Celebrating Growth and Learning in Primary School at St Augustine's College

At St Augustine’s College, we place great emphasis on fostering a love for reading, writing, and teamwork amongst our Year 5 and 6 students. Our Literacy Program is designed to develop essential reading and writing skills, and also to inspire a lifelong appreciation for literature.

One of the most impactful ways parents can support their sons in primary school is by reading aloud with them. Engaging in these shared reading experiences—where both the parent and child take turns reading—helps to improve fluency, accuracy, and expression. These activities also offer the opportunity for bonding and connection with your son.

We are regularly investing in our Literacy Program by purchasing new, quality novels for our school. Recent purchases have included ‘The Night They Stormed Eureka’ by Jackie French, which complements our Year 5 Gold Rush curriculum, and ‘Grimsdon’ by Deborah Abela, a great introduction to the Science Fiction genre.

Additional ongoing activities, such as our Primary School’s ‘Bridging the Gap’ initiative, reflect our commitment to seeing continuous improvements in the Literacy space. ‘Bridging the Gap’ aims to close the writing achievement gap between boys and girls, whilst instilling in our students a passion for writing that will last a lifetime. Empirical research shows that the quality of students’ writing can be improved through innovative and strategic teaching methods, thereby greatly enhancing a student’s academic, occupational, and personal accomplishments.

It has been wonderful to watch our teachers applying these methods to improve and achieve writing outcomes:

• Dedicate time for writing and writing instruction (60 minutes per day is the goal)
• Involve students in various forms of writing across the curriculum, not just in English but in Geography, History, Religious Education and Mathematics
• Treat writing as a process
• Teach foundational skills as well as strategies for planning, drafting, revising, and editing
• Set high expectations
• Encourage student effort
• Utilise the Explicit teaching of the sentence structure instructional model: I do, we do, you do (gradual release of control)
• Using Writer’s Toolbox A1, increase the amount of time students spend writing, both composing and writing instruction.
• Provide timely feedback and feedforward on what to do next time they write.

As always, we thank our parents for their continued support in helping our students grow into the best versions of themselves.

Real Life Experiences

Education is not just about the classroom; it is also about experiences outside of our school environment, which are just as important. Here’s some of the excursions and incursions our students have been fortunate to participate in recently:

• Jewish Museum
• Australian Museum
• Healthy Harold
• Concourse Music Festival
• Narrabeen Coastal Environmental excursion
• Maurice Gleitzman author visit
• Slam Poet – Zohad Khan
• Lunch with the Stars Literary excursion
• Brainstorm Productions visit on cyber safety and responsible Digital Citizenship
• College Patron’s Day and games afternoon
• And coming up soon we will have the Cosmodome Planetarium Incursion.

Teamwork

The theme of the last two weeks has been Teamwork, coinciding with our Primary School Olympic Games. In Years 5 and 6 at St Augustine’s College, our SAINTS Expectations encourage boys to collaborate in order to maintain a positive learning environment, which aligns with our focus on *RESET* (Student Management Procedures). This emphasises our values about playing by the rules, speaking up against inappropriate behaviour (at school AND online), and promoting kindness and encouragement wherever they go.