Year 6 Term 1 Newsletter

Meet The Teaching Team

6A - Tom Packham (PLC Leader)

6B - Jason Crebbin

Education Support - Natasha Davy

Welcome to Term 1

Welcome to the final milestone of primary school! We are thrilled to be sharing this special year with your children as we equip them with the skills, confidence, and thinking needed for a successful transition to secondary school. We look forward to seeing our students proudly guide their Foundation buddies through their first year of school, and watching our new school leaders step confidently into their roles. We have no doubt this will be a fantastic year and can’t wait to share the journey with you.

Tom and Jason

 Specialist Timetable

Important Dates

Daily Roll Marking

Student attendance is recorded twice daily (AM/PM)

Our electronic rolls are legal documents therefore we must be accountable for any absences. Please assist with this by informing the office of any absences as early as possible.

Teaching and Learning

Reading

Our students will be engaged in shared and independent reading routines throughout the term. We will be focusing on the comprehension skills of summarising, making connections and inferences as well as building vocabulary and note-taking skills. Our first class novel study is ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry, which will be linked to other independent reading tasks.

Writing

Students will be supported to consolidate and grow their knowledge of different genres and writing structures over the year. Our focus for Term 1 is poetry, with a variety of different styles and skills. Spelling sessions will look into strengthening their understanding of suffixing conventions.

Speaking & Listening

Students will be supported to develop confident presentation skills, with a strong focus on purposeful language choices suited to audience and context, as well as effective use of voice. Through class discussions and thought-provoking conundrums, students will be encouraged to question ideas and justify their points of view. There will also be a strong emphasis on developing attentive and respectful listening skills, practised across a range of learning contexts.

Mathematics

This term, students will also explore place value and the many ways numbers can be represented, including square, triangular and prime numbers, as well as positive and negative numbers and decimals. In addition, students will investigate BIDMAS to develop a deeper understanding of the steps and processes involved in solving number sentences. Students’ understanding will be regularly monitored and assessed to identify individual learning needs and to inform targeted teaching practices.

Humanities

“Who has the power to make change?’’ is our Term 1 focus question for Humanities.  We will be exploring the Federation of Australia and how laws are passed through the government. We will also be researching the major laws that have been passed through Australian history and how they have shaped the way our country is today. Using information we learn throughout the unit we will hold a mock parliament where students will propose a bill to make real changes to our own school.

Wellbeing

In Grade 6, we prioritise promoting our school values through weekly yarning circle discussions and respectful relationship activities. During this significant phase of growth and change for our students, wellbeing remains a high priority. Additionally, we will be incorporating lessons on safe online behaviours. This term, we are focusing on developing COURTESY skills. 

CEPS VALUES

COURTESY    RESPECT    CO-OPERATION    RESPONSIBILITY 

Fortnightly Friday assembly awards will be given to children who have shown personal growth relating to the school's values. To further support the school values, CEPS follows the SWPBS framework, which we refer to as CEPS Positive Behaviours Support. This framework encourages acknowledging positive behaviours displayed by students within the school. 

Your child may receive a CEPS raffle ticket for displaying the expected positive behaviours! Award winners will be drawn and announced during assembly on Friday afternoons. 

Supporting Learning from Home

Homework

In Grade 6, our aim is to help students build independent study techniques in preparation for their further education.  Students are expected to read at home for a minimum of 10 minutes per day which counts towards the 120 minutes of homework per week (CEPS Homework Policy). We also encourage students to make the most of Mathletics by completing at least 30 minutes of activities per week.

In addition to reading and maths homework, students will choose one research task from the list in Google Classroom to complete each week. These tasks are themed around special days and events that relate to each month of the year. This research task will be published in their A5 homework book and turned in to the classroom teacher every Friday morning at 9 am.

Term 1 Additional Information

Headphones

We have some spare headphones in our classrooms but if your child would prefer to bring their own set of ear/headphones, please ensure that you label them. Please note that Bluetooth headphones are not compatible with our school devices. 

Phones and Devices

In accordance with the Department of Education policy, phones that are brought to school must be switched off and handed to the teacher to be stored securely during the day. Students will not have access to these phones until 3:30 pm.

Further, smart watches (or similar) with messaging/calling/photography capabilities are required to be handed to the teacher to safely store while at school. 

Lunch/Snacks

When preparing your child’s lunchbox, if possible please try to avoid nuts as we have children with allergies within the year level and across the school. Fruit break items should be able to 'grab and go'.

Communication

Communication

You are welcome to contact your classroom teacher via email through Compass. Whilst families are navigating the transition to Compass, we are also still using Dojo for messages between parents and teachers at this stage. This is likely to be phased out at some stage this year. We are also still currently using Dojo to share learning updates from our classrooms.

With that said, you are always more than welcome to pop into the classroom before or after school if you have any queries or concerns. 

Whilst we endeavour to get back to you promptly, please understand that we are often unable to check these messages until after 3:30pm. If you need an important message to be passed on to your child, we ask that you communicate this via the office (e.g. to advise that your child will be collected early or by another family member). The office will then pass the message on to your child's classroom teacher.

Compass: Compass is the formal tool for communication regarding attendance, payments, excursions, camps, permission forms, school reports, etc.

Please use Compass to advise the school in a timely manner of all student absences.

Early Pick Up: If you need to pick up your child early, please collect them from the office area and be sure to sign them out. You will require an Early Leaver's Pass, provided by the office staff, before we are able to dismiss students. 

You can also keep up-to-date by using the school website and weekly newsletters:  http://www.cheltenhameast.vic.edu.au