Catalyst - Daily Review

As part of Catalyst (system-wide approach to teaching and learning), six of our teachers have been working closely with Toni Hatten-Roberts from COGLearn to develop their knowledge and skills in the High Impact Teaching Practice, Daily Review. Daily Review is one of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction (High Impact Teaching Practice) and is supported by the Cognitive Load Research. By the end of this year, Daily Review will be a practice in all classrooms across the school. 

"Daily Review is an important component of instruction. Review can help us to strengthen the connection of the material learned. The review of previous learning can help us recall words, concepts and procedures effortlessly and automatically when we need this material to solve problems or understand new material. The development of expertise requires thousands of hours of practice and daily review is one component of this practice. 

Daily review was part of a successful experiment in elementary school mathematics. Teachers in the experiment were taught to spend eight minutes everyday on review. Teachers used this time to check the homework, go over problems where there were errors, and practise the concepts and skills that needed to be practised until they become automatic. As a result, students in these classrooms had higher achievement scores than did students in other classrooms. 

Daily practice of vocabulary can lead to seeing the words as a unit, to seeing the whole word automatically rather than as individual letters. When students see words as a unit, they have more space available in their working memory, and this space can now be used for comprehension. Mathematical problem-solving is also improved when the basic skills (addition, multiplication, etc.) are overlearned and become automatic.”

Sherrington, T. (2019). Rosenshine's Principles in Action. Woodbridge: John Catt Education LTD. 

Donations

Our sand play stations have just been delivered! Thank you to the wonderful families who have donated so far. 

Sand play for our younger students has many benefits, as it enhances motor skills, improves language and speech, enhances social and emotional awareness, introduces concepts of mathematics and science and sparks creativity. 

To ensure we have a variety of toys/equipment for sand play we would appreciate any of the below to be donated (new/used ):

• Mini shovels/rakes
• Small buckets
• Play cooking utensils 
• Measuring cups
• Plastic sieves
• Trucks/cars
• Plastic toy dinosaurs/animals
• Plastic fossil sets
• Mould sets

If you are cleaning up any old toys from home that your children are not using anymore and are still in good condition, please consider sending them to school for children here to use.

We are also always looking for donations of lego/duplo. If you have any lego sitting at home that your children don’t play with anymore, please consider donating it to St John’s. 

We would really appreciate any of the above donations!

Rebekah Brown

Assistant Principal and Inclusion Coordinator