Dear Parents and Families,

Welcome to 2025!  It has been wonderful to see all our beautiful students and families begin the year in such a positive manner.  As always there is plenty happening behind the scenes to ensure we continue to strive for excellence in all aspects at St. Joseph’s Kingswood.

Whole Staff Professional Development – Bill Hansberry, Behaviour 101

Our first day back together as a staff was spent building classroom routines and expectations that are consistent across the school.   Bill Hansberry, an experienced classroom management expert, reminded us of the importance of ensuring consistency with routines and expectations.  Routines ensure our students have certainty about what is expected in the classroom by providing stability, predictability and structure.  Well established routines help our students to reduce cognitive load so that they are able to focus more clearly on their learning, rather than what behaviour is expected by each teacher.  As a result, you may see us explicitly teaching and modelling behaviours of routines in classrooms, the yard, assembly or church.  This will help to free up student’s working memory and will eventually become automatic so we don’t have to think about these things and can focus on our learning.  It also reinforces the high expectations we have of all our children and the belief that every single child can be successful given the right time, resources and support. 

Education Support Staff Professional Training – Laser Tier 2 Intervention

Last Thursday all our wonderful Educational Support Staff, Jodie and I undertook Tier 2 training for Laser Playberry.  Many of you would have heard me refer to the response to intervention model and our aim is for the majority of students to achieve mastery within the class setting (Tier One).  However, we know that some of our students require further revision and therefore access additional (Tier 2 small group) support. Students needing even more support may access Tier 3, Playberry (1:1) support.  As we use Laser for our Tier One phonics instruction it makes sense to use this for Tier 2 as well.  This will allow for a smoother transition back to Tier One once they are ready as it follows a similar structure. This will replace MacqLit for 2-6s in 2025, while Year 1s will continue to access MiniLit if required.  This will be a trial period, and we will continue to track students’ progress and report to parents as per previous interventions.  If your child is identified as requiring any of the above intervention, further information will be sent home shortly.

A link to parent information in regards to the pedagogy and structure of Laser Literacy can be found here: Laser T1-2 Parent Information

Inclusive Education:

This term I will provide opportunities to meet with any families who would like to review or discuss their child’s personalised learning plan which will roll over from last year.  It is important to continually review these and ensure that any adjustments in place are beneficial to our students to ensure the best possible learning outcomes.  I have sent messages via Seesaw to families who this applies to.  If you have not received a message and would like to meet, please let me know and I am more than happy to accommodate.

Gifted Education:

This year we are excited to work alongside Kirsten Maycock (CESA Gifted Education Consultant) to create a response to intervention model for students who require extension. Kirsten has already run a staff meeting this year around how to identify students who may be gifted or highly able.  In addition to this, she has assisted myself and Kate Mueller in the organisation of a calendar of events which allow students the opportunity to engage in a wide variety of extension opportunities.  The first of 2025 is The Oliphant Science Awards which is an annual competition for South Australian school students that aims to support, encourage and celebrate science education within South Australian schools.  The competition is open to students in Reception through to year 12 and includes a range of categories to suit a wide variety of abilities and interests. The Oliphant Science Awards provide students with an opportunity to expand their scientific literacy, by showing interest and understanding in the world around them and engaging in discussions about science.

Particular classes may choose to be involved in this; however, you are welcome to take the opportunity to extend your child at home as anyone can register. The following link provides information for students who may wish to enter: Oliphant Science Awards Student Information. 

As well as a link to further parent information:  Oliphant Science Awards Parent Information 

If you require any further support, please feel free to contact me and we can navigate through this together. We look forward to continuing our work in this space – stay tuned!

Leaving with a Literacy Tip…

As part of our phonics program and to ensure the best possible outcomes for our students we are committed to ensuring consistency with the pronunciation of sounds. As you know, it is very important that we pronounce the phonemes purely (without "schwas", more to come on this) so that students can identify each individual sound.  This assists with both the decoding and encoding of words. Below is a clip of Bill Hansberry (co-author of Laser Literacy) pronouncing all the Phase 1 phonemes in a Reading Card Drill.  I will continue to send the sounds from each phase in the coming weeks to allow you to best support your child at home.

Bill Hansberry - Pronunciation of Pure Sounds Phase 1

I look forward to another successful year ahead and am extremely lucky to be working alongside you to support your child in all aspects of schooling. My door is always open for any further discussions.

Until next time…

Vanessa Saccardo