School News and Information

STAGE 1 NEWS:

Welcome to Term 4! We’ve had a fantastic and activity-packed start, filled with engaging experiences for our students. From Outdoor Learning Day, where students enjoyed hands-on activities in nature, to weekly swimming lessons that are helping build water safety skills, our days have been both fun and educational. Our choir has also been hard at work, filling the school with wonderful music. These are just a few of the exciting activities that have made the beginning of Term 4 such an enjoyable and memorable time for everyone.

WEDNESDAY SWIMMING

Each Wednesday for the past six weeks, Stage 1 students have been attending swimming lessons at SportUNE, where they’ve been placed in small groups tailored to their swimming needs. It’s wonderful to see the huge smiles on each student's face as they make strides in the pool. Students are showing their best PAX behaviors, listening carefully to their swimming coaches, and learning essential water safety tips to help them stay safe around various waterways.

SCIENCE

This term, Stage 1 has been exploring the wonders of space! Students have been learning all about the solar system, discovering where the planets are located and how big they really are. As part of their studies, each student is researching a planet of their choice and will be presenting their findings to the class in weeks 6 and 7. We can't wait to hear all about their out-of-this-world discoveries!

We also learnt a clever way to remember the order of the planets and how to tell where each planet sits in relation to the distance from the sun. "My (Mercury) Very (Venus) Excellent (Earth) Mother (Mars) Just (Jupiter) Served (Saturn) Us (Uranus) Nachos (Neptune)"

MATHS

In Stage One, we’ve been having a fantastic time exploring a variety of exciting math concepts! We’ve been busy creating picture graphs and column graphs using our own birthdays to practise collecting and interpreting data. Alongside this, we’ve learned all about the months of the year and how many days are in each month.

We’ve also been sharpening our place value knowledge through the fun game “Mastermind,” where we’ve worked hard to understand numbers in more depth. Parents and carers, this is a great game and so easy to play at home too, so make sure you ask to be shown how!

Last week we also measured things in both informal and formal units. We used things like our hands, pieces of string, classroom items and blocks, to more precise tools like rulers.

All our students have been showing incredible mathematician skills as they take on each new challenge. We are so proud!!

ENGLISH

In English this term, Stage One students have enjoyed exploring The Gentle Genius of Trees by Philip Bunting. This engaging story helped them learn about perspective and argument, and they discovered how text structure and images can strengthen ideas. Students practiced using cause-and-effect vocabulary to make their arguments persuasive and incorporated specific language related to trees. We’re very proud of their hard work! For their final activity, each student created a poster to share their views on the benefits of trees, using images and carefully chosen words to highlight cause and effect, persuasive techniques, and clear arguments.

Below are examples of our cause and effect writing.