Category Archives: 6. Engage in professional learning.

IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Group PD Annesley Junior School

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IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Group PD

Annesley Junior School

Wednesday 2nd April 2025

1:00-4:00pm (3 hours)

 

Presenters

Sallyanne Probert– Inclusive Education Teacher- Annesley Junior School

Trish Tynan– EAL/D Specialist- St Peter’s Girls’ School & IPSHA EAL/D President

Agenda

Presentation Slides

02.04.2025 IPSHA EAL-D PowerPoint

I big thanks to Sallyanne and Trish for presenting at the IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Group Meeting today. There were many opportunities to share best practice with EAL/D colleagues from varying school settings in Adelaide.

Here are a few of my key take away notes and resources from today’s session.

So many great resources and meaningful discussions.

Oral Language Assessments for R-1

  • Chris Payne- 30+ years of EAL/D teaching and literacy experience: Look at training opportunities with Catholic Ed.
  • Register with CESA to go to some EAL/D training. We have permission to access this.
  • https://registrationcentre.cesa.catholic.edu.au/
  • Certification for LEAP Level Training. Opportunities to attend LEAP level Training for staff.
  • LEAP Writing Training- Intense but worthwhile to also attend.
  • Compliance with legislation. LEAP levels for all EAL/D students. How are we managing this in our school settings?
  • Why? Know the “Why” and share it with your students.

 

International Mother Language Day:  21st February

  • Celebrated for the last 25 years globally.
  • Celebrated on 21st February
  • Focus in Welcome Circles
  • Valued by families and school community
  • UNESCO say a language is lost every 2 weeks https://en.wal.unesco.org/discover/languages

I would love for my school to celebrate this in our community. I would love to create a video of our families showcasing our beautiful culturally diverse and inclusive community.

Video of families from Annesley Junior School, speaking in own languages to celebrate International Mother Language Day:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1XJWgp7pyo/

 

Making an Experience- Using Big Write

  • Creating adventures for students to write about.
  • Personal experiences, living experiences to write about them.
  • Fairy Garden, detectives. Using props, imagination and play based experiences.
  • Big Write: Talk, VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Sentence Openers, Punctuation), Criterion Scale, Big Write (sustained period of time to write)

 

Rainbow Recorders

Oral language and Sentence Writing Support Tool.

I would love to purchase a set of these. A set of 4 costs between $80-$95.

https://www.teaching.com.au/product/rainbow-recorders

 

Goal Setting

  • Individual goals for each student. Students create goals with teacher.
  • Rocket Goals, getting over the moon. Rockets to boost your reading/ writing/ punctuation etc
  • Make goals personal and relevant for students. They have to want to achieve it.
  • Use assessments to inform areas they need to further develop. Set goals with those in mind.
  • Collaborate with the classroom teacher in goal setting.

 

Targeted Teaching Strategies LEAP Documentation

Accelerate: Our goal is to accelerate our EAL/D student. Intentional, purposeful teaching.

When parents say: “We speak English at home, why does my child need EALD support?”

Ways to respond to this:

We are aiming towards teaching Standard Australian English. Families with another language at home often model English language at home, however, it may not always be standard Australian English.

What is your criteria for EAL/D?

If another language other than English is modelled (spoken by family members) at home, they (students) meet the criteria for EAL/D support.

https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/resources/student-diversity/meeting-the-needs-of-students-for-whom-english-is-an-additional-language-or-dialect/

EAL/D students are those whose first language is a language or dialect other than English and who require additional support to develop proficiency in Standard Australian English (SAE).

These students may include:

  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
  • immigrants to Australia and temporary visa holders from non-English speaking countries
  • students with a refugee background
  • children born in Australia of migrant heritage where English is not spoken at home and or when English is spoken at home, but modelled by parents who have an additional language
  • English-speaking students returning to Australia after extended periods in non-English speaking settings
  • children of deaf adults who use Auslan as their first language
  • international students from non-English speaking countries.

