Cannon Hill State School – Love to Learn February 2019

Welcome to the first issue of our new school magazine! Here, we will provide you with in-depth information about our approach to teaching and learning, as well as stories about our school culture and community. If you’re after more basic information about upcoming events at school, check out our Weekly Bulletin, or our website. So, got yourself a nice cuppa? *waits patiently* Good, let’s dig in. Parent information sessions – take-home messages It was pleasing to see such great attendance at our parent information sessions in week 3. Many teachers have already shared the slides from their presentation via Konnective, but we’d like to repeat some of the key messages here for anyone who missed out. We’ll look at:

1. Composite classes. 2. School rules and behaviour management strategies

3. Our approach to teaching and learning (customised Reggio Emilia approach and targeted explicit teaching)

4. Philosophy 5. Homework 6. The new STEAM room 7. Getting involved

1. Composite classes This is the slide that was displayed at the information sessions:

This is a key area where families have been asking for clarification, so let’s take a closer look. Our overall enrolments are up from last year, hovering around 277 students. (This is getting close to our designated capacity of 285 students, so catchment management considerations will

guide future enrolments – but enrolled students and their younger siblings are assured a place). This year, we have 11 classes, and 7 of those (1/2C, 1/2M, 1/2R, 2/3C, 4/5AL, 5/6P, and 5/6S) are composite. Based on our enrolment profile and extensive analysis of the possible options, this is the arrangement that our leadership team considered best suited to creating a productive work environment for all our students. As you can see, the cohorts involved in these composite classes are from consecutive years. We have consciously avoided combining groups of students that are further apart in age than this, but note that within any given year, there can be significant differences in ages and experiences – differences which can make a significant difference to a young child’s stage of development. In a way, for a long time, we have been working as if every single class is composite.

Over recent years, Queensland educators have been shifting focus to a differentiated learning approach. Last year, the Gonski 2.0 report recommended a focus on differentiated learning, partly because of the excellent improvement in results this approach helped achieve in Queensland schools.

Our school has been at the vanguard of this endeavour from the beginning. Differentiated learning means that the “year” a child is in takes a back seat to what is right for them to focus on as their next individual learning goal. It means bespoke learning, tailored to fit the individual child’s learning journey. The Australian Curriculum still frames what the child is learning, but the steps to reach targets in understanding and achievement don’t have to be the same for each child. Everyone’s brain is different, everyone’s circumstances are different, and we get better results when we recognise that and run with it. Each child can learn at their own pace, and our teachers set learning goals customised for each individual student. This ensures the work each child is doing strikes a balance between confidence-building achievability, and challenges that require perseverance and effort. The goal is to make sure everyone makes progress (which can be tracked, through student portfolios). So, with this in mind, our leadership team looked long and hard at the learning needs of each student, and created composite classes with learning groups that they considered balanced and conducive to nurturing each student’s development. So please, rest assured: your child will not be disadvantaged if they are in a classroom with younger students. Even within year levels, the age differences can be marked. The composite classes are not stratified – there are no judgments about academic ability attached to class allocation. Rather, a mixed year level classroom provides older students with a chance to develop stronger social skills, particularly in the area of leadership, mentoring and role modelling, while pursuing their own differentiated academic learning goals. We find that the older students in a composite class tend to benefit both academically and personally from the opportunity to practice their leadership skills.

How will curriculum targets be managed within composite classes? There is more to the story, of course, and one thing that might take some effort to understand is how a teacher can teach the curriculum relevant to two different year levels, simultaneously. Plenty of parents have asked, so if you’re wondering, you’re not alone. The Australian Curriculum contains some really handy points of similarity between adjacent year levels, which our composite class teachers will be paying close attention to during their lesson planning. (Do have a dig around in that site if you’re interested in the finer details – it contains all the standards that we teach to. They also publish Parent Information Guides, which highlight what consecutive year levels have in common). These similarities in subject matter mean that teachers can use the same conversation about a subject, or the same learning provocation, to instigate discussion for two different levels at once. The outcomes students will be working towards in response to that stimulus will be different – for example, a year 1 student might need to demonstrate that they understand a concept to the year 1 standard, but year 2s in the same classroom will be striving to meet both that standard and the year 2 standard, which will contain some more advanced concepts. There will be

wriggle room based on learning differentiation, but that’s the gist of it. Our teachers are aiming to share fortnightly learning intentions with families, via the class Konnective feeds. A really great demonstration of how composite classes work in practice can be found in recent learning intentions from Aaron Cumberlidge’s class (2/3C). If we look at the “English – Writing” learning intentions for 2/3C, they are:

“Students have started work on describing familiar characters,

including a range of features (looks, personality, interests, etc) and actions (doing, feeling, saying, etc). They are working towards being able to write a description of an animal they

encounter on their first visit to Perrin Creek”.

