Dear Parents & Guardians,

This past fortnight  I taught all Kindergarten classes and all Year 6 classes.  With Kinder, I taught them some tongue twister rhymes with some movement activities associated with them.  Whilst they all thought that they were just dancing and singing and having some fun, the real learning was actually working together, learning from each other and reminding the teachers about how important sensory experiences are for children, especially in the infants' grades.  I’m sure many of the children went home and informed their parents that Mr Reardon really needs to improve his dancing efforts, however, it was wonderful to teach Kindergarten and as I walked away from each class, it was so evident that their classroom and teacher together are in fact their happy space at school.  Might I say, there are times that I base my big decisions in life on how much fun something will be, maybe not always wise, lucky I have Mrs Debrincat and Mrs Brunetta to keep in check my enthusiasm.  That’s why I love Kindergarten, because most of the children have the same behaviours, come to think of it, maybe I just never grew up!  I’ll have to ask Mrs Reardon that question?

Last week I commenced an antibullying program with all three Year 6 classes.  We started with a quick quiz to understand the content that they already know.  You would be amazed to know, the majority of the students were not fully across this challenging social behaviour that I’m sure all will experience in some form as they grow into adults.  I will continue to teach them about how to respond to bullying, even when you are scared and overwhelmed by what is happening to you.  There will be lots of videos to show how the bullying cycle operates as well as role plays to practice how to deal with the situations when they arise.

It was obvious from my lessons last week that I need to work with the students in Year 6 to tease out what bullying is and is not.  Many seemed to be confused with the notion that teasing, rejection, random acts of violence or physicality and conflict constitute bullying.  I will need to spend time with them explaining that whilst children often tease or fight, this bickering should not be confused with bullying.  Bullying is a lack of power as one person is powerless to stop the teasing or physical abuse.  Bullying is the selective, repetitive oppression of one person by another person or group.

The other thing I was reminded about during my lessons last week is that if you think your child is being bullied then handle it with care as children often don’t want to admit that they are on the receiving end of bullying.  Some kids keep it close to them so, as a parent, it helps to be on the lookout for warning signs such as: items being stolen, changing how they go to school and the withdrawal from usual activities.

My lessons with Year 6 last week motivated me to include some strategies you might want to consider if you think your child may be bullied:

1.Listen to their story - Children who are bullied need someone to believe their story.  Use common sense to differentiate between bullying and more random antisocial acts.  Kids can be nasty to each other, yet this doesn’t constitute bullying.

2.Deal with their feelings - A child who is bullied probably feels scared, angry and sad.  The degree of emotional intensity is an indicator of the amount of bullying.  Recognise and validate their emotions.  Give them an opportunity to talk about how they think and feel.

3.Get the facts - Get a clear picture of  what happens, including who is involved, the frequency and what happened prior.  Get them to be as specific as possible.  An accurate picture will support you in determining your next course of action.

3.Give them coping skills - With a clear picture you can start giving your child some help about how he or she may deal with the bullying including using avoidance strategies, being more assertive and changing poor body language.  This will all be covered with the Year 6 students during my lessons.

4.Get the school involved - Bullying is best handled when both parents and teachers are involved.  Approach the school through the appropriate channels.  Go onto the school website and read the school antibullying policy as it will outline the guidelines that need to be followed.

5.Help build your child’s support network - Kids need a group of friends to support them when they experience bullying so look for practical ways to broaden friendship groups.

6.Build their self confidence - Provide your child with regular encouragement.  Let them know through your words and how you relate to them that they will get through this.

Finally, whilst it may not be helpful at the time, it is worth remembering that children who experience some form of bullying often come out stronger and more resourceful because they have experienced difficulties and they know they can overcome them.

I leave you with your own thoughts about the above to consider.

Go Gently,

Michael Reardon
Principal

Congratulations to the following students who have recently received a Principal's Award.

Layla McCarthy, Savannah Cahill, Jack Rossetto, Sofia Cocco, Alana Galluzzo, Tabitha Danjoux, Ashley Sammut, Logan Nightscales, Isla Attard, Lourdes Fuentes, Nishan Singh, Jennifer Waltisbuhl, Nicholas Brajuha, Isabella Carr, Emma Tidy, Roan Hughes

I am often asked how reading is taught in infants at St Paul’s. Research has shown that explicit, systematic teaching of phonics is a more effective way of teaching reading than Whole Language. Whole-language is based on the belief  that reading is a natural process whereby, if students are exposed to good literature and develop a love of reading, they will learn to read. This belief has been disproven by reading research and by the number of students across our country who are not strong readers, both of which tell us that exposure and the desire to read is not enough. Reading researchers estimate that just 5% of students learn to read relatively effortlessly. I always like to use this analogy. You don’t learn to play the guitar by listening to guitar music. You need many explicit lessons on how to play combined with a lot of practise in order for you to eventually play beautiful music. Reading is no different.

The systematic teaching phonics is only one of the small areas of teaching and learning that occurs during the English block, it is not the entire English block.  Phonics is taught daily for 30 minutes at the beginning of the English block in Kindergarten to Year 3. It is taught systematically incorporating a multi sensory approach whereby the students will engage in learning using whiteboards, hoops, word cards, body actions, songs and peer interactions to support phonics learning. This 30 minute session then leads into the remainder of the English block where students engage in shared reading, comprehension, guided group work, handwriting and writing teaching and learning opportunities, all aligned to the English curriculum.

