A new chapter is beginning at Holy Family and I am excited to guide this with the support of our school community. Recently, one of our parents described our school as 'evolving' and I believe this captures exactly where we are at.
After two years of interrupted learning due to 'lockdowns' our teachers, parents and students can now embark on working together to strengthen learning partnerships.
Over the last few weeks our Year 6 School Captains and Vice Captains have guided our school tours with prospective families. It has been a privilege to witness and listen to the way these young adults present themselves and speak about our school. They speak with knowledge, pride and excitement.
Our student leaders are able to articulate the learning process at Holy Family. They explain that for the subjects of English, Maths, Religious Education and Inquiry pre testing occurs to ensure that each students is starting their learning journey from where s/he is at. Goals are set for each student based on pre test data and activities are planned to extend individual student learning. At the completion of the learning sequence each student participates in a post test to see how much s/he has grown in subject knowledge and skills.
To intensively support some of our students our school has introduced the Tier 2 Reading Intervention program of MultiLit (Years 1-6). Students engaging in this program meet with a teacher 3 times a week to focus on decoding words. Meetings are held with parents prior to the students beginning the program and when the students are coming off the program. This discussion is focussed on growth achieved by students.
Our data also highlighted our need to extend our teacher education in the area of Mathematics. Fortunately we applied for the partnership program being offered and were successful. Our school now has 'experts' from the Eastern Region Mathematics Department to support our staff in the areas of Mathematics planning, teaching and assessing.
Finally, our school has introduced two subjects this year -
- STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) for Years Prep to 6 this year. Each class is engaged in lessons each week with a dedicated Learning Technologies/Mathematics teacher.
- Performing Arts (Music, Dance, Drama) each week for Years Prep to 6. Our new teacher also has her own Dance School which means our students have access to costumes and dance expertise.
It truly is an exciting time to be part of our Holy Family School community!