Classroom

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FOR SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

Dear Parents / Guardians,

Parents / Guardians play an important role in ensuring school excursions, camps and other activities such as swimming are successful. Children enjoy having their parents involved and allow the event to be successful.

Parents / Guardians who help in the classroom, on camps, excursions, and in other school programs, are required to provide the school with a current Working with Children Card or have completed a Working with Children Card form available at the office.

When deciding on parents / guardians attending the activity, the team of staff involved will take into account -

• any valuable skills the volunteers have to offer. For example first aid.
• the need to include both male and female adults.
• the needs of students in the group.

Depending on the nature of the activity the teacher in charge will communicate the expectations of your role for the duration.

If you are interesting in participating in school activities, please download the form by clicking here and return the completed form to the classroom teacher.

ALTONA PRIMARY SCHOOL

NATIONAL LITERACY AND NUMERACY WEEK

Monday 31^st August - Sunday 6^th September, 2009

HOW CAN WE SUPPORT EVERY CHILD TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL LITERACY LEARNERS?

By promoting a powerful literacy environment at school and home.

National Literacy and Numeracy Week celebrates literacy and numeracy as part of everyday life and recognises the role of parents in supporting their children's learning.

Literacy and numeracy learning begins at home. Daily activities, such as shopping and cooking, provide opportunities to spark children's interest in and skills with numbers. Reading to and with children, and listening to them read, are essential for developing early literacy and numeracy skills.

Research shows that children who read regularly at school and at home are more successful literacy learners. The greater the volume of reading done by students, the higher their reading proficiency and the more inclined they will be to read throughout their lives.

At Altona Primary School we engage every student in focussed daily literacy learning. To support our commitment to achieving this we have:

• Involved all staff in extensive ongoing Professional Development in Literacy with particular focus this year on independent reading and classroom libraries.
• Established Classroom Libraries in every classroom to support independent reading
• Resourced the classroom libraries with over $13,000 worth of fiction and non -fiction books
• Drawn on the support of our Parent's Club for significant financial support of our classroom libraries.
• Drawn on the support of our Parent's Club and wider school community with our book donation and dedication campaign.

Throughout this year within the Western Metropolitan Region a large focus of teacher professional learning has been on Independent Reading and Classroom Libraries.

What is Independent Reading?

Independent Reading involves students developing the associated skills and strategies to become proficient readers. Independent Reading is a critical factor in students becoming good readers. They need time each day, and a range of texts at an easy level from which to choose, so that they can practice reading independently until they become good readers. Independent Reading enables students to clock up mileage as readers, expand their reading powers, and fulfill the essential goal of daily reading.

Research shows that opportunities for sustained independent reading need to occur every day. It is during independent reading that "children learn to be readers."

Parents have a crucial role to play in this process by supporting their children. This may include listening to your child read daily and reading to your child daily.

Classroom Libraries

• One of the main purposes of a classroom library is to support Independent Reading. This is achieved through providing students with a wide range of genres, texts at varying levels of difficulty and teaching students how to choose ‘Just Right Books'.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our extremely supportive and hard working Parent's Club and the wider school community for their financial contribution to our classroom libraries. The book dedication campaign has been very successful with the children being extremely excited and keen to read the new books. They have also enjoyed sharing who some of these books have been dedicated to.

The financial support we have received in addition to the schools financial contribution has enabled us to establish classroom library tubs of books for every classroom in the school. These books cater for every student across the school enabling them to read a variety of high interest and quality fiction and non fiction books. These books are one component of a successful classroom library and will allow children to choose appropriate book for independent reading.

Top tips to involve your children in literacy activities at home:

• Read to your child! Enjoy the experience, making it a fun activity. Reading books to children enables them to hear and enjoy books they would be unable to read alone.
• Read with your child! Share a book, supporting the reader, taking turns to turn the page and joining in with the reading.
• Have your children write the weekly shopping list for the family.
• Write a letter together to a friend or relative.
• Share the newspaper with your child. Point out interesting items and different parts of the newspaper e.g. comic section, sport, weather and stock exchange lists.
• Encourage your child to read timetables: television, tram, train and buses.
• Play oral language games like I Spy, memory and Spotto.

If you would like more tips or information on how you can assist your child at home with literacy and numeracy visit the Victorian Government Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Parent Update and/or please contact:

Nicole Fridey P-6 Literacy Coordinator or Debbie Galvin P-2 Literacy Coach

Have fun and enjoy Literacy and Numeracy Week 2009 at APS!

Altona Primary School Student Dress Code.

Click on the image to view the code.