Learning Update 

Preschool

We have been learning about what it looks like, sounds like and feels like to be safe and kind at Preschool. Educators and children have been forming trusting relationships as we have explored the children's interests through play. 

Every child is developing their sense of identity at Modbury Preschool as they interact with the space and start to feel comfortable with the routines and expectations. 

We have really enjoyed singing and dancing together this year. We have special songs we use to acknowledge that we meet on Kaurna land and to say ‘Hello’ in the morning. We also have songs for washing our hands and to remember to stay together when we are moving from preschool to the gym, or school playground. 

The children have been sharing their favourite songs with us from home too, helping them share their identity/things they like from home, at preschool. A big favourite has been the ‘Gummy Bear Song’ which has been a great way for us to learn about Rhyming in a way the children are familiar with.

We cannot wait to see where the children will lead our learning for the rest of this term, into term 2.

HIVE (Rooms 6, 7 and 8)

To begin Term 1 in Rooms 6, 7 and  8 we started by establishing predictable routines at school, and helping students to build social and emotional skills. This supported the creation of positive relationships within our hive and the wider school communities. We have developed an understanding of the schools ‘Positive Behaviour Learning’ goals, which are to be safe, kind, and resilient, and looked at what that means in our classroom and whole school context. We have had the chance to participate in a tennis session run by Matt from ‘More Than Sport’, which was great for us to learn some fun tennis games and some basic tennis skills. In Maths, we are learning about the principles of counting and different strategies that can help us to count correctly. In Science, we have been learning about living things and what they need to survive. We have been exploring this through caring for our very own spiny leaf insects! We have also been working with Miss Dilanjili in the school garden, where we are learning about plants and have even planted some capsicum seeds. We can’t wait to see if they grow into seedlings!

Primary Years (Rooms 8,11, 12 and 14)

Room 9

To begin term 1, rooms 8 and 9 worked together to build new relationships and focus on our school values.  In Science, we have been visiting the school garden, where we have planted some vegetables, tidied up Rhiannon’s garden and watered our plants. In class, we have also been learning about greenhouses and living and non-living things.  In English, we are reading our whole class novel “Kumiko and the Dragon”, where we are looking at the features of narratives and using this learning to write our own stories. In Maths, we have been learning about numbers and place value. Some of us have learnt to read, represent, regroup and order numbers up to 10,000!   In technology, we are learning about how to be digital citizens and in Minecraft, with our Room 11 buddies, we are building communities, representing our school values. In HASS, we have been looking at what makes a community, community rules, the types of communities, and what community groups we are a part of and created a timeline of the main events that have occurred in our local community. 

Room 11 - Year 4  

The term began with a focus on being a Class of Kindness in 2024. We came to an agreement of how we would show kindness to others, ourselves and our equipment. We also unpacked the 3C’s school values and the PBL Expectations explicitly through group activities to build our relationships. 

We have experienced a fun tennis lesson with Matt, learnt art techniques with Farah and produced some amazing art pieces and found out about joining the Children’s University. We worked with Scott Rathman from Rusted Tin Contemporary Aboriginal Arts to share our ideas for the First Nations mural that he will paint on the main building. A highlight for students in Room 11 is working with our buddies in Room 9 to share our skills with Chromebooks and Minecraft Education.

Rooms 12 and 14 

Term 1 began with establishing our classroom and school routines and expectations to create a safe, engaging and respectful learning environment. Each day, we discuss the school values and the PBL expectations and how students can demonstrate this within the day. 

In maths we have been learning about place value and the properties of number such as identifying and describing factors and multiples of whole numbers, describing prime, composite, square and triangular numbers and learning a range of multiplication strategies. 

During English, students have enjoyed revisiting the text type of narratives and listening and responding to our class novel. 

Other activities Room 12 and 14 have enjoyed so far include our gardening lessons with Dilanjali each fortnight where students learn lots about the planting, caring and growing of different plants. Further, the Year 5/6 cohort had an information session about camp where they had lots of questions which had some a bit nervous but mostly excited. The Year 6’s also had their Aquatics day where they learned about water safety, snorkelling, sailing, surfing and kayaking- it was enjoyed by all.  

Primary Special Class

Room 10 started the term developing our understanding of our school values. Explicit lessons focussed on safe play and following classroom expectations. The following weeks provided opportunities to learn about Chinese New Year and Chinese culture. We had planned an excursion into the Central Markets to taste Chinese foods, however we had to cancel due to hot weather. A future excursion is to be planned before the end of term 1, when the weather is cooler.

Specialist Subjects

PE

In PE we started by developing and understanding our expectations based on the school values and the PBL values. We went through the Regulation Scale and how students can use short breaks in the “Chill Out Zone” if required. We have had a focus on Invasion sports/activities with years 3-6 classes. The focus sports for these were basketball, which is a court invasion sport, and soccer, which is a field invasion sport. The year 3-6 classes also did fitness testing; the beep test and the grip strength test. This allows the students to have a starting point at the beginning of the year, before we redo the tests again in term 4 to see any improvement made.

The reception to year 2 classes have focused on Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS). So far through term 1 the reception - year 2 classes have focused on Throwing, both overarm and underarm, Dribbling with their feet, Catching, Bouncing, Dodging and Kicking, both AFL and Soccer style. We have done this through a range of different games and activities with a different FMS focus for each week. 

Performing Arts 

To begin Term 1 Expectations were set for all year levels based on our school values and BPL Values. I spent time getting to know students before beginning our Music lessons focusing on Beat and Rhythm.  

Japanese

This term in Japanese we began with setting up expectations in Room 4 with its new classroom layout. We then moved onto revising greetings like ohayo, konnichiwa and sayounara.  The students enjoyed making puppets that bowed like people do to greet each other in Japan. In the second half of the term  we have begun  our unit of learning on the Japanese version of the Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We have begun learning the words of fruits featured in the story in Japanese and then will we be moving towards learning the verb 'to eat' to start writing and speaking sentences in Japanese.

English as Additional Dialect (EALD)

We have collected our first writing sample to LEAP level our students. Teaching staff will be participating in LEAP Level training this year.  LEAP (Learning English - Assessment and Proficiency) is an assessment, monitoring and reporting document for all teachers, which can be used to inform learning design. LEAP is intended to be used to: 

• assess, monitor and report the language development (predominantly focusing on the development of academic language) of any student, in particular high needs students such as EALD students 

• determine the level of student language learning need

identify the appropriate support category to inform and direct allocations of EALD funding 

• inform learning design through the identification of key teaching points in formative and summative assessments, to enable setting of learning goals and language level targets.