What students are working towards out of that exercise is differentiated by year level:

“Year 2: I can identify nouns and adjectives. I can use noun groups to describe a character. Year 3: I can identify verbs and adverbs. I can use verb groups to describe a character”.

…and individual students will also have individually differentiated objectives to make progress in their writing. Other teachers might take a slightly different approach, but the principle is the same – start from a common point, then follow your own journey, focussed on what you need to achieve. As always, teacher and parent feedback (about what is working and what can be improved) has been extremely valuable, so keep it coming. The area that tends to baulk some parents about composite classes is the perception that bright students teamed with older students might pick up more of the older year’s learning – and that this opportunity might not be available to bright students sharing a classroom with a younger year. This is a reasonable concern, and we have strategies to ensure no student is disadvantaged by their learning environment. Differentiated learning, as explained above, is a big part of it.

We also have learning groups that can operate across classes, so students who are at a similar stage in the learning journey for a particular subject can work together. We have testing programs that help identify where students need learning support and where students need extending. We have specialist teachers, and teacher aides, to support this process. If a student needs to work with older students, on special projects, or to an older year level’s curriculum standard in order to be sufficiently challenged, this can be arranged as appropriate. We have capacity to extend children into high school curriculum areas if needed. We’ve introduced Academic Enrichment Plans this year, tailored to the individual needs of students who have been identified (by teachers and through specialist testing) as potentially benefiting from academic extension and increased challenges. We’ll continue to assess the effectiveness of these plans, so we can refine and develop our approach on an ongoing basis. We try to be very proactive in identifying each student’s strengths (as well as areas where they might need more support or practice), but please contact your class teacher if you have any immediate concerns, or would like to be more involved in designing or supporting your child’s learning strategies.

2. School rules and behaviour management strategies

This slide summarises our approach to behaviour management. We will explain some of the relevant strategies and programs in more detail in a future edition of this magazine – there is quite a lot to take in. To help students understand behavioural expectations, we find the simplest message is the most powerful: Ready, Respectful, Safe. Some parents report that using school terminology like this can also be useful in managing behaviour at home. Many have also found the TripleP – Positive Parenting Program helpful. If you have concerns about behaviour your child is exhibiting or experiencing, whether at home or in class, please talk to us about it. 3. Our approach to teaching and learning (customised Reggio Emilia approach and targeted explicit teaching) This is another area we’ll come back to in a future issue, as we have so much to say about Reggio, inquiry based learning, learning play,

and innovative teaching. The gist of what was communicated at the parent information sessions is here:

4. Philosophy We don’t have a religious instruction program at Cannon Hill State School. We teach children how to think, not what to think, building on foundations shared by humans of all cultures. We teach philosophy. This is how we do it:

…So prepare to be asked to state your reasons. Kids catch on fast – when “just because” won’t cut it any more, you can blame us.

A couple of years ago, at the request of new Prep families, we ran a Philosophy Group for parents who wanted to learn how to use the approach the kids were learning. If you’d be interested in this, let our Deputy Principal Joy Pohlner know.

5. Homework Our homework policy is simple: there is no evidence of any benefit for primary school aged students, so we don’t require it. We do however ask children to read (with their parents or carers) for at least 20 minutes a day. We can also design some home learning suggestions or more structured homework for parents who want it. You can request homework by downloading and completing our Home learning request form (PDF, 201KB), and passing that on to your child’s teacher. Hardcopy forms are also available from class teachers.

We want kids to love to learn, so are mindful of overscheduling them – everyone needs time to process their day, and defrag a bit.

6. The new STEAM Room If you’ve been reading our weekly bulletins, you’re probably across the news that we’ve moved our Atelier and Maker Space in together (into an upper school classroom, above the swimming pool change rooms). This new facility is called the STEAM Room, and it is already a hub of creativity and innovation. Students will be using this facility to support their classroom learning and project work. It will also be available for students in Year 1 to 6 on Tuesdays (for Art Club) and Fridays (for STEAM Club), as part of our first break activities program.

