ARDTORNISH NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Term 2 - Week 7 2025
Picture

Ardtornish Newsletter

Term 3 Week 3 - 6th August 2021
Picture
No 13


 ​ In this Issue
  • From the Principal – Reading Mentors
  • Excursion/Incursion Update
  • RAN Training Update for Volunteers
  • Childhood Anxiety Study
  • Expression of interest for Enrolment
  • Canteen Roster
  • Kiss & Drop
  • Year 7 to High School Update
  • School Banking
  • Masks are required
  • Modbury Cricket Club
  • Ardtornish Children’s Centre Update
  • Father’s Day Stall
  • Developing Students’ Report Writing Skills
 ______________________________                           
Diary Dates
August
10th – Dance til you drop
13th – Dance til you drop
17th – Dance til you drop
18th – Bigger, Better, Brighter
           Play F-4, sports meeting
19th – Grounds Meeting 3.15pm
20th – Dance til you drop,
           National dance finals
23rd – PUPIL FREE DAY
______________________________
 
Road Crossing
Monitors

 
Wed 18th Aug – Tue 24th Aug
Gemma R, Avara E, Lara B
 
Wed 25th Aug – Tue 31st Aug
Cody S,  Dantae C, Sam K
 
Wed 1st Sep – Tue 7th Sep
Jade O, Kaylee R, Tilly-Rose P
 
Please arrive by 8.25am
 


​Reading Mentors: providing very helpful, cross age learning support

Picture

Pictured here is Lacey working with Avara and Nikalas working with Elijah

Learning to read is a complex task and being a member of a community where everyone values reading positively enhances student’s reading development.
At Ardtornish we foster a community that values members encouraging and supporting each other, the Reading mentor program is a perfect example of how older students contribute to building across year level relationships in a manner that helps younger students develop confidence and learning skills.
Pictured here, enjoying a story together, are students from Rooms 1B, 8, 9 &10 who regularly listen to year F-2 students read. Each week, up to 18 students at a time run sessions after lunch for about 30 minutes.
Before taking on the role of a reading mentor the year seven students were taught how to support and encourage beginning readers to be successful by:
  • talking about the book before they start to read
  • encouraging them to sound out any unknown words they may encounter
  • asking them questions to clarify their comprehension, when the story is completed.
The Reading Mentors use their Chromebooks to record the feedback they give to the students along with the title and genre of the books they read. These notes are completed in a Google Forms document and are immediately available to the student’s classroom teacher.
Through this process, younger students build both their confidence as ‘readers’ and also their level of comfort in respect to mixing with older students who they view as supportive and friendly.
Picture
​On this day all teaching staff will be meeting with other teachers from across the ‘Modbury Partnership’ of schools. This partnership includes Modbury Primary School, Modbury West, Modbury South, Dernancourt and Highbury. In cross school teams we will be moderating student maths achievement. This process is designed to increase the consistency of teacher judgment and foster the sharing of professional expertise in relation to teaching and assessing mathematics in our schools.


Picture

Canteen Roster

Tuesday 10th                Michele S
Wednesday 11th           Mary-Anne R
Thursday 12th               Ling C, Chris G
Friday 13th                    Jenni F, Natasha H, Sonoko F, Wei-Wei R
                                                                                              
Tuesday 17th                Michele S
Wednesday 18th           Mary-Anne R
Thursday 19th               Tui M, Deneice P
Friday 20th                    Rhonda P, Stacey C, Emma J
Picture
​Year 7 Transition to High School 
Feeling comfortable in high school.
Starting at a new school is a big step for any student. Many of our current year 6 and 7s will be starting high school in a new school next year, with new adjustments like moving between classrooms for some subjects. We know from our pilot program that our year 7 students are well and truly ready for high school.
The pilot has involved three public high schools that started welcoming year 7s in 2019, providing early insights on the move for the rest of the state. Many of the families we spoke to at the start of the pilot initially wondered how their children would find their way around high school. They also wanted to know how their children would fit in with older teenagers and what the workload expectations would be. By the end of Term 1, 90% of parents said their child’s year 7 experience met or exceeded their expectations overall and these factors were no longer concerns.
 
