Boneo Buzz: 11th September

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I want to thank our talented Year 6 students for their efforts on Monday to deliver exciting learning for their peers. Once again, our students continue to shine and we should never underestimate what our young people are able to achieve!

It is now clear that all Victorian schools will continue to provide remote and flexible learning for the remainder of Term 3 and for the first week of Term 4.

The Victorian Government has outlined the staged return to on-site schooling in Victoria in Term 4, as part of its gradual easing of coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions.

Please find a link to the Victorian Roadmap for reopening: Victoria Roadmap for Re-opening

We are currently planning for the students’ return, including many discussions around how our structures can support the health, safety and social/emotional wellbeing of our children in Term 4.

I know for students, parents and teachers our Student Led Conferences were a huge success. I trust that this experience reinforced how our teachers are able to monitor and assess the students’ learning online.

Our teachers are experts at working out ‘where each child is at’ in their learning, through applying various assessment protocols. Some of these are more formal and you will recognise them as assessments or more formal tasks, like:

Fountas & Pinnell benchmarking of individual students to ascertain reading growth
Mathletics and Reading Eggs tasks
Essential Assessment for pre and post testing
Use of rubrics for self, teacher and peer assessment
Testing of high frequency/spelling words

Many of the strategies and techniques used by teachers are formative in nature and are actually the key factor to moving the learning forward. For example, the use of questioning techniques to encourage deeper thinking and responses:

Can you elaborate on that?
Can you tell me more?
Can you give me an example?
Why might the character feel that way?
What evidence helps you to make that statement?

Our inclusion of more 1:1 check-ins and/or discussions where necessary has also had a huge impact on learning.

It is heartening to know that for the most part, even during this disruptive time, our students have continued to learn and grow. We want you to know that we are working to ensure that this next period of onsite learning will be as purposeful as possible so that children get back to learning and collaborating successfully with their peers. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need our support over the coming weeks.