Dear Parents/Carers,

This week you will notice music playing in the mornings. This is a part of our Bellmere Beat Fest week where we will have our choirs performing during break times, our instrumental students playing music and other activities. The children love this week and getting involved in celebrating our music program.

During week 3 of this term, we had principals, deputy principals and teachers visit from other local state primary and secondary schools. Our students discuss the purpose of their learning in their own words. The students can articulate what and why they are learning which leads to a greater understanding. The learning walls (Bump It Up Walls) in the classroom provide children with learning resources to support them to achieve higher outcomes. Teachers have worked very hard this term to support children by explicitly teaching what is needed to achieve an A, B and C and having children setting goals individually. I am very proud of the wonderful work teachers have been doing in their classrooms to support student learning.

Below is a message I received from Pete Keen, Principal at Morayfield SHS that they are including in their newsletter. You may have seen this on the Morayfield State High School facebook page.

“Recently, staff at Morayfield SHS, were able to attend Bellmere SS to participate in Learning Walks and Talks. Our Flexispace teacher was inspired to trial some of the strategies used at Bellmere in the Morayfield SHS Flexispace. 

As a result, at Morayfield SHS, our Year 8 Flexi English students are taking ownership of their learning by unpacking the purpose behind their assessment tasks. With a clear, student-friendly purpose statement to guide them, students have explored and co-constructed the meanings of key cognitive terms, helping them better understand what success looks like. It’s all part of building assessment-capable learners who are ready to reflect, grow, and succeed!” 

It is great to see that the work we are doing at Bellmere is being used in other settings to support the learning of students across our cluster. Well done and thank you for the hard work of all staff to support student learning.  

This year we have been working with a group of schools and a maths consultant to focus on students discussing their thinking when working in maths. Next week we have 4 schools and the consultant coming to our school to work with some staff and our students. We are seeing great improvement with students being able to articulate their learning in maths which leads to a deeper understanding of what they are learning.

Jamie Tactor

Principal