Ballan Primary School

Around The Rooms

Senior Team

A very warm welcome back to everyone for what we are sure will be an exciting and enjoyable final term for 2024!

 

Grade 6

We have started our Grade 6 time this term that will see our Graduates working on their memoirs, graduation speeches and designing skateboards as a keep’s sake. Information regarding Graduation will be communicated in the coming weeks. Graduation photos however are happening on Friday next week 25th October at 9:15am.  

 

Grade 5 

Grade 5 time has commenced from Week 1 as students begin developing their leadership skills and speeches in readiness for School Captain and House Captain selections later this term. We have also enjoyed testing out their leadership and problem solving skills during some team challenges like the Spaghetti Marshmallow Tower Challenge! 

 

 

School Concert

School Concert Information

Just a reminder that our 2024 school concert has been rescheduled. The new date is Wednesday, October 30th, at the Bacchus Marsh Public Hall, located at 207 Main Street, Bacchus Marsh.

Doors open: 6:00 PM and the concert begins: 6:30 PM (students need to be there by 6pm to get organised for their performance).

Additionally, this year as the concert is offsite, we need to be advised of who will be taking your child home from the concert. Please indicate to your child’s teacher by Tuesday the 29th of October for our records on the night.

On the night at the conclusion of the concert, we will nominate an area or areas for students to be collected in class groups. There we will tick them off on a printed roll, to ensure we account for all students before we head off.

 

Dress Code for each grade:

5/6L- Beach theme unless you are a hula dancer or surfer (think Hawaiian tops, summer dresses, singlets etc.) Miss L has ordered accessories to make our outfits pop!

 

5/6M- Judo/Karate theme (Miss Muir has ordered head bands and arm bands and class have agreed on wearing either all black or white, so the coloured headbands stand out if student has no Judo/karate costume). Absolutely no pressure to go out and buy anything!

 

5/6P- Basketball theme (think shorts, jerseys/t-shirts, sneakers etc. Anything bright and colourful will be perfect!)

 

 

Thank you for your understanding and we look forward to seeing you all there!

Miss L, Mr Petersen & Miss Muir

 

Middle Years 

Welcome back 3/4 families and students to the final term of 2024! We hope you had an amazing holiday and got to enjoy some of that glorious spring weather while relaxing and doing the things you love you do. Teachers are ready and raring to get back to school and hope you are too. It is another exciting term in Grade 3/4 - perhaps the most exciting yet, as we head merrily into the end of the year with all the change and excitement which that time of year brings.

ENGLISH

This term, we will be continuing to read our class novel, Matilda, by Roald Dahl, completing weekly activities to explore its vocabulary and literary features, and we will once again tie in our writing topics to the content, this time refining students’ skills in writing persuasive texts. Choral reading of the text will continue in class time; honing fluency and use of expression when reading aloud, which are important indicators of reading comprehension.

MATHS

Our Maths topics this term include Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and Division, Shape, Location & Transformation, Data Representation, and Chance, with some fun themed activities in the final week/s covering/revising shape, symmetry, tessellations etc. Retention/use of number facts for mathematical fluency remains a big focus and students are encouraged to complete drills and play games (physical and digital) to improve their automaticity and recall. We are aiming for students to be fluent in addition/subtraction number facts within 50 and multiplication/division facts to 10 x 10 by end of year.      

MAPPEN 

Our topic for Term 4 is an exciting one; ‘Frame by Frame’ where students explore storytelling using stop motion animation. The essential questions for this unit are:

  • How can I develop a story that has interesting characters and settings?
  • What are some different building materials and techniques that I can use?
  • How can I use technology to enhance my creativity?

HOMEWORK

Homework will resume in Week 2 with expectations for nightly home reading, spelling and maths practise. It is essential that students develop a strong work ethic and good organisation to support their success through their schooling and beyond. Once again, we will be including Friday Fun Times into our fortnightly timetable to help incentivise students and to reinforce how important it is to read every night, to be organised, and to revise learning to help cement it – especially for spelling grapheme choices and number facts. 

ASSESSMENT

Term 4 is when teachers need to start gathering data for end-of-year reports and there will be assessment items occurring throughout term. It is very important that students are not absent (unless they are unwell), as make-up test time is difficult to schedule.

KOREAN LINK UP

This week, the Grade 3/4 classes are participating in another link up session with our Sth. Korean schools. This link up is a 'talent show' and students will be sharing their skills live (during the link up) or via video. Our next session, a bit later in the term, is a 'jegichagi competition'. This is a traditional Korean game. Our partner teacher has posted a big box of jegichagis to us, so we can practise, and we are trying to learn this skill during our movement breaks. It is really hard! Have a look at the video below 😊

 

Junior Years  

 

It has been so lovely to welcome back our Junior students for the final term of 2024! What a big year it has been so far and this term will be no exception. 

 

We still have lots of new learning coming up in our Literacy and Numeracy lessons, while also revisiting content that we have learned throughout the year. 

 

This week, forms for our upcoming swimming lessons were sent home and this will be a HUGE week for the Preps, Ones and Twos. More information regarding this will be sent home to families when we get closer to those sessions beginning. 

 

We look forward to sharing with you throughout the term and as always, we thank all of our P-2 families for their ongoing support. 

 

We cannot wait to see what Term 4 has in store and look forward to watching our youngest cohorts reach their full potential!