Targeted Teaching Strategies LEAP Documentation

Here is a great resource for all teachers to assists with teaching EAL/D students in your classroom. If classroom teaching staff don’t know where to begin, give them this document:

leap-targeted-strategies-to-accelerate-sae-proficiency copy

 

Differentiation

  • This means enhancing, adding and clarifying. We are enhancing the learning experience, adding value and meaning to the learning and clarifying content for our students.
  • What are we putting in place to assist our students with moving up the LEAP levels?
  • How are we monitoring their progression and actively working towards moving students up the LEAP levels?
  • Are we using intentional goal setting and planning for individual needs?
  • Recent conversations and ideas about creating PPL’s for EAL/D students. Something to consider and discuss for future.

 

ACARA Phases of Language Learning

V.9 ACARA Student Diversity

 

In this session we spent time going over the resources on ACARA, as well as accessing the IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Hub Google Drive, to look at resources available to us.

Next Meeting


Thanks Sallyanne and Trish for presenting at the IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Group Meeting today.

Lots of valuable information and opportunities for EAL/D specialists and teachers to engage professionally.

Please leave a comment if this content has been useful for you.

Thanks

Jade Peartree

IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Meeting at Pembroke Term 3, 2024

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IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Meeting

Term 3, 2024

PD Hours 1:00-4:00pm (3 hours)

Presented by Nikki Abdilla, EAL/D Teacher at Pembroke

Many thanks to Pembroke School and Nikki Abdilla for hosting our IPSHA EAL/D Group Meeting today. It was wonderful to be in her teaching space and learn about Pembroke’s setting and strategies to support the EAL/D community.

Here are a few notes from the presentation today as well as some great resources that were shared.

How EAL/D Students are Selected for Support at Pembroke:

  • Student Admissions Team
  • Interviews with Head of Junior School and EAL/D Teacher
  • Meeting with Enrolments once per term to identify potential EAL/D support needs.
  • Flags from classroom, specialists and Inclusive Education Teachers,
  • Referral System: Intranet, online forms
  • Oral Assessments- ELC-Year One and New Arrivals.

New Student Interview Process:

  • Interview Proformas at enrolment that are specific to EAL/D students and families.
  • Ask for a copy of their EAL Interview Form, use in own setting
  • Enrolment Form Example 

Assessments:

  • Oral Assessments- ELC, Year 1 & New Arrivals or Graduates of Intensive English Programs.
  • Using a visual tool, pictures, can they identify nouns, use prepositions, retell events they have experiences, make connections to the images etc.
  • Written Assessments Year 1- Year 6
  • LEAP Levels

Feedback for Teachers:

  • Areas of Success/ Areas of Concern
  • Traffic Light System
  • Lesson Structure:
    • 2-3 lessons per week.
    • Lessons are explicit, targeted, goal driven, hands on and engaging.
    • Programmes- individual goals from assessments
    • Vocabulary and a Grammar focus for each lesson.
    • Expressive and receptive language opportunities each lesson.
    • TRUST: Safe environment to take risks building connections.
    • Humour, relationships (consecutive years)
    • Needs of students have dictated change with number of support lessons and types of lessons, including social (connection) needs.
    • Photo to insert from iPad

     

  • Activities:
    • Practical and hands on activities- cooking
    • Sorts and Games

Communication Tools:

One of my greatest take-aways from today’s session was learning about using subtitles and translation tools available for us in real time using PowerPoint presentations. Imagine using this resource in parent information evenings, parent interviews and as downloadable screen recordings to be viewed and accessed by the community. Brilliant!

  • In PowerPoint, using subtitles in PowerPoint, translated subtitles will appear when you read this screen aloud in presentation mode.
  • Google Translate
  • Using in PTI’s for instant translation in chosen language.
  • Using this in lesson times for students to have translated verbal instructions.
  • Parent Information Evenings, presenting to an audience with translated subtitles. .
  • Screen record the presentation and rewatch the recordings, upload onto Seesaw or QR code generator.

I created an instructional video for how to access subtitles using PowerPoint with live translations.

You can view it here:

Resource Sharing:

Games

  • Pickles to Penguins
  • Sentence Scramblers
  • Articulate for Kids
  • Granny’s Candies

Resources:

I would love to create some sets of vocabulary packs for my school setting that can be used by classroom teachers across varying year levels. Ideally these packs would include vocabulary that students will need for their units of inquiry. This is something I would like to action in 2025.

