PRINCIPAL'S REPORT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
Milgate Primary School would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land of the Wurundjeri People and we would like to pay our respects to the elders both past and present. Staff, students and the school community understand that we thrive, learn and live on Wurundjeri Country and we stand with all cultures united as one.
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MILGATE GARDEN RENOVATION - Final Call!
Each class has started preparing their garden beds ready for planting next week. Thanks so much to the families who have already donated plants. This is our final call out - please bring in plants to donate to your child’s class on Monday if you can!
From the School Leaders
PERSIAN NEW YEAR | HAPPY NOWRUZ
Wishing all our families who celebrate, a very happy Nowruz. Thank you to Fahimeh, one of our Education Support staff members, for creating this beautiful poster.
YEAR 4 SOVEREIGN HILL EXCURSION
On Wednesday, the Year 4s spent a BIG day at Sovereign Hill! Linked to our current Unit of Inquiry (Where We Are In Place and Time), students were able to see the past come alive as they stepped back in time to life on the goldfields in the 1850’s. Students had lots of fun trying their hand at gold panning, exploring an underground mine on the Red Hill mine tour and watching gold being smelted. During an education session, they learnt more about what life was like back in the 1800’s, why many people have migrated to Australia over the years and how the goldfields attracted many prospectors. We look forward to further drawing on what they learnt from the day back in the classroom and further investigating things that sparked their curiosity.
YEAR 2 DANCE INCURSION
The Year 2 students had their 3rd and final dance incursion, through our inquiry into How we express ourselves. The focus of this session was on Indigenous Australian dance, where our facilitator, Sermsah - whose mob is from the Kimberly region in WA - shared with us how Dreamtime stories can be told through dance. The students enjoyed telling stories and moving like indigenous Australian animals through their dance moves.
We look forward to building on our knowledge of indigenous Australian art forms through our upcoming incursion in Week 9!
YEAR 6 SCIENCE INCURSION
In Weeks 7 and 8, our Year 6 students will put their scientist coats on and participate in an incursion linked to our current Unit of Inquiry, How The World Works. As budding young scientists, they followed the scientific process and investigated chemical reactions when they combined different liquids in test tubes. Our Year 6 students learnt about bases and solids by exploring the PH scale and discovered that different liquids have different densities when they created gradients. This learning experience provoked their thinking and has led to them posing interesting wonderings they’re keen to inquire into throughout our Unit of Inquiry. We are excited to explore these wonderings and are keenly anticipating future hands-on experiences (and experiments!) to facilitate the learning process.
HARMONY DAY DRESS UP | THURSDAY 21ST MARCH
We will be celebrating Harmony Day on Thursday 21st March (Week 8) and encourage all students to come to school dressed in their traditional/cultural clothing or wearing something orange.
EASTER FANCY HAT PARADE |
THURSDAY 28TH MARCH
It is the time of year for students to start creating their fancy/easter hat for our parade on the last day of school. We are hoping that hats will be created from recycled or upcycled materials to reduce our environmental footprint for this event. Hats do not have to be easter themed and there are lots of great prizes to be won.
SCHOOL PHOTOS
Next Wednesday 20 March, we will be having our School Leader, class and individual student photos. The photographers will then be back on Monday of Week 9 to take the Year 6 Leaders, JSC and Environmental Team and sibling photos. We kindly ask that you ensure your children are wearing their full school uniform on the day.
TERM 1 ART COMPETITION
Tamara is running an art competition for Term 1 to line up with International Pencil Day and International Crayon Day at the end of March. All details are in this poster. We look forward to seeing all of the wonderful creations submitted and choosing a winner in Term 2.
NAPLAN
Congratulations to the Year 3 and Year 5 students (and teachers) who participated in the annual National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). NAPLAN tests skills that are essential for every child to progress through school such as reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy. NAPLAN tests are one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process; they do not replace the extensive ongoing assessments made by the teachers about each student’s performance. As IB PYP students, our students are critical and creative thinkers, show curiosity about the world around them, are risk-takers in their learning and have a deep conceptual understanding with a global perspective. These too are essential for every child to learn and flourish.
We would like to thank and acknowledge our Year 3 and 5 students and teachers for their work in preparing for the tests. Students should be really proud that they did their very best and we as a school are proud of them, no matter what the result.
ENVIRONMENTAL TEAM
Hello from the Environmental team! We have 2CD as the winners for this week’s Trash free Tuesday with 7 pieces! They will receive our environmental mascot Ernie the earth for doing a great job at bringing the least amount of trash this week. Good luck to all classes for the upcoming week.
We are super excited to begin work on the classroom garden beds. Thank you very much to families who have already brought in plants for their class.
CYBER SAFETY PROJECT
This year, Milgate is continuing to partner with the Cyber Safety Project, a wonderful program that provides students with authentic learning opportunities that help build them as digital citizens. All students across the school are taught Cyber safety lessons by their classroom teachers, using the engaging online resources from Cyber Safety Project.
In addition to the resources, students in Years 3-6 will have an opportunity to engage with a presenter in Year Level workshops, which will occur on Friday 3rd May.
Websites to help you stay protected and be informed:
DigiKnow Podcast: byte-sized conversations to keep your family safe online
DigiKnow the Cyber Safety Project now has a podcast for families? Byte-sized conversations for parents/guardians and their kids to tune in and start the important chat about building cyber security, cyber safety and digital wellbeing habits. Click on the link below to access the podcast:
SCHOOL COUNCIL
The School Council AGM will be held on Tuesday 26th March at 6pm in the conference room. Parents are welcome to attend. Our new office bearers will be elected and will be announced to the community shortly.