Dear Families,

It’s hard to believe we are already into Week 3. Students are well and truly into learning and teachers are continuing to hone their teaching craft.

In 2021, St Thomas Aquinas began our journey in implementing a school wide approach called High Impact Teaching Practice (HITP) from the Catalyst project created by Catholic Education, Canberra & Goulburn. HITP is focused on applying researched practices on how the human brain learns. A major component of this approach is Direct Instruction. We began this journey with 5 teachers and the leadership team successfully implemented this approach into their teaching and learning practices. In 2022 a further 8 teachers trained in this approach and yesterday our final wave of teachers commenced their training with Toni Hatten-Roberts from COGLearn.

Over the past two and a half years, St Thomas Aquinas has implemented several programs to support teachers to embed the approach into their classroom practices.

• InitiaLit (English program from Kinder to Year 2)
• Connecting Maths Concepts (Mathematics program from Years 1, 2 and 3)
• Spelling Mastery (Spelling program from Year 3 to Year 6)

InitiaLit is an evidence-based whole-class literacy program providing all children with the essential core knowledge and strong foundations to become successful readers and writers. The system focuses on two areas, phonics to systematically and explicitly teach the basic and advanced alphabetic code in a set sequence, and vocabulary through oral language and listening comprehension aided by quality children’s literature.

Connecting Math Concepts introduces ideas gradually and teaches students the connections between concepts. Focusing on big ideas in mathematics, the program teaches explicit strategies that enable students to master challenging concepts such as ratios, proportions, probability, functions and data analysis. Detailed explanations and guided practice enable students to progress toward independent work, helping them to achieve success and become confident mathematical thinkers.

With Connecting Math Concepts, all concepts are learned and assimilated through use. The program presents new concepts incrementally, extending them into subsequent lessons. Students move forward in small steps, learning and applying a variety of topics in each lesson. Students learn and remember more, in less time, developing the depth of understanding required for advanced mathematics. At St Thomas Aquinas the program will be implemented in the current class groups.

Spelling Mastery is a six-level Direct Instruction series that teaches students dependable spelling skills by blending three approaches: the phonemic approach, the whole word approach and the morphemic approach. Each approach has advantages and possible disadvantages. Spelling Mastery is designed to maximise the advantages of each approach and minimise the disadvantages. The program uses a placement test to understand student’s knowledge of spelling and to provide a starting point in the program. At St Thomas Aquinas students from Years 3 to 6 will be placed in appropriate groups for their knowledge of spelling. Progress monitoring is completed during the teaching of the program and students may move between groups as their spelling improves

Toni Hatten-Roberts has also worked with members of the leadership team to develop our skills as Instructional Coaches. Every member of the school’s leadership team has either trained or is currently training to be an Instructional Coach. Instructional Coaches work with teachers to continually improve practice. While we know we have many amazing teachers here at St Thomas Aquinas, we also know that coaching will help everyone to get even better. Our Instructional Coaches meet with teachers several times a term and discuss areas of focus, then observe teachers in the classroom to provide feedback.

Over the last two years, we have seen significant growth, particularly in our younger students. Teachers and families have commented on how competent students are becoming in reading and mathematics. I am looking forward to continuing to see this growth across the years to come.

School Community Council

The SCC will have its Annual General Meeting today at 6pm in the school library. We have had a number of people retire from the Community Council and some others who have had to step down as their children graduated last year, so we will be opening up all positions at this Annual General Meeting.

The School Community Council, the School's parent group, is a valued and vital part of the St Thomas Aquinas community. The SCC is an integral part of the school community, providing support, expertise and energy. By promoting friendship and goodwill between parents and staff, the SCC helps all families – especially new ones – to get to know the school and become involved, while also raising funds for additional projects, equipment and facilities to benefit the whole school.

If you feel you would like to contribute to this great school and make some wonderful friends along the way, I encourage you to come along tonight.

Take care and God bless

Yours in Faith