- Year 2 Inside Story
- Library Bags
- Caboolture District Gala Day Sports
- Cross Country Carnival
Issue 2 - 1 March 2022
Issue 2 – 1 March 2022
In this issue
From the Principal
Better Together – the heart of community These past weeks have been challenging for so many people in so many ways. We have faced the continued pandemic and school delays, the Queensland floods and have observed the beginning of an international conflict. Throughout each hardship, I am always in awe of the way our global and local communities come together to support each other. You see it in the faces of neighbours helping neighbours clean out their flood devastated homes. You see it in the humanitarian workers providing relief to refugees displaced by war and famine, and we have seen it in the faces and footage of our frontline workers throughout the pandemic. People helping people. Communities drawn together through compassion, empathy and service. As we continue to see some of the events unfold, and our children witness such loss and heartache, let us direct them to look for the HELPERS. Those people who seek to serve others. If you look closely enough, in every situation, you will find the HELPERS everywhere. They are the rays of sunshine through the rain. They are the hope in the turmoil. I ask that you continue to pray for our world, our community, and this week, above all else, the HELPERS. With the P&F AGM now only a week away (Tuesday 15 March at 3:15pm), nomination forms for the P&F Executive roles are now available either in hard copy or via email request from the front office. Please remember that the person you wish to nominate for a specific role must also endorse the nomination, by signing the nomination form. If you would like to know more about the P&F Group, please pick up a P&F Group information brochure from the school office. Thank you for your consideration in this process.
Library
Teaching organizational skills to children when they are young helps to develop their executive functioning skills. To promote these skills, and protect library books, the Library is encouraging students to get organised and bring their library bags by hosting a library popcorn party to the winning classes. So don’t be sad! Bring your library bag!
Sports
Caboolture District Gala Day Sports are set to go ahead on Friday 18th March 2022. We will field teams in Netball (girls), Soccer (boys) and Rugby League (boys). The venues scheduled are:
- Apex Park - Netball
- Moreton Bay Fields - Soccer
- Petersen Rd Complex - Rugby League
Prep Inside Story
In Prep we are learning to use oral language skills to communicate our needs, interact with others, share ideas/knowledge, respond to stories and practice sounds in Read, Write Inc. We have been focusing on one picture book each week. We talk about characters, rhyming words and general vocabulary. Last week our book was “The Wonky Donkey” by Craig Smith. This book is full of lots of discussion points and quite entertaining- we recommend it, if you haven’t heard it before! In one of our activities, we divided into small groups and selected a small object to place somewhere on a big donkey. We needed to tell our group, in a sentence, what our object was and where we placed it on the donkey. We have recorded our ideas and are making a class book so we can read them over and over again.
From The Head Of Teaching & Learning
Number Talks At St Paul's we are committed to delivering quality learning for our students where every student can achieve success. When most of us were growing up it was essential to know times tables and number facts off by heart. We played class games where the fastest at these facts consistently won the honour of class champion. The latest research around this practice has found that relying on route memory and rewarding only the fastest in Maths is damaging and reinforces the idea that some people are 'good' at Maths and others are not. Students need to build the confidence to 'play' with numbers. They need to develop the ability to use a range of strategies to solve problems (both simple and complex problems) and it is important for them to develop the confidence to apply their number sense in a range of situations to become competent Mathematicians. Jo Boaler, a Stanford University professor who is a world-leading expert in Mathematics Education stays that, "Number sense, critically important to students’ mathematical development, is inhibited by over-emphasis on the memorization of math facts in classrooms and homes. The more we emphasize memorization to students the less willing they become to think about numbers and their relations and to use and develop number sense." (Boaler, 2009). So what is the solution? At St Paul's we have been having lots of fun with implementing Number Talks across the school. Teachers have been taking turns in our staff meetings to lead their peers and students have been engaging in these 5-10 minute talks in their class at regular intervals throughout their week. We have started to build the confidence and growth mindset of our students using dot talks to form our Number Talks and the class Number Talks will grow in complexity as the year goes on. If you would like to learn more about what a dot talk looks like in practice, please visit this link: https://youcubed2stg.wpengine.com/resources/jo-teaching-visual-dot-card-number-talk/ So what is the solution? At St Paul's we have been having lots of fun with implementing Number Talks across the school. Teachers have been taking turns in our staff meetings to lead their peers and students have been engaging in these 5-10 minute talks in their class at regular intervals throughout their week. We have started to build the confidence and growth mindset of our students using dot talks to form our Number Talks and the class Number Talks will grow in complexity as the year goes on. If you would like to learn more about what a dot talk looks like in practice, please visit this link: https://youcubed2stg.wpengine.com/resources/jo-teaching-visual-dot-card-number-talk/ Read Write Inc Last week we began our Read Write Inc journey officially with our students. We have been planning for the start of this program since last year and have been practising our Read Write Inc routines as staff since January. It is so exciting to see this program come to life for our Prep, Year 1, Year 2 and half of our Year 3 students! If you would like to learn more about the program please see the two videos below for more information (please note these links expire on the 9th March):
- Understanding Phonics https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/bTMYuP8P/vUtZ5sBe