Navigating high school settings.
High school campuses are generally larger than primary schools, with higher volumes of students. An initial concern for many students in our pilot program was that they might get lost in high school, but in reality, they quickly found their way around. Your child’s wellbeing is just as important in high school as it is in primary school. Our high schools help all new students to adjust to routines, find their classrooms, get organised and read timetables.
For more information on this article please refer to Skoolbag or click on the link below
https://www.education.sa.gov.au/year-7-to-high-school
​

RAN Training Update for all Volunteers
 
As of the 1st of July 2021 all volunteers will need to update their
RAN Training, which is now called Responding to Risks of Harm, Abuse and Neglect – Education and Care. It is called RRHAN-EC for short.
Click this link Plink account for volunteers - RRHAN-EC training
to do the online training update.Once completed please email a copy of certificate to [email protected]
​

​Improving the safe use of the Kiss & Drop & Crossing
The present safety and effectiveness of the Kiss and Drop Area could be greatly improved if parents ensured:
  • Students exited from the car onto the footpath not the road.
  • They only waited in the area for the 2 minute time limit
  • Students exited or entered cars promptly rather than chatting with friends / parents
  • They pulled up behind the last parked car, rather than parking further away and creating a space in front of them that others then attempt to squeeze into
  • They did not sit in their car, after dropping their child off, texting or talking on the phone
Were more vigilant about obeying the student held signs as recently some cars have driven through the crossing when the signs were up.
Picture
When phoning or messaging your child’s absence please remember to add the child’s room number / teacher’s name.
​

Expression of Interest for Enrolment 2022
 If there are any siblings due to start school next year, please come into the office and fill in an expression of interest form as soon as possible. We are currently in the process of finalising our numbers.
​
​Improving the safe use of the Kiss & Drop & Crossing
The present safety and effectiveness of the Kiss and Drop Area could be greatly improved if parents ensured:
  • Students exited from the car onto the footpath not the road.
  • They only waited in the area for the 2 minute time limit
  • Students exited or entered cars promptly rather than chatting with friends / parents
  • They pulled up behind the last parked car, rather than parking further away and creating a space in front of them that others then attempt to squeeze into
  • They did not sit in their car, after dropping their child off, texting or talking on the phone
Were more vigilant about obeying the student held signs as recently some cars have driven through the crossing when the signs were up.
Picture
Picture
The Ardtornish Children Centre core Family and Community programs are continuing as conditions allow with reduced numbers and strict Covid precautions. Updates are available on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ArdtornishCC/ with additional material of interest to local families with young children.
 
If your family requires any additional assistance, call and we will do what we can to find the services for you. The ASK website https://adultssupportingkids.com.au/ is a useful starting point.
 
We appreciate your understanding and patience. All the best to our friends, families and communities.
Regards
John Buckell
Community Development Coordinator
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

Developing students’ Information Report Writing Skills

One of our school’s improvement goals is to develop all students’ writing skills. To do this we explicitly teach them to write in a range of genres. Last term classes across the school, focussed on teaching students’ to write information reports. Students were shown how to take notes about a topic of their choice in readiness to write a report.
In Room 5B many children did a report on an animal. They read reference material about their animal and made notes that were then used to construct information reports about them.
These texts consisted of an introductory paragraph, that generally described the creature, followed by a series of paragraphs that gave further information about its particular features e.g. its diet, habitat, behaviour, appearance etc. Diagrams could also be produced and labelled.
When a student produced their first draft of a text they then compared it to graded samples on the class “Bump it Up Wall” and self-assessed how well their text met the requirements on an information report. Students were then challenged to ‘Bump’ their work to the next level by taking their draft work and adding additional elements to it from the higher level they aspired to reach. For example, they might add subheadings or insert clear paragraph breaks to improve their first draft.
​
After learning a great deal about how to write information reports all students produced a text in a test situation as a part of our Brightpath Assessment Procedures. These texts were written using notes the students had already produced and the final written work was scanned, assessed and stored for future reference.
 
Brightpath software allows us to compare a child’s writing results against a range of samples from other children to determine the skills they presently possess and what their next learning challenges should be.
The software supports teachers to make assessment judgements, track student growth over time and compare performances across year levels.
Reports produced by the software also provides students with positive feedback about what they already can do well and what improvement goals they could work towards.
Pictured here are some students, from Room 5B, undertaking their writing, checking their texts against the class “Bump It Up Wall” and proudly showing their finished Brightpath Information Report Assessments.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.