This year we have a school-wide literacy focus and will be implementing a teaching framework called the High Intensity Teaching Strategies (HITS).

As you will have hopefully read in the article about improving your child academic outcomes, literacy has become such an important part of a students development and potential to be successful.

This is not a new priority nor is not a new concern. The notion of what is to be considered literate and numerate has been debated for a long time. Are our students workplace ready with some key skills? Essentially the literacy and numeracy requirements were put in place to reassure employers and tertiary providers that students possess basic key skills that will enable them to engage with what is required and have the ability to develop further.

There have been lots of initiatives and programmes put in place over the years with varying degrees of success. What we have decided that it is best if we address this in-house. We have the expertise and know our students well. Each subject area will have a targeted approach to the literacy requirements in their subject. This should lead to greater consistency across the whole school and a lift on core literacy skills.

We are very fortunate that Mandy Maber will lead and coordinate our literacy work this year.

To further support our literacy work we are exploring the High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) framework. This is a good reminder of what great teaching looks like. There is no question that our students learning needs are becoming more divergent and we need to cater for a wider range of abilities.

Revisiting these strategies should lead more effective teaching and improved outcomes for students. To support our teachers in the implementation of the HITS, Brittany Park will lead this piece of work this year. Brittany is the acting Specialist Classroom Teacher for 2025, taking over from Ken Rowe who is on a years leave.