Junior School

PREP AA 

Hello families,

I am hoping you have all been well! 

I cannot believe it is already week nine. The term is absolutely flying by! 

This term, we have enjoyed consolidating routine, expectations in the classroom and moving to socialising in a positive way with our peers. We have been talking about Officer Primary Schools behavioral responsibilities and how to show examples of these inside and outside of the classroom. 

Literacy:

We have officially finished all four stages of Little Learners Love Literacy. Our students this term have shown how well they can absorb and apply new information. We have learnt all 26 single letter sounds and the children have had opportunities to decode/blend/read and  write these sounds with success. 

These next few weeks are focusing on really consolidating those sounds and working on reading, writing and drawing words, sentences and phrases. In our classroom, we have a box full of Little Learners cards that strengthen all three skills, decoding, writing sentences and interpreting meaning from words. The Foundation students have been doing an excellent job at using these to help them form sentences that include a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop. 

What's to come with Little Learners Love Literacy in Term Three.... 

As you can see we have bumped up stage plus four as our foundation group is ready to keep moving! They have loved learning the double sounds and recognizing words that may have confused them initially. 

The rest of Term three will be focusing on adjacent consonants and consolidating double letters and the -s suffix. 

Numeracy: 

In Numeracy this term we have explored collecting data, in our classroom we looked at hair colour, eye colour and collated our data using tally marks. It was amazing seeing students work in collaboration to understand and interpret data and have fun learning new numeracy topics. 

We have also been working on time and how we describe time both at home and at school. Looking at language like before, next and after, morning, afternoon and night. We have been discussing days, months and years to give us more clarity about how we move through time. 

In the last few weeks of this term, we will go back to revising number skills. Working on counting skills, skip counting, building numbers to 100 using MABS and forming double digit numbers. 

Special events coming up: 

End of term assembly: 

We have our End of Semester assembly on Thursday 3rd July from 2.00 - 2.45 at St Margaret's Grammar (Officer Campus). 

Our End of Semester assembly recognises highlights from Term 1 and 2, as well as celebrates the students receiving our Believe & Achieve awards.

Students will walk down to the venue from school with their teachers and classmates for the assembly and then will return to school afterwards.

100 days of school: 

Date: Friday the 25th of July, 2025. 

We are so excited to celebrate 100 days of school with you all in the first week back! It will be the perfect way to kick start Term Three and celebrate all of the Foundation students achievements. This years theme is dressing up as what they would like to be when they are older or as a 100 year old person. 

100 days of school is a milestone that we celebrate as a whole school community, the Preps will enjoy sessions with their buddies, have dedicated time to complete arts and crafts and enjoy games outside!   Over the next few weeks I will talk to students about how they would like to celebrate and send out more communication closer to the date. 

Thank you all so much for the dedication you have put into your children succeeding at school this term, all the children are happy and excited about learning! 

-Miss A and Jacqui. 

Below are some pictures from our last few weeks. 

1/2 BD and LP. 

Term 2 has been a time of excitement and growth amongst the Grade 1 / 2 students. The students have worked hard and continue to build strong friendships and work habits. Thank you for the continued support from home, it truly makes a difference. We wish all our families a safe and restful holiday break and look forward to seeing everyone refreshed and ready for Term 3!

Reading 

In reading we have continued to build on our comprehension skills. The students have been looking at a variety of different texts to support their ability to comprehend and connect ideas within the story. We have explored connecting texts to self, text to text and text to the world as well as visualising when we read. This has allowed students to access stories more purposefully and is great to see their learning transfer into their writing. 

Phonics 

We are excited to announce that we have moved onto stage 7.3 within the little learners love literacy program. Students have started to explore more complex phonemes including, oo, *oo*, le, ow and ou. Our phonics program allows for diversity in learning enabling all students to access and understand the material. Students learn through collaborating and sharing ideas to support and extend their learning. The use of whiteboards, chitter chatter chants, group work and games create a space that is engaging and harmonious for all students. It is rewarding to see the growth for both teachers and students and it is great to hear that parents are seeing the benefits as well!

Writing

In writing we have been interpreting and creating information reports. Our focus has been on the kangaroo! It is amazing to see the engagement in students when exploring facts about a topic. We have been able to learn information through a range of different forums including books, posters, videos and brochures. The students have worked with their classmates to understand and interpret information and have learned different strategies to access difficult vocabulary and/or ideas within texts. Students have been able to break down the structure of an information report and represent their findings within different categories. The students are very proud of their work they have done so far and we look forward to overcoming challenges as we learn to write an information report. 

Maths 

In maths we have been focusing on developing students’ foundational skills in division and multiplication. Students have been able to engage in their learning through greater use of active and hands-on activities. This allows learning of complex ideas to be more meaningful and memorable. The use of tangible objects such as counters, balls, beanbags and toys were used by students when sharing and grouping objects. 

Within our measurement unit we have been able to explore and understand analog clocks. Students have shown an increased interest in reading time as it can be useful for time management and following schedules. It has been great to see their creativity when creating and using clocks to support their learning. 

- Miss D and Ms P.