The Lakes South Morang College Newsletter PRINCIPAL REPORT
The Children ’ s Book Council of Australia presents annual awards to books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children's literature. Congratulations to all the winners of the 2023 Children ’ s Book Council of Australia Awards. Many of the books are available in the school library for our students to enjoy. Book week is also a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge and thank Megan De Marco for her work in our school library across our college. Her organisation with the annual book fair on the Primary Campus has been outstanding, providing families a chance to purchase a range of books. There is a strong reading culture on our Primary Campus, and we want to keep getting even better. Our reading data is improving all the time and we are seen as a leader or “ influencer ” in this area across our local schools. We have great teachers, a superb Library and of course a strong level of parent/carer support to encourage reading at home.
SO HOW DO WE KEEP WORKING TO ENSURE WE REMAIN A STRONG READING SCHOOL?
At school, we will achieve this through a very strategic and detailed professional learning plan based on ensuring high levels of staff knowledge around high quality teaching for reading and how we deliver this consistently across the whole school each day. At home, you can assist your child to find an extra 10 minutes a day to read. It might be as simple as 10 minutes less on technology or reading for 10 minutes before dinner. We know that you can become better at something if you focus on it more. Reading becomes easier and more enjoyable the more you do it! I have mentioned this before but have a think about this: If your child currently reads for just 1 minute a day, they will read 21,000 words this year. Increasing this to 10 minutes a day will lead to 321,000 words being read in a year. It also works for those students that are already reading for the suggested 15 minutes a day. Currently these readers would be churning through 1.8 million words a year. Ten minutes more would take this to over 2.7 million!
Help your child to choose different types of books to read and take turns to read with them. Talk about the book and look for words to pay special attention to. Most importantly, make the experience as fun and engaging as possible.
EMBRACING NEURODIVERSITY: UNDERSTANDING OUR UNIQUE STUDENTS
At The Lakes South Morang College, our school community is at the heart of everything we do. We are proud to have a diverse group of students, each with their own strengths, challenges, and perspectives. One important aspect of this diversity is neurodiversity, which encompasses the natural variation in brain function and neurological differences among individuals. Understanding and embracing neurodiversity is vital to supporting all our children's growth and development within our school community. Neurodiversity includes a broad range of neurological conditions such as autism, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and dyslexia (reading difficulty). It's essential for us as educators and parents/carers to recognise that these differences are not deficits, but rather variations in how our children perceive and interact with the world around them.
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