EALD in the Middle and Senior School at Pembroke:

  • Pembroke boarding house, a trained EAL teacher comes to tutor students Yrs 7-12 in groups or 1:1, 5 hours once a week.
  • Pembroke Connect Program (staff trained in Intensive English)
  • English lessons in China has been reduced. Covid also saw students having 2-3 years of online learning, this has impacted their levels of literacy.

NAPLAN:

  • Students who have been in Australia for less than a year can be exempt from NAPLAN.
  • The forms are online and translated in many different languages.
  • Parent consent is required.
  • Be proactive in this process, get the forms completed early.

As always it was lovely to spend the afternoon engaging with my EAL/D colleagues and sharing insights and resources together.

Thanks Nikki and Pembroke for hosting us today.

So many great resources.

Much appreciation.

URStrong PD

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URStrong PD 

Thursday 25th January 2024, (7 hours)

 

Presented by Tyson Greenwood & Donna Longden

Friendology: Friendship is a basic need.

URStrong Website with Resources: https://urstrong.com/members/

Padlet for resources: https://padlet.com/dlongden/st-andrew-s-school-6sfi2m652lfhx2sj

Session 1: The Science of Friendship

Why Friendships are so important: when friendships flourish in schools, children are happy to come to school and they are ready to learn. Healthy friendships help us to fly. Harmony in schools, empowered by skills and choices for healthier relationships, ultimately children feel better about themselves, self-compassion, healthy mindsets. Skills for relationships throughout life.

Gender Stereotypes: Myths & Truths.

The power of whole-school friendship strategy. Child friendly language, consistent approach across the school.

Reflection:

Before students can learn they must feel safe, trust, valued by self and others.

Session 2: Friendship Ninjas


Some students come to school with unrealistic expectations of friendships. This helps to simplify what to expect and how to navigate through what a friendship entails.

Using the Friend-O-Meter as a tool with your students to assess how their friendships make them feel.

 

Session 3: 

Conflict in friendship: Conflict must be normalised in schools. Teach students to face conflicts head on. We were raised to avoid conflict, we don’t know how to have difficult conversations. This is not the same for our students. They are being raised in a different time.

Friendship Fire vs Mean on Purpose:  

Usually 85% of friendship issues are Friendship Fires, its only 15% of Mean on Purpose. A friendship fire is something that happens when we have conflicts in friendships. These are normal to experience and happen frequently.

Mean on purpose is intentionally cruel and mean behaviour that was meant to hurt someone else.

We use the Friend-O-Cycle to give them skills to put out Friendship Fires and repair the friendship. When we ignore friendship fires, they get worse.

 

Where do students go to resolve a problem and talk it out? Talk it out bench, talk it out couch, break out room to have these conversations with friends.

Quick Comeback, is a short statement that won’t get them in trouble to use when someone is being mean on purpose. Examples: Stop, Not Cool, No, etc.

Talk It Out: Retell the situation, explain how you felt.

Session 4: Friendology 101

Response to Intervention Model: Friendship Skills

Snapshot of each stage.

How to Teach Friendology 101


We don’t introduce the term “Mean on Purpose” until Year 3. Focus on Friendship Fires in JP, students have difficulty differentiating between being mean on purpose or fires, so we leave this until later.

There are 8 sessions per stage. Every stage has a Tricky Situations session, this assists with real life examples in the classroom that students can relate to and learn from.

We can either play the video where they teach the concepts or you can use the slides where you guide the students and use the prompts

URS-Facilitator-Guide-2021

Session 5: Becoming a URStrong School/ Implementation

Reflect on Alignment

Plan for your Audience

Launch for Success.

Hosting a Day of Friendship: Ideas on the Padlet.

Afternoon Session:

Circle Time Activity led by Anthea Khutagt (Year 4 Teacher)

Today Anthea shared a classroom strategy that she has used with her students Reception to Year 6. I have also used sharing circles before but this one had a few differences which I think would work well.

Here is a template to use for the circle time, it must have a yes and no answer and all students.

Feel free to use this template to edit and suit your class. You can generate questions based on your inquiry, classroom issues, student interests and even get the children involved in creating questions for circle time.

Circle Time Template

Tyson Greenwood’s final session:

Relationships matter, building relationships with your students matters, children want to be connected in their classroom, they want to know you and they want you to know them. Connection makes relationships and learning meaningful.

I really enjoyed the PD today and am looking forward to using URStrong across the school.