INFANTS

All classes have been busily getting on with the business of learning, making the most of the last few weeks of the school year. Teachers are working extra hard to complete assessments and reporting while still making learning fun and school a great place to be.

All of our students have had a great time practising and refining their gymnastics skills with Mrs Harpley and her team on Friday this week and last. The set-up in the hall looked so fun as the students entered and they all enjoyed climbing the ladder walls, swinging on ropes, attempting casting and pullovers on the bars, balancing while doing tricks on the beams, somersaulting forwards, backwards and inside out on the floor and vaulting on the mini trap. A huge thank you to Mrs Harpley, Greg and Clair for making this opportunity available to our students.

This week we have wrapped up our Kindy-Start Transition for the year. We can’t wait to welcome out newest students to full-time big school next year as they are such a great bunch who are eager to be here and eager to learn.

Our Year 5 buddies have been exceptional in assisting with the transition program, with each of them spending part of the day guiding activities and supporting our Kindy-start students. Our Year 5 students now know who their ‘buddy’ will be and have begun building strong and supportive friendships with them. Thank you to staff from across our school who have been a part and helped make this such a successful program.

Kindy

Last Wednesday, Kindergarten students arrived at school to notice all manner of strange things going on… it didn’t take long for them discover ‘Wacky Wednesday’ had arrived – as Dr Seuss writes, ‘It all began with that shoe on the wall…’. What fun we all had discovering all the wacky things in our classroom, hallway and around the school!

Mr Jones visited our classroom to read a story called ‘The Detective Dog’ by Julia Donaldson, as this book had lots of ‘oo’ words in it that we had been learning, and it also starred a teacher called Mr Jones. They then completed impressive narrative recounts, with their clever writing featuring compound sentences and great descriptive language – check out some of the pieces our Kindergarten students have written.

In the coming fortnight, Kindergarten will be exploring imaginative texts and discovering ways authors use wordplay to help us build images in our minds. Our focus texts will be ‘Imagine’ by Alison Lester, and ‘Perfect’ by Danny Parker. In Mathematics, we will be collecting, sorting and interpreting data as well as strengthening our time skills.

1/2 Classroom

Over this last fortnight, 1/ 2 have been busy in all aspects of their learning.

In English, we have been looking at persuasive texts and considering some big world problems such as pollution on our oceans. Students have been tasked to use persuasive language in their own texts considering the use of high modality words to convince a reader of their perspective and to create change.

In Mathematics, students have been measuring! We have extended our knowledge to begin using rulers to measure length. Throughout the year, students have so far been using ‘informal’ units of measurement such as paddle pop sticks, paper clips, etc. Each term, we have added to this knowledge and now students can effectively measure with the formal unit of centimetres and metres.

We have been back to STEM this fortnight and have been very excited to have Mrs. Bridge back! Students got their creativity on by building Christmas ornaments out of wood, glue and glitter.

In PDHPE, students are being exposed to various ‘cooperative’ activities. This has included PE games, as well as discussions on how to work as a team in the classroom. Students came up with a list of rules to follow when working in a group and are regularly being given challenges to put these rules into action.

We very much enjoyed gymnastics on Friday and have some fabulous photos to share. It was wonderful to see students challenging themselves on the various pieces of equipment, and not losing heart when certain tasks were hard!

Coming up:

Swim Scheme (year 2) beginning in week 8 (27th November) for two weeks.

Year 2/3

Year 2/3 have been very busy this term, we have all been working hard on our comprehension skills and our reading fluency is coming along nicely. We have been learning to write persuasive texts and some students have tried to persuade Mr Jones to install a swimming pool in the playground.

During our Creative Arts lessons we have starting role playing some well known stories and we are looking forward to working more on these in the next few weeks.

In Mathematics, we have been doing lots of work on place value and multiplication and we are about to start working on measuring length, mass, area, volume and capacity in the next few weeks.

In History, we have been learning about celebrations and commemorations in Australia and we are now going to look at how these are celebrated around the world.

In sport we enjoyed learning how to play touch football ready for the big carnival earlier in the term and last week we had Mrs Harpley and Greg run a gymnastics session for us, which we all enjoyed very much. Year 3 are looking forward to going to Canberra on their excursion next week and Year 2 are excited about their swimming lessons starting on Monday 27th November and continuing every day until Friday the 8th Dec.

Primary

This term certainly feels like it is flying! We have had a fantastic GYM visit from Mrs Harpley and her husband Greg over the past two Fridays and every student from K-6, including our newest Kindy-Start friends, got to experience all that twists, turns, flips, balance, co-ordination, grace and persistence that goes with being a gymnast. The kids, and staff, thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and we must give Mrs Harpley and Greg lots of thanks!

It is report writing time for all of our K-6 staff and that means that the end of year reports will be sent out to parents at the end of the term. These reports take hours and hours, night after night to gather evidence, analyse it, check the indicators and write the report. Myself and Ms Brougham read every single report of each child from K-6, and then Mr Jones also reads every single report also. This gives us a great sense of what each child is achieving at school and their next steps of development. Please take the time to read these reports carefully and discuss them with your children – it’s essential for future success both inside and outside the classroom.

We look forward to our excursion to Questacon, Cockington Green and The National Arboretum next Thursday. Nearly all students are going to attend which is fantastic to see and all of our adults are excited for a great day out. Please remember to wear school uniform shirts, and then safe mufti clothes for the rest. This is just to ensure we can spot children from a distance in public spaces.

If you require any additional information or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email: Jason.stuart3@det.nsw.edu.au

Jason Stuart

Assistant Principal Primary (Relieving)

5/6 Classroom

The year 5/6 class has been working steadily over the past two weeks. We have had a strong focus on English, Maths and Science assessments, plus Miss Green’s assessments in History/Geography and Mrs Crokett’s assessments in Creative Arts and Library (phew!). These assessments will help to form your child’s end of year student report, which I am currently writing. In English, we have finally finished our novel study on RJ Palacio’s ‘Wonder’, and we have started to analyse the film version. It’s always interesting to see creative choices that Directors make to ensure a movie works well! In Mathematics we are exploring Time with Mrs Corcoran who will be with us for some more days as she finishes her University placement. In Science Mrs Corcoran is teaching lessons in physics and matter – lots of learning and lots to do!

Please ensure that you have provided me with 8 photos of your year 6 child for the end of year Graduation ceremony. It takes me a long time to create this video and the sooner I receive the photos the better for me to be able to put it all together.

As always, please get in touch if you require any further information: Jason.stuart3@det.nsw.edu.au

Jason Stuart

5/6 Class Teacher

Assistant Principal Primary (Relieving)

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