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Ready. Set.
Prep.
The first year of school is a time of new beginnings for children, families and educators. Children experience many things for the very first time and families often wonder whether their child is ready for all of the excitement and challenges that await them. In addition to our emphasis on ensuring every student develops a sense of belonging, the first term of our Prep year includes a focus on literacy, via phonological awareness, reading strategies and the exploration of different types of text, and numeracy, via developing their number concepts, exploring patterns and geometry and collecting data and making inferences. For our 2021 Preps, who experienced a prior-to-school year like no other, we quickly recognised that there was additional opportunity for them to exercise agency and have a voice and choice in the way in which they were learning. Enter our ‘Room on the Broom’ project, which arose when I noticed the students’ enthusiasm for the classic children’s book, written by Julia Donaldson. Initial classroom discussions identified the many concepts we explored as we read the book: rhyming words, spelling choices, sequencing and enthralling vocabulary. The Preps found the idea of teaching others about these concepts highly engaging and were keen to pass on their new found knowledge and understanding to our Pre-Prep children as a way to help them become more familiar as to what it is like to be a Prep.
Our Preps completed an initial planning stage and shared their thoughts about the concepts that would be suitable to teach the Pre-Preps. They reflected on their memories of their own capabilities before they started school in order to judge whether particular activities would be suitable. Working in small groups, our Preps were then set the task of designing a learning experience for their Pre-Prep students. They prepared and organised their own learning resources and, as part of the ‘pre-launch’ phase, tested their learning experiences with each other and modified them accordingly. Finally, the big day arrived! Each group used the learning experience they had designed to teach a small group of Pre-Preps about a particular literacy skill, including rhyming, using phonics to write words and using sequencing to retell a story. At the conclusion of the project, the Preps reflected thoughtfully and noticed the persistence of the Pre-Preps when they encountered challenges. The same could be said for our Preps; by preparing to be the teachers, they had challenged themselves to do the best they could in order to be the best teachers they could be. Mrs Catherine Noble Wardle House Teacher
I loved it when the Pre-Preps tried their best. They found it tricky to begin with but then I showed them how. Saskia N, Prep They were trying their best to remember the story. I helped them by getting the cards and they pointed to the one that came next. Mimi D, Prep They didn’t know how to hold their pencils properly. We showed them the technique that we used. Madeline L and Hannah K, Prep
