Round the classes

Reception: Katie

The Receptions have been very busy preparing our item for the end-of-year Christmas concert. In phonics, we have been busy learning our final sounds, as well as learning how to create a basic procedure text. In maths, we have been learning about shapes and have discovered that shapes are all around! In HASS, we have been learning about celebrations, and this week we looked at the different ways Christmas is celebrated around the world. We have also been busy making Christmas gifts for our kindy friends. Last week, we were very excited to meet our elves, Tinsel and Candy Cane, and each day we have been enjoying seeing what naughty things they have been getting up to each night.

Reception/Year 1: Jaya

We can’t believe we are already nearing the end of the year! What an amazing, exciting and jam-packed year of learning and growth it has been for our Reception/1 class. Christmas has arrived in our room, with decorations, our Christmas tree, letters to Santa, and lots of festive craft.

Some student highlights from the year include:

Henry W: “I liked Sports Day, doing the high jump and long jump.”

Edie: “I loved doing my animal project because I got to find out lots of information.”

Laura: “I like doing phonics and learning new sounds.”

Jayden: “It was fun practising for the end-of-year concert.”

Aurora: “I enjoyed doing new learning this year, like maths.”

Dev: “I have liked PE and learning the skills before we play.”

We are looking forward to a well-earned holiday full of rest and family time. We hope everyone has a wonderful break!

Year 1/2: Kelly

In literacy the children have been doing some poetry and word clouds to link in with their revision of sounds: ou as in house, ow as in cow, oa as in soap, ow as in blow, ar as in car, are as in square and air as in chair. We have learnt three-word form poems (Three words per line. The last two words can become the first two in the next line), acrostic poems and rhyming poems. They have also created word clouds (Word Clouds allows players to type or paste words into a box and then generate a visual representation of their text.) where they have had to think of as many ow, oa, ou words as they can as well as describing words for an animal eg. cat, dog, fish or bird.

Year 2/3: Emma

It’s been an exciting and engaging fortnight, with so many wonderful things to look forward to! We have enjoyed reading a range of information reports and learning how to summarise them in our own words while answering questions related to the texts.

In Maths, we revisited time - exploring how to interpret analogue clocks and how we use time in our daily lives. Students also had fun interpreting data and grouping items into different categories.

We have been diving into daily concert practice and have loved singing and dancing like chickens! A weekly highlight continues to be our fitness games, which build teamwork, strategy, and encouragement. It’s wonderful to see how positive and connected all students are during these activities. They carry such a strong sense of pride and belonging within the class, and it has been an absolute pleasure spending most of the year with them.

Enjoy the holidays, everyone—wishing you all a wonderful and refreshing break!

Year 3/4: Stephen

We have spent lots of time going over our roles for the concert item. This has entailed learning acting skills, including never turning our backs to the audience, improvising some of our lines and adding a "new voice and not our own" for the characters we play. We have also spent some time revising previous learning across English and maths. We enjoyed a recent visit to the kindy to sing for the children there. We look forward to the "Movie Day" next week.

Year 4/5: Rachael

A highlight of our term has been the hard work and creative design thinking our students achieved throughout the Naturally Brave Makers Empire Design Challenge. The Showcase at school was a wonderful chance to welcome families into the classroom and for students to share their processes and learning. The Showcase at Stradbroke School was a fantastic event, with students building confidence and courage throughout the day as they shared with adults and students from a range of schools and organisations. We are proud of all of our designers, but especially Klara, Harper and Jacob who won the industry award for their collaboration, design thinking skills and ability to discuss how they linked the wellbeing concepts to their design – a mole which can dig underground to create a safe passage for people in the midst of a natural disaster.

Students have also been enjoying inquiring into life in Australia in the 1800s. We have been studying different groups of people who travelled to Australia, the reasons they came, the conditions and challenges they faced when they got here and their contributions to our culture and society. It has been wonderful to see students developing their own questions of inquiry on topics such as why would free settlers take such a chance to travel so far around the world to the unknown? What was life like for Chinese Immigrants on the gold fields? What was the role of the Afghan Cameleers? How did the role of women change throughout the 1800s?

As the term winds down, we have been enjoying some time to reflect on our learning and favourite memories this year and preparing for the concert. It has been a wonderful term of hard work, growth and fun!

Year 5/6: Sallie

Although some of our formal learning has stopped we are doing lots of activities that focus on oral language, performance and drama skills, team work, resilience, being supportive of peers, prop making and being innovative.

