Curriculum Update Semester 1, 2009

Welcome to a new year at Dayboro State School! The Curriculum Team has already met to prioritise our curriculum directions for 2009, mostly based on the recommendations from our Triennial School Review conducted at the end of last year. Our first challenge is to develop a Whole School Curriculum Plan, in collaboration with all teaching staff, to outline the planning, teaching, learning, assessment and reporting framework for our school.

Next we will be working on a Whole School Literacy Strategy. This will detail how Literacy teaching and learning cuts across all Key Learning Areas and the whole school strategies we can use to do this consistently and developmentally from Prep to Year 7 to improve Literacy outcomes for all our students. This will be especially valuable as now all teachers Prep – Year 7 have completed their 5 day Literacy Inservice Courses.

Curriculum is our core business. We will continue to collaboratively plan integrated units of work each term based on the Essential Learnings (Queensland Syllabus). Our unit overviews for each year level are on display in the office foyer if you haven’t already seen them. The integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is a major part of many of our units each term. Look out for your invitations to the end of term Culminating Days where we celebrate the learning from these units.

Most year levels will be involved in excursions at some time during the year and camps (Years 5 and 6). We have already had the Life Education Van visit and there will be two Arts Council performances. Dance Fever will be running classes again for the Year 4-7s in Term 2 and Prep-Year 3s in Term 3. Years 3 and 4 have nearly completed their swimming lessons for the year. Prep – Year 2 will have swimming lessons in Term 4. Interschool Sport will commence in Term 3 for Years 5-7.

This year the Prep teachers will be starting to map Prep students on the Australian Early Development Index to better inform us of Early Phase student needs. The Years 3, 5 and 7 students will be involved in the second year of the National Assessment Plan - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in May. The Year 4 and 6 students will be doing the Queensland Comparative Assessment Task (QCAT) in English (Maths and Science will be included in 2010). Students in Year 2 will be involved in the Diagnostic Net Assessment Tasks in May.

All students will receive reports on our new One School system at the end of Semester 1 and again at the end of Semester 2. Interviews may be offered at these times or at other times if needed. If you have any questions about Curriculum at Dayboro State School, please ask your child’s teacher or the Deputy Principal, Mrs Linda Smith.