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Teacher Panel:
Charlotte Peverett
Charlotte is the Head of Teaching and Learning and an Inclusion Outreach Coach at Lake Colac School in Southwest Victoria. Her specialty is literacy and language intervention with a passion for introducing research and evidence-based practices into specialist settings and mainstream schools through data-driven practices.
Brad Nguyen
Brad Nguyen is a Classroom Teacher and Learning Specialist at Docklands Primary School. He is a current member of the Australian Education Union.
Krysten Andrews
Krysten Andrews has been a teacher and instructional coach in Primary and Secondary Schools for over a decade. Krysten is the architect behind Cranbourne Primary School’s structured literacy approach that has seen Grade 3 NAPLAN results move from the bottom of the network to near the top in two short years. She is currently focusing on whole school implementation of explicit instruction, particularly in reading, writing and mathematics.
James Dobson
James Dobson is a Foundation teacher and Learning Specialist at Campbells Creek Primary School including Guildford Campus. James loves teaching his students to read and write and working with other teachers to build their capacity to cater for the needs of their students.
Jeanette Breen
Jeanette Breen shares a role between Learning Specialist with Templestowe Heights and reliable Writing Assessment with UK based company No More Marking. Jeanette has been part of leading the full restructure of curriculum design and implementation across all areas of literacy from F - 6 at Templestowe Heights.
Lauren Jeffery
Lauren Jeffery is a Foundation teacher and Learning Specialist at Mooroopna Park PS. She has taught for more than 15 years in a range of culturally diverse schools, including remote Aboriginal community schools in WA and is passionate about supporting teachers to implement structured literacy in the classroom.
Regina Reynolds-Smith and Danielle Lee
Regina Reynolds-Smith and Danielle Lee are completing a Master of Teaching (Primary) at La Trobe University. Their interest in evidence-based teaching and learning has been ignited by coursework and early experiences in Victorian schools.
Victoria made an announcement last week about new policies around phonics and explicit teaching:
All students from Prep to Grade 2 will be taught using a systematic synthetic phonics approach as part of their reading programs, with a minimum of 25 minutes daily explicit teaching of phonics and phonemic awareness
The Victorian Teaching and Learning Model will now have explicit teaching at its core, which will be implemented in all government schools across the state from 2025
We are convening a panel of Victorian government school teachers to discuss their views on these new policies and the potential impact.
The panel will address questions such as:
Do you support the new policies?
Do you think a phonics/explicit teaching mandate hurts teacher workload?
What has your experience been with phonics/explicit teaching? What has you experience been at schools that do not have these approaches?
What support and resources do schools need to implement this effectively?
Join us for this discussion!