Team Teaching and Learning would like to welcome back existing families and extend a warm welcome to new families joining our Holy Cross Community. To begin the year we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to revisit information we shared last year about V9 curriculum implementation, Home Learning and Reading at Holy Cross School, plus highlight a few date claimers for your calendar.

This year, Holy Cross School in alignment with the Catholic Education Diocese of Cairns and Queensland Curriculum Assessment Authority will implement the newest version of English Curriculum, V9. At Holy Cross, 2025 also sees us consolidating V9 Mathematics and Health and Physical Education (HPE) whilst beginning the introduction of V9 Digital Technologies. 

V9 English curriculum implementation aligns in our junior years with the Science of Reading to ensure students are reading decodable and authentic texts and are receiving explicit systematic synthetic phonic lessons. 

2025 sees Holy Cross School, in alignment with the Diocese, assessing all Prep to Year 2 students reading skills through the assessment platform of DIBELS. DIBELS is an assessment system that assesses the acquisition of early literacy and reading skills.The assessments are administered in Term 1, 2 and 4 to monitor student progress in the development of skills related to general reading outcomes. The DIBELS measures allow us to track students progress as well as detect students at risk of not reaching year level reading proficiencies. Along with DIBELS, we monitor the progression of comprehension skills in Yr 1 - 6 with both Probe assessments and reading comprehension tasks aligned to year level texts as indicated by year level curriculum.

Best practice and research-based teaching of reading is crucial for fostering literacy skills that are foundational to a student’s academic success and lifelong learning. By utilising evidence-based strategies and tools such as DIBELS at Holy Cross, we can effectively address diverse learning needs, ensuring that all students develop strong reading abilities. These practices are grounded in scientific research, which provides insights into how students learn to read and what instructional methods are most effective. This approach not only enhances reading comprehension and fluency but also promotes critical thinking and a love for reading.

READING AT HOLY CROSS SCHOOL

Please take the time to watch the attached three short videos detailing reading at Holy Cross. We are truly excited for the continued development of reading in 2025 and hope you celebrate your child’s reading progression each night as they break the code and respond to your questions about what they are reading.

HOME LEARNING

Home Learning at Holy Cross has 3 components: Compulsory, Optional and Encouraged activities.

COMPULSORY

Home Learning reflects the importance we place on reading which is why the only compulsory home learning required from every student is reading. 

Each week it is an expectation students borrow from the library to facilitate this compulsory requirement. In the junior years this will be in the form of both “Read with Me,” and library books of interest and in the senior years students will be asked to choose books of interest from both fiction and non-fiction. It is important to note, particularly with “Read with Me” books, whilst a student may be able to read some of their books independently, they still require you to assist them with language comprehension or the decoding of unfamiliar words. For a child to become a competent reader they need to practise the skills they learn at school to both decode and comprehend texts. This is why the partnership of you, your child’s first educator, for the acquisition of reading comprehension is essential. 

OPTIONAL

Optional activities are listed for families who would like to engage with activities to reinforce focus concepts or general year level skills e.g multiplication facts. 

ENCOURAGED

Encouraged activities are a matrix of choices that align with our school Charism. You will find activities to choose from under the banners of Relationships, Community, Service and Stewardship. As a family it is entirely your choice to engage with these activities in whatever capacity you are able.

Look out on the MyCE Mobile App - My School Tab in Week 4 of Term 1 and Week 3 every other term for your current Home Learning Document.

DATE CLAIMERS

Week 3 Wednesday February 12: Meet n Greet 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Please come along to meet your child’s class teacher and join us for a cold drink and sausage sizzle (gold coin donation).

Week 5: Student Led Conferences

Watch out for your invitation to book in to join your child as they showcase their learning goals with you. Coming soon. 

Yours in reading partnership,

Deb Scarborough
Leader of Teaching