Prep Term Two Curriculum News 2023

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

General:
Hello Families. Welcome back to Term 2!
Students should be proud of the way they have conducted themselves during the return to school period. The teachers are so pleased to see how many routines have been remembered from Term 1, and the way all students continue to meet our school-wide high expectations.

This term we will continue to focus on helping your child build their independence and self-management skills. We encourage you to support your child in this area by giving them the opportunity to complete tasks independently, such as walking to and entering their classroom by themselves in the morning, carrying their own school bag and belongings, tying their shoelaces if wearing lace-up shoes, and taking on/off their jumper.

We look forward to sharing another exciting term of learning with your child, as well as continuing to work in partnership with you to support your child’s growth and development during their Prep year.

KEY DATES:
Wednesday 24^th May – CURRICULUM DAY (pupil free – no students at school)
Monday 29^th May – Wednesday 7^th June – School Nurse Visits
Monday 12^th June – King’s Birthday Public Holiday (pupil free – no students at school)
Thursday 15^th June – Bravehearts Incursion (consent and payment required - more information coming shortly)
Friday 23^rd June – LAST DAY of SCHOOL before holidays. Early finish time TBC

Morning Arrival and Communication:
With the start of the new term, we would like to reiterate some important points around morning arrivals and communication with teachers.

Learning time begins promptly at 9am. Students who arrive after this time can miss a significant part of their Literacy Block, where key skills and understandings are taught. The late arrival of students inhibits the beginning of a productive morning at school for the entire class. If teachers are put in a position to take the time to repeat instructions to students that have arrived late, the children that have arrived at school on time, lose valuable lesson time. Please help us to keep the lessons on track by ensuring your child is not late to school.

If students arrive at school after 9:00am they must go via the office to be signed in. Students can then independently walk to their classroom and enter it quickly and quietly, so they can begin learning as soon as possible. Parents/carers should not interrupt a grade during learning time for any reason.

Before school is a busy time for teachers as meetings, preparation, student supervision and yard duty can all occur. As such, it is not always an appropriate time to speak with your child’s teacher. We encourage and welcome you to email your child’s teacher with any questions you have or information you need to share. If required, an in-person time can be arranged to discuss matters further. Teachers will respond to parent emails either by reply email or phone call. If the matter is urgent or time sensitive, please contact the school office, who can pass along relevant information to your child/their teacher.

Your child’s learning is our priority. Ensuring all students are at school by 9:00am ready to start the day will support a positive transition to school each day and maximise learning time.

Literacy:
The Prep team has begun Term 2 with an exciting new phonological awareness program named ‘Heggerty’. This fun and fast-paced daily practise encourages students to hear, repeat and generate words that rhyme; isolate the initial and final sound in a spoken word; blend 2-3 syllables in a spoken word; segment a spoken word into syllables; and manipulate words by adding, deleting and substituting a syllable to make a new word.

Students continue to learn additional sounds and spellings during our Sounds Write sessions. The daily lessons require Prep students to segment and blend words and provide opportunities for students to share their learning with the class up the front on the large whiteboard. They will continue to apply this code knowledge when attempting to read decodable texts and write simple texts using known spellings.

This term, teachers will be reading a range of fiction and non-fiction texts to the class. The students will be exploring the purpose of the texts read, for example, ‘to give information’ or ‘to tell a story’, as well as the features, such as, titles, blurbs and contents pages. The teachers will ask questions and encourage discussions that promote the comprehension of the texts read.

During Writing sessions, Prep students will build a strong understanding of sentence structure, including the components of a sentence, writing on lines, spaces between words, and the use of capital letters and full stops. They will complete given sentences, by using known code when writing and will innovate texts by generating their own ideas. During daily handwriting practice, students will focus on writing on the lines, adopting correct posture and pencil grip, learning to produce simple handwriting movements, and following clear demonstrations of how to construct each letter.

Numeracy:
In Term 2, students will continue to build on and consolidate their number knowledge to 12. They will engage in a range of hands-on and open-ended activities to ensure they are developing confidence when using these numbers. Students will explore different ways to make these numbers using a range of different materials, continue to develop their counting fluency from 0 to 12 from any starting point, and identify the number one more or one less than given number.

Students will explore ‘number bonds’, by learning all the different ways a single number can be created: for example, knowing that 5 is made of 4 and 1; 2 and 3, 2 and 2 and 1, etc. This will support students when they begin learning how to complete simple addition problems later in the term, by adding two small groups together to make a whole collection.

In the area of Measurement and Geometry, students will explore the length of different objects and will compare objects to determine which is longer or shorter.

Inquiry:
Our Term 2 Inquiry focus is ‘Healthy Bodies’, where students will focus on the different ways they can stay healthy and safe and look after their bodies. We will explore ways we can be healthy through the food we eat, the amount of sleep we get, by practising good personal hygiene, and exercising regularly. We will then move into exploring how we can stay safe in our environment, by looking at ways we can be safe when outside, near water, on the roads and online. To support our learning in this area, students will engage in an incursion from Bravehearts. Consent and payment are required for students to attend this incursion. More information about the Bravehearts incursion will be available over the coming weeks.

In addition to this, we will continue to focus on Play Is The Way and the ‘Respectful Relationships’ social and emotional curriculum, by engaging in weekly lessons around different Life Raft topics, learning to make strong choices and build resilience through different games and activities, and use our Play Is The Way language in everyday conversations.

During Play Is The Way, students will focus on making ‘Strong Choices’ so they can ‘Be Their Own Boss’. They will also practise ‘Being Brave’ when trying new or challenging things, by always making sure they ‘Pursue Their Personal Best’.

During Respectful Relationships, students will explore the topic of ‘Positive Coping’, where they learn how to identify and manage different emotions.

Reminders:
Home Reading: Students bring home a decodable book each Monday and this needs to be returned each Friday. Students also bring home a weekly ‘sounds review’ sheet in their display book. These resources can be used each night to support your child in developing their reading skills.

Canteen and Food Sharing: We encourage Prep students to only bring a GOLD COIN to spend at the canteen for over-the-counter sales. Students are NOT permitted to buy food for other students, have other students purchase food for them, or share food of any kind.

Label Clothes and Belongings: Please ensure ALL items (jumpers, hats, lunch containers, water bottles, etc) are clearly labelled with your child’s name and grade. If these items are misplaced, they are easier to return if they are named. Any unnamed items will be taken to lost property.

Classroom Donations: We would appreciate any donations of tissues, hand sanitiser, and paper towel.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.