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Dear Parents and Carers
It was lovely to see so many parents attending last week’s Parent Teacher meetings. I was reminded how long we have lived in COVID restrictions when a Year One parent remarked that this was her first opportunity to walk through the school since her child was enrolled. We even managed to give parents a real life opportunity to experience a fire drill on Tuesday night!
I am hopeful that the extended meetings provided you with an opportunity to receive a clear summary of your child’s progress. Our staff felt this was particularly important given the decision made by Catholic Education to reformat the Reports to include grades, but not comments. Reports were forwarded home with your child/ren yesterday afternoon. Please contact the school if you have not received the Report.
Confirmation
Congratulations to those children in Year Six who received the Sacrament of Confirmation on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. This was the end point in a preparation period which included school and homework and a retreat last Friday.
Confirmation is an important milestone in the faith journey of these young people. Thank you to everyone who has assisted these children in particular their teachers, Mr Payne and Mr Hornby and our Religious Education Coordinator, Mrs Thomas.
Pupil Free Day
A reminder that Monday, July 12 has been designated by the Catholic Education Office as a Pupil Free Day. Once again our staff will be undertaking professional learning on the new Catalyst program which is being undertaken by all Catholic schools in our Archdiocese. This is the final Pupil Free day for this year.
Finally I hope you have an opportunity to spend some time with your family during the next two weeks. Keep safe and keep warm!
May God bless you and your families
Graham Pollard
Principal
Numeracy in Action at St Matthew’s
This week we have included photos of children at St Matthew’s engaging in the “Grapple” phase of our Numeracy Framework. During the Grapple phase, students are presented with rich, real world maths problems that engage them on multiple levels.
These Inquiry based problems are designed to move students from “not knowing” to “knowing”. During this phase, students are encouraged to construct their own meaning from challenging mathematical tasks. Teachers walk around the room and explicitly guide, teach and empower students one on one and in small groups. This is designed to help students more through the “uncomfortableness” of grappling with maths investigations.
Students collaborate with one another to formulate ideas, make hypotheses, reason, strategise and share.
Below, 2B students are “grappling” with division. They are demonstrating their understanding of mathematical equation with visual reasoning. The students were asked to solve the division number sentences by using their whiteboards and beans. They counted out the number of beans and divided them amongst the groups. Great job 2B!
Finally, we have Mrs Thomas’ students engaging in an investigation about data. The children were given a box of smarties and asked how they would display and interpret the data. What a huge achievement for Year 1s!
Rachel Powell
Curriculum Coordinator
Happy birthday wishes to Harmony D, Hannah P, Maya M, Ava L, Ruby G, Alastair M, Brooklin A, Ivy C, Ewan M, Molly W, Lucas M, Sienna G, Yasmin F, and Philippa H who recently celebrated birthdays.