Sheereen Brunetta
Assistant Principal

A Parents’ Guide to Phonics

A guide to how phonics will help your child to read and spell. 

What is synthetic phonics?

There are 6 components in reading:

- Oral Language

- Phonemic Awareness

- Phonics

- Fluency

- Vocabulary

- Comprehension

Phonics is a means to an end. Research and evidence based systematic, high quality phonics teaching is essential, but more is needed to achieve the goal of reading such as fluency, vocabulary, phonological awareness, oral language and finally comprehension.The synthetic part refers to synthesizing or blending sounds to make a word.

Phonics is the method of teaching children how spoken words are composed of sounds, called phonemes and how the letters in words, called graphemes correspond to those phonemes.

One of the processes of reading involves decoding or ‘breaking’ the word into separate phonemes, so that meaning can be gained. English is essentially a code that can be encoded (written) and decoded (read).

Children are taught that we can make a word from the sounds and then break it apart again when we want to spell it.

Spelling and reading are taught together but children may be better at reading before spelling or vice versa.

Written English is recognised as being a complex language. We have 26 letters but approximately 44 phonemes (sounds) in the spoken language

Letters and Sounds Synthetics Phonics program

‘Letters and Sounds’ is a research and evidence based synthetic phonics teaching program produced by the UK and used in many schools worldwide. It employs an explicit, systematic and cumulative approach to teaching phonics. 

There are six phases in which the children are introduced to all 44 phonemes and corresponding graphemes, starting with the most familiar grapheme for each phoneme first. E.G. s,a,t,p,I,n

Synthetic phonics starts with ‘phonemic awareness’, which is hearing the different sounds in a word and the matching of these phonemes to single letters (graphemes). At the same time it shows how these phonemes (sounds) can be ‘blended’ to produce words and the words can be ‘segmented’ to write.

Children will learn simple letter to sound correspondence. This is when a phoneme is represented by a single grapheme as in the word c / a / t. When that is mastered, children will progress to learning that sometimes one phoneme is represented by two letters in a grapheme, as in the word ch / o / p; where ch / is only one phoneme (sound).

Then after that, children will progress and learn that sometimes a single phoneme can be represented many different ways. Like the sound / ay / in play. Children will eventually learn that this phoneme can be written;

/ ay / as in play

/ a-e / as in spade

/ ea / as in break

/ ey / as in hey

/ eigh / as in eight

/ ei / as in vein

Finally children will learn that sometimes a single (or more) letter may represent more than one phoneme; for example, the ‘o’ in / most / and the ‘o’ in / hot / or the ‘ow’ in / wow/ and the ‘ow’ in / tow /.    

There are a huge number of letter combinations (graphemes) needed to make these 44 phonemes.

What happens in K - 3 at St Paul’s?

Not all children progress at the same rate, some children may need to revisit some aspects, therefore each lesson is taught using the process of: 

Social Awareness - Being aware and respectful of the feelings and perspectives of others. 

Being Socially Aware is being aware of how your actions affect other people… understanding why people are feeling like this? It is a higher order yet a fundamental skill.

At St Paul’s we are teaching the children about social awareness by taking into consideration how our thoughts, words and actions affect other people.

We want our children to be aware of other people’s personal space.

Packing a Waste Free Lunch

We all share the responsibility of caring for our world, for the benefit of future generations. Small actions can lead to big change. What small changes have you made in your home to help with the global issue of landfill? Packing a waste free lunch for your child is one way that you can make a difference. 

It has been estimated that on average a school-age child using a disposable lunch generates three pieces of litter per day, which equates to 30kg of waste per year. This works out to be 15 tonnes of waste produced by a school of 500 students each year from lunch boxes alone! St Paul’s has a current enrolment of 616 students. 

Waste free lunches involves packing items that can be composted or recycled. That means trying to eliminate pre-packaged lunch items, or the use of foil, cling wrap and ziplock bags. This can seem like an impossible task at first. A way to begin, is to replace just one item within your child’s lunch box with a waste free alternative. Begin to collect a selection of containers by purchasing reusable containers/pouches when they are on special at the grocery store. Ensure that all containers and lids are labelled so they don’t get lost at school. 

Benefits of litter-free school lunches include:

• Students eating healthier lunches, as they are being provided with less pre-packaged snack foods and more fresh food in appropriate amounts
• Cheaper lunches, as food items bought in bulk are less expensive than pre-packaged products
• Providing children with a practical example of how a simple behaviour change can easily address a widespread environmental issue
• A cleaner school (research has shown that less litter is dropped in areas free of litter compared to areas where litter is more noticeable)
• Less waste being produced and sent to landfill

For Parish news and information, or to book Mass during COVID-19 please visit the Parish website.

https://www.stpaulscamden.org.au/

Girls Navy Winter Pants

After discussions at last weeks P&F meeting, it was agreed that girls wearing the navy school pants must wear navy socks with them.

 September P&F Meeting

The next P&F Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, 2 September 2020 at 7pm. More details in regards to the running of the meeting and registration to follow closer to the date.