Thornleigh West Public School

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Thornleigh West Public School
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Getting to know us

• Agenda
• Welcome
• Shared book
• Parents are the first teachers
• My vision What is your?
• Best Start

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Starting School can be an anxious time for
parents too

• Parenting is one of the most challenging jobs
• This is a role to be proud of and is certainly
  valued by your childs first school teacher

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• Children develop much of their capacity for
  learning in the first 3 years of life, when their
  brains grow to 90 of its eventual adult weight.
  
• You are your childs first teacher!

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What have you taught your child?

• To.
• walk
• talk
• dress themselves
• feed themselves
• go to the toilet
• count to ten
• turn the page of a book
• say the alphabet
• play games
• have good manners

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You have taught your child so much

• To readthey can all recognise signs and symbols
  such as McDonalds and road signs
• To counta child always knows when their brother
  or sister gets more of something than they do
• Colours and countingplease pass me 2 red pegs
  to hang your t shirt on the clothes line
• Routines and reactionsthe phone ringsyour child
  knows to answer it
• To share
• To socialise and interact with others
• Can you think of more?

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Is your child ready to Start School?
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Skills that will help your child transition to
school smoothly

• Encourage your child to attempt these thingsbut
  dont worry if they cant do them all
• Teachers are experts at teaching your child to
  write, read and count (and much more) and it will
  make learning these things so much easier if your
  children have developed social and self help
  skills such as

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Social and Self Help Skills

• Uses the toilet independently
• Can say own name
• Adapts to unfamiliar settings and new experiences
• Can finish a task and tidies up afterwards
• Plays cooperatively with other children shares
  and takes turns
• Can sit and listen to a story for at least 10
  minutes
• Can share an adults attention with several other
  children
• Participates in imaginative play
• Recognises own possessions and packs them away eg
  lunchbox, clothes
• Can put on and take off jumpers, shoes, socks
  independently
• Can tie shoe laces

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What can you do to help prepare your child for
school?

• You have done so much already, but here are a few
  more ideas.
• Allow opportunities to socialise with other
  children
• Encourage independence
• Be positive about school and learning
• Visit the school with your child
• Talk to your child about school
• Read to your child in your home language and in
  English
• Share many different experiences
• Provide a variety of play materials
• Encourage your childs curiosity by asking
  questions and by encouraging questions
• Start a daily routine. Encourage your child to
  help lay out clothes and make lunch.

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So, your child is starting school

• You have taught them so much already
• You have enrolled them at school
• You are attending the transition program
• You have talked a lot about school
• You may have bought their school uniform
• You may have bought a school bag and lunch box
• You have worked hard and done a great job

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A new journey begins!

• When your child starts school, it is not a time
  to step back and be less involved in your childs
  learning. It is, in fact quite the opposite, a
  time to be involved, supporting, helping and
  learning together

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The research tells us

• The most accurate predictor of a students
  achievement in school is not income or social
  status, but the extent to which the students
  family is able to create a home environment which
  encourages learning, communicate high yet
  reasonable expectations for their childrens
  achievement and future careers and become
  involved in their childrens education at school
  and in the community.
• Anne Henderson and Nancy Berla (1995)

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How to be a partner in learning

• Take an interest in school events by reading
  newsletters and attending functions
• Get to know your childs teacher. Join in with
  classroom activities if possible or offer to help
  at home
• Volunteer to help in anyway you feel comfortable
• Take part in any opportunities offered to help
  increase your own skills or understanding of how
  schools work and why
• Join a parent organisation such as the PC,
  School Council or Parent Group
• Attend Parent Teacher Interviews
• Use all communication options to ensure you know
  what is going on at school, and the school knows
  what is going on at home

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Working together.

• Parents are childrens first teachers.
• Children learn a lot from their parents.
• Parents never stop being teachers for their
  children.
• Teachers and parents can work together to make
  school an exciting place to be and to help
  children achieve their best at school.
• Enjoy your adventureand remember, we never stop
  learning

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Why Vision ?

• A vision is a picture of the future you seek to
  create described in the present tense, as if it
  were happening now. Vision statements show where
  we want to go and what we will be when we get
  there. Vision gives shape and direction to the
  schools future. It helps people set goals to
  take the school closer to its desired future.

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It builds trust, collaboration, interdependence,
motivation, and mutual responsibility for
success. Vision helps people make smart choices,
because their decisions are made with the end
result in mind. Vision allows us to act from a
proactive stance. Moving forward what we
wantVision empowers and excites us to reach for
what we truly desire.
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My vision

• 21st century skills are paramount
• Collaboration discuss and issue, solve a problem
  and create a product
• Knowledge construction, interpret, analyse,
  synthesise and evaluate
• Self regulation learning task is long term
  students are in task
• Real world problem solving and innovation
  investigate, generate and design
• The use of ICT for learning use directly to
  finish a task
• Communication extended communication linked to
  connected ideas, not just a single thought.

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Australian Curriculum

• Goal 1 Australian schooling promotes equity and
  excellence
• Goal 2 All young Australians become
• Successful learners
• Confident and creative individuals
• Active and informed citizens

www.mceecdya.edu.au/mceecdya/melbourne_declaration
,25979.html (accessed 16/10/2010)
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MINDMAPWhat skills, attitudes, understandings
and knowledge would you hope these students have
acquired when they graduate from your school?
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Best Start
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Best Start assists children to move from informal
to formal learning

• Parents and prior to school service
  providers lay the foundation for learning that
  school education will build upon in a more formal
  setting.

