Today as I spent time in the classrooms, I saw all classes settled and focused on their learning. It was great to see everyone being challenged and solvers of problems.
Maths Problem Solving
As children grow and develop it is important that both parents and teachers relinquish the role as the child’s problem solver and hand the role over to the child. Learning to become a Problem Solver not only needs explicit teaching and modelling by both parents and teachers, but it also needs parents and teachers allowing children to struggle and FAIL.
In Mathematics a problem is something that you don’t immediately know how to solve. Getting started maybe a struggle. It will require thinking, testing out solutions, reaching ‘dead ends’, trying another strategy, adjusting your thinking, trial and error, amongst other strategies. Students may struggle to work out the answer quickly and/or there may be multiple answers to the question. They may need to test and re-test their method, justifying their answer using multiple strategies. This process needs a lot of persistence and resilience.
At home parents/carers can:
- Talk about mathematics in a positive way. A positive attitude about mathematics is infectious.
- Encourage persistence. Some problems take time to solve.
- Encourage your child to experiment with different approaches to mathematics. There is often more than one way to solve a math problem.
- Encourage your child to talk about and show a math problem in a way that makes sense (i.e., draw a picture or use concrete materials)
- When your child is solving math problems ask questions such as: Why did you…? What can you do next? Do you see any patterns? Does the answer make sense? How do you know? This helps to encourage thinking about mathematics.
- Connect math to everyday life and help your child understand how math is a part of their world (i.e. shapes of traffic signs, walking distance to school, telling time).
- Play family math games together that add excitement such as Checkers, Junior Monopoly, Math Bingo and Uno.
Our job as parents and teachers is to guide students through asking questions, not solve the problem for them. Ask yourself who is doing most of the talking, who is doing most of the doing and who is doing most of the thinking. If the answer is you – then who is doing the problem solving?
Working Bee
Unfortunately, we have had to postpone our Working Bee until later in the term. When we have set a date we will let the community know.
Preschool Playground
We have decided to use the remaining $9600 Priority Maintenance Funding for the preschool from 2021 to upgrade the outside play area with a slide mound for the children. Governing Council are putting $2000 towards the construction. The remaining funds will come from the school budget. We are hoping to have the work completed this year.
EdSmart
This week Vicki and I were trained in using EdSmart. EdSmart is a digital system that replaces paper forms we send home for you to complete and return. EdSmart will make communication between the school and parents more streamlined, safer and less stressful for you. You do not need to download any apps or remember extra passwords, registrations or logins, no extra hassle for you.
Here’s how it works. Instead of paper forms coming home in your child’s school bag, you will be sent an email notification with a link to click that opens a secure web page version of the form to complete and submit. You can do this on your phone, tablet or computer at your convenience. All the data you submit in the forms is held in a secure database only accessible to selected school staff.
You can learn more about EdSmart at https://edsmart.com/parents. Keep an eye out for our first form which will be sent next week.
Student Free Day
We will be having a Student Free Day on Monday 5th September to participate in supporting our students to self-regulate training. A Department for Education Occupational Therapist will be facilitating the training for the staff.
Sports Day
Sports Day will be held on Friday 23/09/2022.
2023 Enrolments
If you know of anyone who has a preschool or school age child and is looking for a school please encourage them to book a tour with either Vicki or myself.
Preschool 2023
DfE are introducing a mid-year intake into preschool. This means that from 2023 children who turn 4 years old:
- Before 1 May are eligible to start preschool at the beginning of the year.
- On 1 May to 31 October can commence preschool through the mid-year intake at the start of term 3 of that year.
Children who turn 4 years after 31 October will be eligible to commence preschool at the start of the following year.
Enjoy the weekend
Donna
