Middle School News
Welcome back to Term 2!
What a fantastic fortnight we have had! We have been busy with Twilight School, Anzac Day and Community Visits.
In Middle School, we have been consolidating our knowledge of predicting while reading to help with comprehension and understanding the books we read. We can predict before reading, during reading and after reading. For writing, we have been revising persuasive writing, choosing a view point, stating our opinion and backing this up with reasons and examples. In Maths, Middle School have enjoyed learning about 3D objects, 2D shapes and angles. Our posts tests showed fantastic growth from the start of the unit to the end. Our next unit is subtraction.
Genius Hour
Ready, set, go! Middle School is so keen to get started on our new passion projects in Genius Hour! After the success of the projects last term, their creative juices are flowing, and they have already come up with fantastic ideas for this terms project. This term, the students will present 3 ideas to the class and then in consultation with the teacher, will choose one. Watch out for a notice coming home soon, asking for materials to be brought to school. We endeavor to keep it as low a cost as possible. You are more than welcome to discuss your child's project with them and alter to keep costs down. Please speak to your child's teacher if you have any questions.
Our School Values
Over the past fortnight, we have been exploring our first school value... Resilience. Through role plays, discussions and group work Middle School have identified what Resilience means to them... Bouncing Back and Never Giving Up. We identified that resilience can sometimes be difficult to remember, BUT it is something we will work on. In our classes, we established a weekly goal focused around being resilient during learning times and when out in the yard. We are looking forward to exploring others ways we can show resilience in different situations over the coming weeks.
Community Visits
We love building positive relationships with our local community. Middle School has visited Walmsley Village, Hansen Park Kinder and Ladybug Kinder and have enjoyed talking, playing games and reading with our new friends. We will be adding Palm Grove Kinder into our visits from mid term. Community visits are every week on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.
Twilight School
What a fantastic evening we had at Twilight School. It was great to see so many parents come into the classroom and be involved in our activities. The students were challenged to a STEM challenge; build the tallest tower you can out of newspaper in 15 minutes. Student's had to problem solve issue that arose throughout their building time such as the structure not being strong enough or not being self standing.
Premiers Reading Challenge
While the finish of the Premier Reading Challenge is still months away, we have been busy reading and borrowing lots of Premiers Reading Challenge books this term. Recording these and keeping track of what books we read is important so we can ensure as many students as possible reach the targets.
NAPLAN
NAPLAN tests the sorts of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life, such as reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy. It is important to remember that NAPLAN is not about passing or failing, but about assessing learning progress. At the classroom level it is one of a number of important tools used by teachers to measure student progress. Students sit NAPLAN in Years 3, 5 and 7. This year the tests are held on the 15th, 16th and 17th of May. NAPLAN is not a test that children can prepare for in the same way they might prepare for an end of term test. NAPLAN tests skills that develop and improve over time. These are skills that should be continuously developed throughout the year and not just in the lead-up to NAPLAN.
The best way to get your child ready for NAPLAN is to continue to develop literacy and numeracy skills. Below are links to Australian education resources that are tailored specifically to parents looking for information and support on literacy and numeracy development in children.
201 Literacy and maths tips to help your child (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria)
Achieving literacy and numeracy - parent resources (Department of Education, Training and Employment, Queensland)
National literacy and numeracy week in NSW (Department of Education and Communities, NSW)
Helping your child learn (Department of Education, Western Australia)
If your child is sitting the NAPLAN tests in 2018, read the NAPLAN 2018 information brochure for parents and carers
To provide an overview of the format of the tests, a full set of example tests is available.
If you have any concerns or questions please speak to your child's teacher.