Holy Family Catholic Parish Primary School Ingleburn eNewsletter

Premiers Reading Challenge

Welcome back to Term 2!

In this newsletter, you will find information on:

1. Term 2 Booklist Update
2. Professional Learning for Primary teachers
3. Digital partner welcome: ePlatform
4. Professional Learning for Primary teachers
5. National Simultaneous Storytime
6. DART Free Author Talks
7. Challenge coordination FAQs

Term 2 Booklist Update

The next update of new books on the PRC booklist is now live on the website. You can find these on the BOOKLISTS page. There are more than 100 new books added to the lists, and you can access these via the excel document available for download. This document also contains the books added in the previous update.
We are constantly reviewing and evaluating new books for inclusion on the lists, and would love to hear your suggestions!

Professional Learning for Primary teachers

The Primary English Teacher's Association of Australia (PETAA) has designed a free, 2-hour Elective online learning course for all teachers whose schools are participating in the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge.

Inspiring Reading for Pleasure and Leisure focuses on strategies to integrate a student's love of reading and involvement into everyday literacy work, and includes suggested teaching strategies supported by teaching units and curriculum connections.

Learning Outcomes

Select quality children’s literature to use in your classroom that inspires and delights students
Introduce children’s literature as mentor texts to show how specific textual features are crafted
Implement evidence-based pedagogy in your own classroom practice
Use quality literature in your lessons to achieve curriculum outcomes
Support children to explore texts in greater depth
Create positive reading environments in your classroom and across your school

Sign up for the course here. If you have any issues with the signup process, please contact PETAA at pl@petaa.edu.au

Digital Partner Welcome: ePlatform

We are pleased to welcome ePlatform back as the Digital Partner of the 2023 Premier’s Reading Challenge. Their generous contribution will provide an additional online resource to schools with small enrolments that may not otherwise be able to afford an eBook or Audiobook platform, as well as vouchers for larger schools with or without a current ePlatform subscription.

For schools with under 150 students: Free access to ePlatform’s dedicated NSW PRC platform - https://nswprc.eplatform.co/. Students at eligible schools will have access to 2000+ eBook titles during 2023 to help them complete the challenge, and will allow students to borrow 2 eBooks at a time from the dedicated PRC platform.
For schools on the Small School Program (SSP) with an enrolment of 350 or less students: ePlatform is offering a $250 voucher to spend on either an eBook or Audiobook plan (note: SSP schools already receive a 50% discount on ePlatform pricing).
For schools over 350 students with no existing plans: ePlatform is offering a $500 voucher to spend on a shared collection plan for either eBooks or Audiobooks.
For schools with an existing ePlatform subscription: ePlatform is offering a $50 voucher for existing ePlatform schools to purchase eBooks and/or Audiobooks.

PRC Coordinators from interested schools should contact ePlatform directly via their dedicated email address nswprc@eplatform.co to set up student logins or to receive your voucher.

DART Virtual Author talks

DART have two upcoming Digital Schools Talk that are available on demand until the end of Term 4.

Jordan Gould and Richard Pritchard: available from 9th June. The authors of Wylah: The Koorie Warrior chat about the process of creating their ground-breaking adventure story inspired by First Nations history and grounded in culture, and concludes with Richard and Jordan teaching viewers an indigenous language song. This talk is suitable for Stage 3, 4 and 5. You can book your on-demand talk here.

Randa Abdel-Fattah: Available from 25th October. Presented on International Children's Day, Randa talks about her new book 11 Words of Love - a book for children from all backgrounds about the many ways we love. Her talk will discuss topics of love, refugees, diverse backgrounds and diversity of languages. This talk is suitable for Early stage 1, Stage 1 and Stage 2. You can book your on-demand talk here.

National Simultaneous Storytime

National Simultaneous Storytime is taking place next week on Wednesday 24th May at 11:00am. The 2023 NSS title, The Speedy Sloth by Rebecca Young and Heath McKenzie, is on the 5-6 Challenge list for 2023 so that all students participating can include it on their Reading Logs.

Register for National Simultaneous Storytime here.

Challenge coordination FAQs
Have you visited the PRC Support site lately? It provides searchable information about the PRC and you can also contact the PRC team.
Below are links to articles you may find helpful at the beginning of the Challenge:

Important information for the start of the challenge:
Adjusting Challenge levels for students

K-2 students who are independent readers reading above their Challenge level, are able to attempt the 3-4 Challenge. Students and coordinators can make this adjustment on the Student Reading Record tab on the main PRC site only.
If you support students with additional needs who would benefit from having their Challenge level adjusted, please notify the PRC team. We can adjust their Challenge level to the 3-9 Challenge, which will allow them to read 20 books from any Challenge level (including K-2). Please see the article in the PRC Support site for more information on what provisions are made for students with special needs

New students – merging

Please notify the PRC team of any new students to your school who have previously attended a non-government school. Ensure you include the name of the previous school. We will merge the students’ accounts to ensure students’ Challenge histories remain intact. Please refer to the article in the PRC Support site for more information on what happens when a student’s accounts are merged.

Privacy information

Please ensure parents and carers are aware of the privacy information on the PRC website. Students’ names are no longer published in the media, and we are no longer publishing names of students who receive gold and platinum certificates on an Honour Roll on the PRC website.