5/6 News 

It has been a massive fortnight in the 5/6 area, with a number of different activities on and a number of different chances for students to show their skills and resilience in their education journey. The highlights have been the students bike education, the visit to the Danny Frawley Centre and our preparation for Stations of the Cross. It has been a wonderful to see the students go out of their comfort zone which is where the growth comes in our learning. 

Mathematics 

Students have continued to work in different groups where possible over the last two weeks. We have been working on operations with a focus on problem solving questions. We have begun to unpack the types of questions that students might encounter during Naplan. This provides an opportunity for students to lower their worries by exposing them to the types of questions that they will be asked, and thus become familiar with the expectations by the time the testing period comes around. The students have responded well, and have developed the skill to analyse a question and eliminate the parts that are not important.

English 

This fortnight the students have been working on the skill of summarising and why it is important to be able to explain what we are reading. This skill ties together the different skills we have been working on this term and we will continue to unpack as the year goes on. Next term we will be doing a novel study on 'We Are Wolves' by Katrina Nannestad  Sometimes it's good to be wild. Sometimes you have to be wild. When the Russian Army marches into East Prussia at the end of the war, the Wolf family must flee. Liesl, Otto and their baby sister Mia find themselves lost and alone, in a blizzard, in the middle of a war zone. Liesl has promised Mama that she will keep her brother and sister safe. But sometimes, to survive, you have to do bad things. Dangerous things. Wild things. Sometimes to survive, you must become a wolf. The students will need a copy of this book for term 2.

Bike Ed

The students did an amazing job during our bike education sessions with Rick and Imrad. This is a fantastic program that reinforces rules and skills that they have worked on from grade 3 and 4. Additionally, it makes sure that they are ready to tackle the roads to and from school. We have noticed a number of our students now ride to and from school and a number of our ex students are riding to high school; these are really important lessons to keep them safe. We were really impressed that all of our students have made it to and from Port Melbourne on their bikes which shows a good level of fitness and resilience from our students. It was amazing to see some of our grade 6 students who said they struggled last year say it was easy this year.

Respectful Relationships - Child Safety 

Our focus over last fortnight has been around how to stay safe at school, at home, online and on our way to and from school. This has been a chance for us to reinforce important lessons.

We would like to see a future where all children and young people are provided with education, protection and support to be safe from abuse and risk of harm.

The Daniel Morcombe Foundation provides personal child safety education to children and young people to prevent abuse and promote lifelong health and wellbeing. We support educators, parents and carers through the provision of resources and education and also directly support young victims of crime.

Danny Frawley Centre

On the 18th of March, the 5/6 cohort were lucky enough to be the first school to partake in the ‘Play To Your Strengths’ session at the Danny Frawley Centre. The session was focussed on identifying our individual personal strengths, based off the Values In Action (VIA) Character Strengths. Through a number of activities, students explored their top strengths and ways that they can be used in all aspects of life. (Make sure you ask your child what their top strengths were!)The second part of our session tied in perfectly to our Closing the Gap unit. Here, we continued to build on our knowledge about the impacts of racism. Students were attentive and engaged as they watched ‘The Ripple Effect’ centring around Nicky Winmar and his stand against racial vilification in 1993 that defined his career. It was great to be able to have this experience off site. 

Closing the Gap 

Last week the students studied 'Rabbit Proof Fence' which is an amazing story about the stolen generation. Students were able to give great insight into what was happening using their inferencing skills they have been working on in reading, and their prior knowledge to understand this was not the right thing to happen. The classes have shown so much growth and understanding in this topic which will be finished off next week when we head to the Melbourne Museum on Monday to look at some first peoples stories.

Leaders Corner 

The grade 5’s and 6’s of Sacred Heart Sandringham have had a great experience at the Danny Frawley centre. We were privileged to be the first school to visit the centre and be educated by  the experienced leaders, Shannon and Liam. The day was split into two sessions, the first session followed a tour of the centre where we got to see the brand new facilities. This gave us a great awareness of where we were and set the scene for today’s learning. 

After a tour of the centre, Shannon and Liam introduced themselves as the captains of the St Kilda Blind AFL team and the St Kilda Wheelchair AFL team. It was great to see the instructors be vulnerable and honest with us and hear their stories of the hardships they experienced along their journeys. This led us to watch a video of a current St Kilda player talking about his character strengths and weaknesses and how they help him on the field and in day to day life. We were taught that we all have a unique set of character strengths that help create who we are. We also learnt that others can see strengths in us that sometimes we can't even notice ourselves. 

After a break on the nearby oval we began session 2. Session 2 was all about racism and the ripple effect that this has on an individual and their families. To do this we watched a documentary that spoke about racism on the footy field, in particular the movement started by Nicky Winmar when he lifted his shirt to show he was a proud Aboriginal. This led to hearing the stories from other athletes of colour and the racism they faced. Some important lessons from this documentary taught us that we all bleed the same blood and we are all human beings, that it is hard to fully understand racism if you aren’t a person of colour and at the end of the day we are all human beings and we shouldn’t judge someone on the colour of their skin. Our final activity was creating a list of people or organisations that can help when you or a friend is experiencing racism. 

Overall, we are very grateful to be able to hear from Shannon and Liam. Our key takeaways from the day were that in professional sport, it isn't just about your skills but your character strengths and leadership abilities, that words can hurt more than people think and that little things can ripple into big things!