Dear Nativity Community,

The beginning of the school year seems so long ago, our students and staff settled in quickly. Classes enjoyed the first week of Wellbeing and getting to know you activities. During the first week, classes established agreements and responsibilities as well as catching up with friends. It certainly was a buzz of excitement in the classes.

Future Focused Leaning
Staff began the year with a full day of professional development on Future Focused Learning led by Lee Crocket. Lee is an educational author, speaker, inspirational thinker who is behind some of the most exciting educational transformations worldwide. He is working with us as and mentoring us as we continue to develop student agency in our school.

Impact on teacher practice
This is an exciting time for us as we introduce and facilitate learning pathways and student agency by unpacking the Achievement Standards of the Australian Curriculum to create Learning intentions with students and build success criteria for their learning tasks, encouraging problem solving and critical thinking skills.

Impact on student Learning
Agency motivates students to learn and empowers learners to take ownership of learning and provided meaningful contributions to their learning environment (OECD, 2019). Through this learning opportunity students will have increased confidence, higher engagement and ownership in their learning.

Class Programs
Class teachers have communicated Learning Overviews and shared learning at the recent Parent Information meetings. We encourage you to check Seesaw for more information about learning. This year teachers are planning using version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum. If you would like further information about version 9, please use the following link:
Parent information | The Australian Curriculum

Personalised Plans for Learning (PPL’s)

At Nativity we support all students to achieve their best, at times we know that some students require a slightly different approach to support them to be successful and thriving learners. To support this, teachers prepare Personalised Plans for Learning (PPL’s) which they work with families to establish what learning and adjustments need to be made for a student to be successful. Should your child need a personalised plan, class teachers will organise a meeting to discuss your child’s goals and have these collaborative documents signed in the coming weeks. If you have any questions about your child and their learning, please speak with your class teacher or myself.

Initial Lit

We continue to use Initial lit in our Early Years classes and our new ESO’s have undertaken training to implement these programs as well. At Nativity, we provide the following Multi lit intervention groups: SAGE Initial lit, Initial lit and Macq Lit to students who require literacy intervention. Class teachers will carry out assessments to see If your child would benefit from this intervention parents will be notified by class teachers.

Bond Blocks

Our Reception – Year 4 classes are using Bond Blocks to support students to develop fast number recall. Students engage in 4 x 10-minute sessions per week to work on number skills. After completing number assessments, students needing extra support will be able to participate in small group intervention, again families will be notified.

NAPLAN

This year students in year 3 and 5 will undertake the annual NAPLAN assessment in March. NAPLAN includes four different tests including writing, reading, conventions of grammar, and numeracy. The official testing window beginning on March 13th. Detailed information was emailed to Year 3 and % families earlier this week.

Kitchen Garden

This year we have launched into the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen program which is an inspiring and fun program that changes children’s relationship with food. The program aims to educate children and young people about fresh, seasonal, delicious food so they form positive food habits for life.

• As part of the program, the children participate in the following:
• Planting and growing fruit, herbs and vegetables in our veggie gardens
• Picking and preparing produce when it’s ready
• Have fun in the kitchen cooking delicious healthy meals
• Enjoy and share prepared meals with classmates

Benefits of the program:

• Develops positive food habits that last a lifetime
• Learn about seasons and how to care for gardens, food hygiene and sustainability
• Practical skills from recycling, composting, cooking
• Life skills such cooperating, sharing, teamwork, critical thinking and leadership
• Engage and connect with their peers, teachers and school community.

We are excited to have our Kitchen Garden up and running, classes have been planting and caring for the garden beds.  We are looking forward to watching our crops grow.

A new year brings about many new possibilities and I hope that 2024 is a wonderful year for everyone in the Nativity Community.

A thought for the year ahead…

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney

Kind regards

Melinda James