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What is Best Start?

• Best Start is one component of a NSW Government
  initiative to increase literacy and numeracy
  learning support in the early years.

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Who is involved?

• All Kindergarten children in public schools
  participate.

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Best Start

• Identifies childrens literacy and numeracy
  skills and understandings at school entry.

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Best Start

• provides important information that supports
  teachers in meeting childrens individual
  learning needs
• provides parents and caregivers with feedback on
  what their child can do and how they can best
  support their childs learning
• assists teachers to monitor childrens learning

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Best Start in action

• Best Start begins with the teacher interviewing
  each child.
• At TWPS, each family attends an individual
  appointment in the first three days of school.

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What are children asked to do?

• Teachers ask a series of questions to gather
  information about childrens early literacy and
  numeracy knowledge.

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What information do parents receive?

• Feedback to parents is provided as close as
  possible to the completion of the interview.
• Parents and carers receive clear,
• accessible feedback on
• their childs learning at school entry
• the next steps in the learning process
• how to support their childs learning

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Feedback on your childs progress
In Numeracy your child Ideas to
use at home
Pattern and the repeated unit Uses groups of objects to create simple patterns. Ask your child to make a pattern where each part consists of two or more objects. Ask your child to describe the pattern to you.
Counting Sequence Play board games where your child has to read numbers up to 100.
Numerical identification Ask your child to read the numbers on road signs.
Recognises the numerals from
1 to 20.
Counting Sequence Read and talk about stories and rhymes that use numbers.
Forward number word Ask your child to tell you the number after a number in the range of
sequences 1 to 10.
Correctly counts from 1 to 10.
Is learning to say the number
after a given number from 1 to
10.
Early arithmetical strategies Count objects into a bucket with your child, saying each number as
Is learning to correctly count you put the object into the bucket.
the number of objects in a Play dominoes with your child and count the number of dots.
group.
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Feedback on your childs progress
In Literacy your child Ideas to use at
home
Phonics Make lists of interesting words with your child, e.g. a list of jungle
Names most letters in words. animals. See how many letters your child can point to and name in
Says some of the sounds for each word.
letters in a word. Use old magazines or advertising brochures. Ask your child to cut out letters for the sounds they know. Help him/her to learn three new sounds and their letters.
Phonemic awareness Read books to your child that have rhyming words in them.
Can sometimes identify Encourage your child to join in reading the words that rhyme.
rhyming words. Play I Spy with your child. That is, say, I spy with my little eye
Can sometimes identify words something that starts with /p/. Can you guess what it is? Your child
that start with the same initial sound tries to guess the thing that begins with the sound.
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Counting Sequence-Forward Number Word Sequence
Count with your child
Read and talk about rhymes with numbers, for
example, Alice the camel, 5 little ducks,
1,2,3,4,5
Ask your child to tell you the number after a
particular number
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Counting Sequence- Numeral Identification
Play card games where your child has to say the
number on the card or find pairs of numbers.
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Counting Sequence- Numeral Identification
Ask your child to point to numbers in story books
and tell them the name of the number.
Read the numbers on a clock face
Ask your child to read the numbers on road signs.
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Early Arithmetic Strategies
Count the number of eggs in a carton and again
after some have been removed.
Play dominoes with your child and count the
number of dots.
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Early Arithmetic Strategies
Use empty plastic bottles and a ball to make a
game of skittles. Let your child arrange the
bottles and encourage your child to tell you how
many bottles were knocked down and how many are
still standing after each bowl.
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Patterns and number structure
Ask your child to create other patterns using
everyday objects such as beads, stones, or pegs
and describe the pattern.
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Reading Text
Share books with your child. Encourage him/her to
join in as you read.
At the supermarket or on outings talk about words
- their look, sound and meaning. Point to and
read labels on packets/products.
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Phonics
Use magazines or junk mail from your letterbox.
Ask your child to find letters that they can
name. Help your child to name three new letters.
Use a set of alphabet cards to play games such as
Memory and Snap where the aim is to have your
child match letter cards that are the same.
Use an alphabet chart or an alphabet book to talk
about the shapes and names of letters. Teach your
child to name the letters in his/her name.
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Phonemic Awareness
Sing and recite rhymes and jingles with your
child. Help him/her identify the words that rhyme.
Encourage your child to use a describing word
with the same initial letter of a friend or
family member, e.g. smart Sally, kind Kale.
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Concepts about Print
Before reading a book to your child, ask him/her
to show you where to start reading.
Ask your child to follow with their finger as you
read
Ask your child to point to a letter, and to point
to a word
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Comprehension
Look through a book with your child before
reading and talk about the main events and
characters.
As you read the story to your child, pause at key
events and ask him/her what might happen next.
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Aspects of Speaking
After reading a story, encourage your child to
discuss the events, characters.
Encourage your child to talk to a variety of
people while with you when you are out shopping.
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Aspects of Writing
Write a word then ask your child to trace over
the word.
Encourage name writing as a fun activity, e.g.
finger painting on butcher's paper, writing in
dirt, painting with a wet paintbrush, etc.
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Planning 2015 - 2017

• Management plan
• Strategic
• Annual School Report

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Focus Areas 2015

• Literacy and Numeracy
• 21st century learning and teaching
• Leadership capacity building
• Curriculum and Assessment
• Student Engagement

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What should you bring on Day 1?