understand how stories work include- story maps, puppet shows, Inside/Outside Character descriptions, action walks, acting it out, Who am I?, character profiles, character sociograms, retelling rabbit. Our teachers include these age appropriate and engaging pedagogies every day in their teaching. In my regular visits to classes this term, I have been delighted to talk with students who have been working so hard on their next steps in English for Term 2. The students can clearly articulate what they need to work on to improve their writing. This term, P-2 classes have been looking at Narratives and in particular exploring, what makes stories interesting- characters, events, settings, plot etc.

Some responses have been:

Prep: Retelling and sharing a favourite story

PJ Aiden – I am learning to retell the Gingerbread and writing sentences that start with First and Then. Retelling Rabbit helps me remember the parts of the story.

PC Harrison- I’m learning about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I remember the things that happen in the story. I can use puppets to help me retell.

Year 1: Character Descriptions

1A Henry- We are learning how to use adjectives to describe the character in When Henry Caught Imaginitis. Henry is the main character. I need to write a sentence about his actions at the end of the story.

1D Lawson-I am writing about how the Blue Thingamajig looks. I can use the word Because in my sentence to describe how he changes at the end. I need to learn more action words to use.

Year 2: Comparing the same characters in different versions of a story and expressing a preference.

Max 2B- I’m learning about how to describe a characters’ thoughts, actions, qualities and feelings> I need to work on comparing two characters and what the sentences to do this will be like.

Molly 2D- I’m learning about comparing Stinky Jack and Jack form Jack and the Beanstalk. I can talk about their similarities and differences using adjectives and verbs but I need to write about which character I prefer and why.

I love to ask these 5 questions about their learning

*What are you learning?

*How are you going?

*How do you know?

*How can you improve?

*Where do you go for help?

These are also great questions for parents to ask their children about their learning and help prompt conversations about learning at school.

Building a national picture of child health- PREP students

From May 2024, our school, along with thousands of others across the country, will participate in the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC).

The AEDC is a teacher-completed census of our Prep students (similar to a questionnaire) which provides a comprehensive picture of how children have developed by the time they start their first year of full-time school.

The AEDC is an Australian Government Initiative and is completed nationally every three years.

Children don’t miss any class time while the AEDC is completed, and parents/carers don’t need to supply schools with any new information.

The data collected through the AEDC is used by schools, communities and governments to better understand children and families’ needs, and identify the services, resources and support they need.

AEDC data is reported at a school, community, state/territory and national level. AEDC results for individual children are not reported and the AEDC is not used as an individual diagnostic tool.

Some teachers have found that completing the AEDC made them more aware of the needs of individual children and their class, and that the data was useful for planning for transitions to Year 1 and developing programs.

Participation in the AEDC is voluntary, however the AEDC relies on all schools with children in their first year of full-time school participating in the collection. Parents/carers don’t need to take any action unless they choose not to include their children in the census.

To find out more about the AEDC and how it is being used to help children and families visit: www.aedc.gov.au.

Thank you to all the hard-working volunteers who organised, supervised, categorised, labelled, designed and sold the Mother’s Day gifts at the Mother’s Day stall. What an amazing effort and so wonderful to see the excited looks on all the children’s faces as they attended.

Thought for the week!

 

Thank you from Mrs Ryan

Our Vision: “To inspire students to reach their full potential in a safe, caring and educationally challenging environment.”