Learning Conversations

One of the highlights of my job is hearing conversations about learning; whether these conversations are between boys or teachers. This, after all, is what schools should be about…learning! I am pleased to say that this is a constant at Lindfield. As I walk around the classrooms boys and teachers are talking about learning. As I walk in into the staffroom and meetings teachers are talking about learning.

The highlight of last week was hearing the spelling conversations that have been taking place in each of the classrooms and at our planning meetings. Our revised spelling program involves the boys making connection between phonemes and graphemes, and completing spelling words with related word banks. Already we have started seeing some positive learning taking place.

To support parents in making sense of this new approach and knowing how to support the boys we have decided that our planned Parent Information Sessions on Wednesday 27 February (at 8:30am and 6:30pm) will change to focus on Spelling. If you would like further explanation or to learn how you can support your son with his learning I encourage you to attend. We will reschedule the previously planned session on PYP and Mathematics in Term 2.

Even better than conversations about learning taking place at school are learning conversations that continue at home. At the beginning of the year I mentioned the idea of Action; boys taking their learning further outside of the classroom. It has been great to begin receiving emails from parents about these types of situations. We are thrilled to be able to celebrate this with our boys and to highlight it on our Action Wall. Please don’t hesitate to send examples of Action to your son’s class teacher whether it is big or small.

PYP Exhibition

One component of the Primary Years Programme that we have eagerly been waiting to introduce is the PYP Exhibition. The Exhibition is the culminating event of the PYP and allows students in the final year of the programme to collaboratively design and conduct a unit of inquiry about a real life issue. This process allows students to highlight and celebrate their learning (what they have learnt and how they have learnt over their time in Primary School) with the school community. We have begun the initial planning behind the scenes and will shortly introduce the Exhibition to the Year 6 boys. Stay tuned for further information in coming weeks.

Pastoral Positives – Detective DoRight

As we continue to promote positive pastoral care and social skills we are launching a new initiative this week to help our boys to focus on all of the positives that are occurring in our school.

Beginning this week at Assemblies we will be having a regular visit from Detective DoRight, our resident super sleuth. Each week Detective DoRight will be interviewing one of the boys who has been caught doing the right thing! Our boys are fantastic and do so many things right.  We want to celebrate this and use these segments to encourage all of our boys to keep following our Essential Agreement on a regular basis.

Kindergarten Enrolments 2014

We are in the process of finalising our enrolments for Kindergarten 2014.  If you know anyone who might be interested in enrolling their son for Kindergarten 2014, please encourage them to call the School Office on
9416 4280.