Thursday, 20 June 2024

Syndal South Primary School

Matt FREGON (Ashwood) (17:09): (724) My adjournment for this evening is to the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, and the action I seek is for the minister to join me in our Ashwood electorate for the official opening of the new building at Syndal South Primary School – probably two weeks into term 4, if we can make it then.

John Mullahy interjected.

Matt FREGON: A fantastic school – the member for Glen Waverley knows it well. This is a fantastic upgrade for this fantastic school. As we all know, the Minister for Education announced recently about phonics rolling out for all schools as of next year. Starting next year, all government school students from prep to grade 2 will be taught literacy through a systematic synthetic phonics approach. Syndal South Primary School, that fantastic school that we mentioned, has been running a phonics program for some time. They are very, very, very proud of their work, and so are we of them. I asked principal Helen Freeman – doing an awesome job down there with her staff, mind you – what she thinks about the ongoing phonics program at Syndal South Primary, and here is what she said:

At Syndal South Primary School, we understand how vital it is for students to become fluent readers to support self-esteem and give the highest possibility to develop a love of reading and learning. We use evidence-based methods to ensure all our students succeed and thrive in reading.

The explicit and systematic teaching of fundamental knowledge and skills is at the centre of our approach. We achieve this using the ‘Sounds Write’ Sustained Systematic Phonics Program, to provide the best possible environment for our students to develop the ability to read, spell and write.

All of our teachers from Foundation to Year 2 have had explicit training in the Sounds Write Program.

We are also currently involved in the AERO/SOLAR Lab Professional Learning program in schools. This is a research project that investigates how to best support educators to implement explicit and systematic reading instruction, through a Structured Literacy approach in the early years (Foundation to Year 2). The research is being carried out by La Trobe University School of Education and Australian Education Research Organisation.

We have followed what the research tells us around literacy instruction and understand Foundation–Year 2 is where the fundamental skills of reading must be embedded which then leads to sustained improvement and growth through to the later years.

Our structured reading and writing approach underpinned by oral language includes –

And there is a list here I will not get time for. Not only is she doing the work that we are putting through next year, she is very proud of it, as we all are, and I commend the Minister for Education for bringing in this program next year across all schools.

Very quickly, I also want to give a big shout-out to Sakina Khambati, our work experience helper from Mac.Rob this week, who put together this adjournment statement. I wish her the best and thank her very much for her work.