Another fantastic week of learning at Newlands! On Wednesday evening, we held our final School Council meeting with the current team. A big thank you to Adam, Claire, Jess, Craig, Lisa, Juanita, and Tim for dedicating their time to help Newlands continue to grow and meet the needs of our students. Your support is truly appreciated!

Interschool Sport Begins

Next week, some of the great programs at Newlands will get started. One of the most important memories of primary school is Interschool Sports. This term, Newlands has basketball, bat tennis, and softball teams ready to compete against other local schools in the area. Parents are invited to attend both home and away games.

Bags and Lunch Boxes

The School Council and Consultative met this week and discussed lunches. For the rest of the term, students will be able to bring lunches into the Learning Worlds. Tubs will be provided in each classroom where students can place their lunch, while bags will remain outside. This will be communicated to students tomorrow. As always, laptops are to be brought into the classroom during our soft start.

New Litter Initiative

Also, at School Council, Violet, Sage, and Hazel presented a new initiative that they hope will turn into policy. They addressed the issue of the current rubbish in our schoolyard and proposed three options that have been approved for Term 2:

Rubbish will not be allowed outside during recess and lunchtime.
Every Tuesday will be Nude Food Day.
Each grade will have a designated area in the yard that they will be responsible for ensuring remains pristine.

They spoke with confidence, answered questions clearly, and their passion for this initiative shone through. A massive congratulations to Nerida and her community inquiry specialist subject, which is providing so many opportunities for students to have an authentic voice and agency in making our school better!

Working Bee next Sunday

Next Sunday is Newlands' first Working Bee for the year. It’s always a great way to meet members of the community as we wear mismatched gloves and weed together. We want to make sure our community can still enjoy their Sundays, so we’ve scheduled the Working Bee from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Class Information Session, Wellbeing Celebration Launch, Welcome Picnic

Don’t forget to add Friday, February 28, to your diaries! From 2:30 to 3:30, there will be a class information session, followed by the launch of our Wellbeing Handbook, where we’ll showcase our approach to wellbeing with a visible guide and short workshops. This will then lead into the PFA Term 1 event, 'The Welcome Picnic.' It’s always a fun time!

So what’s been happening in the classroom!

Damage to Bikes!

We encourage students to ride their bikes to school every day; however, we've noticed some bikes have been damaged, including one with a pin in a tire. Teachers have discussed the importance of respecting others' property, and any student found damaging another's belongings will be responsible for covering the cost of repairs. To ensure the safety of everyone's bikes, we have clarified that students are not allowed to play near the bike area during recess or lunchtime.

Foundation

I watched Jose running the show in the Foundation class today as they were presented with the Spanish alphabet song for the first time! It was great to see students already attempting to say short sentences in Spanish and practicing the vowels with different consonants.

Jack – It was fun doing the letter zero!

Timmy – It was fun running on the lines in PE.

Allegra – She just demonstrated that she knows all of her vowels in Spanish.

Leila – It was fun being a snake in PE.

Ethan – I played football at lunchtime.

Casper – I loved Art when we played with the colour sticks.

Juniper – I loved Art! I got to draw a rainbow and a heart.

Indigo – I like Jose because he is so nice.

Ethan – Jose is the best because he teaches us.

Angus – I like Jose because he lets us go to recess.

1/2

Kylee gave me the honour of taking her 1/2 class on Wednesday morning. I would like to thank River for all his ongoing support in reading the visual timetable, and a big shout-out to Hugo for his 'getting it done' approach to the writing task. It was great fun to spend time with all the students

3/4

I interrupted Lucinda’s class today to hear about all the great things the students have been doing at Newlands this week. There were lots of hands up and lots of agreeing, nodding heads. Before we read the comments, I watched the Maths Daily Review, where students were engaged, sharing their answers and supporting each other.

Mei – We wrote a story, which was really fun.

Arayana – Art was really fun; we were being creative with names.

Frida – Music was awesome because it was fun making a mess and then cleaning up.

Milana – The Wellbeing Specialist was great because we played a game about preferences. I chose the dragon over the unicorn because dragons are way better.

Ollie – I liked writing because we read a story and then wrote about what had happened.

Savannah – STEAM was great because we got to explore all the resources. The bee bots were my favourite.

Arthur – PE was awesome because we played three caterpillars. The taggers had to catch the last person in the caterpillar.

Charlie – I love that Lucinda gives us brain breaks. They are sometimes outside, and they’re lots of fun.

Emmy – I like Lucinda because we will be able to discuss Nightrider at some point.

Max – I like Lucinda because she has helped me with my writing.

5/6

I joined Kaya’s maths class, where the students were working on distributive properties to solve multiplication problems. I sat with Austin, who showed me how to do multiplication with decimals. Charlie said that the maths is easy, but the strategy is annoying. Nelly, Austin, and Charlie showed me their work, where they were all equally correct or equally wrong. Paxton, Lenny, and Freddy were telling me about their stories – Paxton and Freddy’s narrative was a horror, while Lenny’s was a mystery.

We hope you have a great weekend!

Thanks,

Luke

Talking the Talk - Vanessa Hamilton