We have had 3 major excursions (not everybody has attended all - but some have). Firstly a group of 12 from our class and a group of 12 from Rachael's class went to Stradbroke Primary for The Makers Empire Showcase. Students had to design and create a 3D model of something that could help a family in a bushfire situation. We had a house that could be raised on springs so the bush fire could pass underneath (Louie, Jameson, Eloise), a ring that when pressed turned into a fireproof dome (Louie, Ashton and Jobe), fire proof scooter for evacuation of vulnerable people (Harrison, Layla, Sophie), compact portable balloon with water sprays and supplies that is activated when a bushfire approaches. Our Bounce excursion.....so much fun and amazing to see some children out of their comfort zone. Lastly, the cricket grand final. WOW....we won the small schools cricket grand final. Lovely sunny day, thoughtful coach, encouraging team mates and very supportive parents. What more could you ask for as an ending to a year that has showcased a lot of sport throughout the year? Next weekend end of year concert and graduation....two very BIG events!!

The Makers Empire Showcase

The Makers Empire showcase was at Stradbroke Primary School. We had to design something that could help people who were impacted by a natural disaster. Our school decided to focus on bushfires. My group's idea was a house on a spring-like scissor lift that would go twenty meters high and was made of grade 410 stainless steel. There were many different ideas to help people escape a fire or protect themselves. It was a truly great experience. There were many different ideas, and since it was my first time, it was even more exciting. There were so many creative ideas, and we had many things to do, like interacting with the other creative displays, giving groups feedback for stamps that led to us getting Makers Empire mini trophies. Some of the ideas I remember were one that had water hoses that would protect the roads as cars went by, another was a couch that opened up to a fire bunker and an idea from our school a mole-like machine that would drill underground and rescue people. This idea got the industry award for our school, and it was Harper, Victor and Klara’s design. Jameson

Sapsasa Cricket 2025 Grand Final

The team travelled to West Beach to vs Stella Maris for the cricket grand final. We won the toss and chose to bowl first. Innes got 2 wickets, and so did Callum. Harrison and Ashton got one wicket. We had to chase all the 111 runs Stella Maris achieved. During the day, it was very hot and got up to 31 degrees. For our batting, Innes and Benno got 25 runs each, and we slowly the team chased down the runs we needed. In the end, it was a nail-biter, and we won by one wicket. There was a ceremony at the end, and because we won, we all got gold medals, and we became the state champions. We would like to give a shoutout to Brad for coaching us from the start and all the drivers who got us to all the places we went. Thank you also to Aaron for scoring or umpiring every game. There were Zooper Dupers at the end that everyone got, and even the other team loved them. Thanks, White family. Harrison and Callum

Hills District Cricket Team

In November, I had two trials in the nets and was excited to get selected for the Hills District Cricket Team. After selection, we had training as a team, got given our uniforms and worked out the order of the batting and bowling. I was in the top 5 batting order. In our first game, I got run out for 3 (and felt really annoyed!), and we lost that game. In the next game, I made 20 not out, and we won. On Day 2, would you believe I got run out for 3 again! And the team lost. In the next game, I got run out for 6, but we won! On Day 3, we played Gawler in Mount Barker. I took two wickets and made 57 not out. I felt pretty good because I hit a 6 to win the game. The level of cricket was a bit easier than I thought it would be, but I need to be more careful with my running!

My Journey

To get into the state athletics team for high jump district athletics, you had to be the best in your age group at the school, which I achieved.

So I then had to win at district athletics to go to the state competition. At the state competition, you had to be in the top 3 to be nominated to go to Nationals Athletics.

State selectors then get to choose. I was chosen!

Then I flew to Canberra for The Nationals competition that went on for 4 days, Thursday to Sunday. Sadly, I hurt myself on Thursday night on my jumping foot. I still jumped on Friday morning, but it just was not my best considering my injury. SA got a few medals, which was exciting.

By Ruby

Science End of Term Fun: Philippa

This week in science, Rachael's and Sallie's classes made and launched vinegar and bi-carbonate of soda bottle rockets! Lila, Ruby and Layla also did a great job of demonstrating a few of them for Stephen's class.

Innovative challenge

This afternoon, students across the school participated in an innovative challenge to invent something to make their lives easier. Here are some photos from classes, and below are the Reception class' ideas!