7. Getting involved We depend on feedback from our families to understand what the community needs, and how we can improve – so the most fundamental way to get involved is to try to keep up with what’s happening at school. We will do our best to get you all the information you need- please let us know if there is something you’d like to hear more about, or to understand better. If there’s something you’d like us to explain in a whole-school newsletter, email jbell489@eq.edu.au. If there is an issue better addressed privately, you can raise it with class teachers or the Principal, following the procedures explained in our Concern Management Policy. It’s really important that concerns are quickly brought to the attention of someone who can do something about it. We also rely on volunteers from our school community to support and enrich key learning activities for our students. There are plenty of ways to get involved if you’d like to pitch in. We regularly need volunteers for things like:

Swimming lessons – we need parent volunteers for each lesson. Class teachers are co-ordinating the rosters,

so please let them know if you can help. As a general rule, all classes will need at least one parent helper; younger classes will need two, with at least one parent able to be in the pool for the whole lesson.

Parent representatives – we find it really helps to have at least one parent representative for each class. These voluntary roles suit people who are good communicators, and who have some capacity to get to know the other families. Parent reps often collect contact details and act as a conduit, backing up our usual communication channels to check that all families receive important information, and to provide general feedback to teachers. We have recently formulated these Guidelines for Parent Representatives, to provide a little more structure to this role.

Classroom support – teachers may appreciate a hand with activities like changing readers, helping with sight words, reading practice and maths support – talk to your child’s teacher to see what their preferences are, if you would like to help. Similarly, from time to time classes will need parent support with supervising excursions and marshalling at sporting events.

Kitchen Garden – our Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program needs regular parent volunteers, to help with a range of activities – from planning to planting, to plant management, to cooking and meal presentation. If this is your skill set and you’ve got capacity to volunteer, let your class teacher know. Or if you are interested in helping with this program more generally, across other year levels, you could email Jayne Aguiar on jagui8@eq.edu.au.

Translation – we are a multicultural school. Many of our families are multilingual, and some are just starting to learn English. If you think you might be in a position to use your language skills to help ease the transition for any of our recent migrant families, please tell our office staff.

P&C Activities – our P&C is a vital support mechanism for our school - raising funds, carrying out volunteer work, building community and providing a think tank for school planning. P&C Volunteers make our Breakfast Club a reality, as well as organising key fundraising events (like school discos, trivia nights, stalls and fetes). Engaging with our P&C is a useful way to contribute to the school community, with plenty that can be done outside office hours.

If you have some capacity to contribute time towards any of these endeavours, or special skills that might be applied to expand our resources in other ways, we’d love to hear from you. Volunteers don’t just enhance the resources available to our students – they provide our children with a role model of what it means to be a member of a community, and we are grateful to every single one of our volunteers. Volunteers will need to sign in via the office, like other site visitors. Volunteers also need to complete a volunteer induction once each calendar year. This just means that there is a booklet that we need you to read. It takes about 10 minutes, and there are copies at the sign-in desk in the office. Sorry about that inconvenience, but when you see the content we’re sure you’ll understand its importance in protecting our students’ safety. If you already have your volunteer induction certificate, you can sign in via the classroom or poolside sign-in sheets.

Are we done yet? Yes. Yes we are. That was epic, congratulations if you made it this far. Thank you for taking such an interest in your child’s school. We’ll bring you another long read in March. The plan is to share information about how we do things early in the year, then move to sharing emerging stories and photo essays as the year progresses. If there’s something in particular you would like us to cover, let us know. Don’t forget, you can consult the calendar on our school website for the full list of our upcoming events as they are confirmed. You can also access back-issues of school bulletins and magazines via the school website.

Cannon Hill State School 845 Wynnum Road Cannon Hill 4170

Phone: 3902 3333 Fax: 3902 3300

Email: admin@cannonhillss.eq.edu.au Web: www.cannonhillss.eq.edu.au

P&C: pandc@cannonhillss.eq.edu.au

Text Student Absences to: 0429 776 430 and include

- child’s name - class - date of absence - your relationship to child - reason for absence (no images/emojis please)

Next P&C Meeting (and AGM):

Monday 25 March 2019 6pm in the Library

All welcome

Our Bell Song: ‘Star of the County Dawn’ by the Baileys

from Putumayo Celtic Cafe

Keep in Touch via

Lifeline Bins Items Outside of Bins: Call, Alan Wadsworth Phone: 0408 773 581

Book Pick Up from your home: www.uccommunity.org.au

/donatefurniture

We rely on the funds raised from our Lifeline Bins to support our Stephanie Alexander Kitchen