FROM THE PRINCIPAL
Dear Parents and Carers,
200 Years of Catholic Education
This week the Archdiocese celebrated the bicentenary of Catholic Education with a Mass at the Cathedral. Mrs Grant was our St Patrick’s representative at Mass, see her message and photos.
St Patrick’s at 152 years is among the earliest Catholic schools in Australia.
Did you know?
Over 200 years, Catholic schools have grown to become the largest provider of schooling in Australia (outside government) with one in five school age students attending a Catholic school.
This represents some 768,000 students in 1,751 schools across the country and employing 98,000 teachers and staff.
Nearly 40 per cent of Catholic schools are located outside of metropolitan cities in regional, rural and remote communities.
Student Learning
I had a visit this week from some of our Kinder Mathematicians sharing their learning. As part of our ‘make, say, write, do’ approach to Mathematics having an opportunity to talk and share learning is very important.
When your children are counting for you ask them,
‘Is there another way to count those?’
“Is there a faster way?’
Students are already exploring counting groups by ones or twos or other groupings. They are also demonstrating their ability to subitise – look at a collection and know the number eg looking at this
Student Inquiry
This week Ella from Kinder walked a little with me on the playground and asked, ‘Mrs Scott-Pegum what did you look like when you were little?’ I said I would bring a photo to show her. It had been a while since I looked at the album, I’m going to look a little further with the family on the weekend!
This is me as a child.
When was the last time you took a look at the family photos with your children? Find some time to share the photos and stories!
BehaveAbility
Ian Luscombe’s visit has continued to help the staff at St Patrick’s to hone their skills in our approach to student positive behaviour and engagement.
Ian’s presentation to parents yesterday was very well received. Thank you to those who could come. We have booked Ian for Term 2 visit dates and this parent information session will be repeated on Wednesday 5th May from 5-6pm. PUT THE DATE IN YOUR DIARY!
Catalyst: High Impact Teaching Practice
Principle 4. Provide models and worked examples.
Delivering new information to students by linking it to something or some process they are familiar with allows students to gain an understanding quicker, it also gives them deeper retention. This is especially true of more conceptual ideas.
In Science, we may explain the flow of electrons in a circuit by using the model of the water in a “lazy river”. The water being the flow of electrons, the pumps providing the voltage (power) and the people in the water providing resistance.
Blessings for your weekend of walking down memory lane with your family.
Jo