Information Night Speeches

Student Wellbeing in the Junior Grades

We learn in social situations and under the umbrella of our school and community values; ‘Love of learning’, ‘Sense of Community’ and ‘Respect’ we aim to provide a consistent approach throughout the school in ensuring that all students feel safe and valued at school and have optimum conditions to learn.

We believe in creating positive partnerships and strong relationships with our student and parent community. We endeavour to work within the guidelines of our ‘Protocols’ which include active listening to others which is based on mutual respect, being aware of the safety and wellbeing of others, taking collective responsibility for our neighbourhood and school environment and helping each other to learn in the best way we can.

These agreed ‘Protocols’ are displayed in each neighbourhood and referred to in joint discussions and provide us with guidelines for maintaining a happy and caring environment.]

The ‘Student Wellbeing’ team at PHPS comprises of representatives from throughout the school who meet regularly to continue to develop a whole school approach to ensure that our student body have a positive experience at school. We believe student voice is critical and that each student has the right to be heard and valued. We are guided by the work of Ramon Lewis from Latrobe University and work with him to assist us in our goals. We are involved in continued Professional Development with him and the belief that restorative and positive practices in student management are reflective of our community beliefs.

There are clear guidelines in dealing with playground issues and these are monitored regularly to ensure that matters are dealt with effectively. We have a team of ‘Peer Mediators’ who have been trained to assist in minor incidences between students in the playground. This connects to our belief that the teacher is not the only person at the front in dealing with conflicts and that empowering the students to be part of the process of caring and helping others to be responsible for the wellbeing of the group is crucial in a social setting.

We have embedded this learning in an initial Inquiry throughout the school in creating a climate where we function happily and with respect as a community and understand our rights and responsibilities. We are committed to treasuring all of our students as individuals and as part of a community and helping them to become confident and joyful learners who have so much to offer in their journey in their early years.

Kevin Siemonek ( Prep-2 Student Wellbeing Team

Student Pathways and Transition

Welcome to all families to our information session with a special warm welcome to our new families to Princes Hill Primary School. May the years ahead be happy and successful for us all as a community of learners.

The Transition of children across the school in all neighbourhoods has been very smooth. The new Preps and their families have settled well into school life. New children have joined our community across the whole school. All the children have successfully commenced to work in their new neighbourhoods with new teams of teachers.

Across the school from Prep to year 6 we work in a consistent manner. As the children progress through school, they don’t need to spend time adjusting to differences in learning environments, language or approaches. For the children this means a seamless transition and consistent approaches to teaching and learning.

Children operate beyond friendship groups working in many different groups for learning.

These varied learning opportunities include, learning agreements, negotiated inquiries, workshops and target teaching at the point of need for each child. We aim to differentiate the curriculum for each child. Working with a team of teachers allows for many discussions about each child in different learning situations. Each child’s ongoing progress in all learning areas is tracked against the Victorian Essential Learning Standards and documented as part of inquiries.

We welcome parent participation in learning and in all areas of school life.

Family involvement plays a key role in helping students succeed in school and in building positive relationships for all in the school community. Collaborations also provide students valuable opportunities to work with parents as experts as part of learning experiences.

We are committed to building strong partnerships among home, school, and community and to partner with families and the community to support student learning in all areas of the curriculum in a variety of ways.

At Princes Hill Primary School we encourage regular and open communication between teachers, children and parents regarding learning, sharing of information, requests, questions, clarification or any other matter which would assist children’s learning and wellbeing.
Communication also facilitates reporting to parents on their child's learning using varied channels of communication. Getting parents involved in personal learning, helps to build strong relationships. Regular meaningful dialogue about learning and making learning visible is valued across the school.
We ask that you regularly follow the neighbourhood blogs for information about learning and associated events. Each child’s Ultranet space will also feature selected pieces of work. We strongly encourage Mathletics, the use of Readers and Writers Notebooks to reflect on books read and inspirations for writing. Please share your child’s portfolio with them.
We look forward to a successful year ahead and are excited about the learning which will occur.

Mathematics in the Junior School 

Tonight I will be talking to you about the numeracy program and what it looks like within the Learning Neighbourhoods at PHPS

As a staff, we are committed to providing a curriculum and environment that challenges students to inquire into the world around them. Many opportunities for mathematical enquiry, growth, conceptual and skill based experiences are embedded within the inquiry. These give the students an authentic context in which to engage mathematically with the world in order to describe relationships, solve problems appropriately and creatively and to learn to effectively use the language of number, space, measurement, chance and data.

At PHPS we have a current whole school focus on the concepts of number. The reason for such an emphasis on these concepts of number is that it lays a solid foundation on which other mathematical concepts can be built up on. Number concepts such as place value and counting are continuously required when working with space, measurement, chance and data and therefore the importance of a deep understanding of number is imperative.   

For this reason, as you may have already notice throughout the neighbourhood timetables, there are a number of specific workshops that operate independently from the inquiry units. These targeted and sequenced number based workshops are designed to teach children at the point of need from drawing on the data collected through assessment and tracking.

The learning agreement sessions enable the students to further explore the skills and knowledge that have been explicitly taught through workshops. As well as completing learning activities that are linked with the workshop focus; the Learning Agreement time enables a teacher to offer additional assistance, student teacher conferences and small group targeted teaching.   
As the inquiries develop and evolve within the neighbourhoods, so to do the possibilities to integrate other mathematical concepts that link back to the inquiry. For example in the Year 2 Neighbourhood, through inquiry based learning, we are looking at how children experience, perceive and relate to time. This then allows us to explicitly teach concepts such as the measurement of time, looking at fractions in relation to half past and quarter past, collecting data and representing results through graphs.   

As a Victorian Public school we are accountable to teach in alignment with the Victorian Essential Learning Standards and assess against the VELS curriculum. The Northern Metropolitan Region monitors our process and progress to ensure that the curriculum expectations are being reached.   

We strongly recommend the use of Mathletics as a way to consolidate concepts that being explored within the neighbourhood as it is an engaging educational tool and helps to connect a home-school learning relationship.

Maths is all around us, all day every day, so enjoy identifying and sharing these experiences with your children.

Thank you

Ethan and Prep to 2 team.