the Nor'Wester

school life

passion project 

Hi my name is Lila I am a year 6 student in class 5/6 TP. This term we are all doing a passion project. For my passion project I have chosen to help people in need.  To do that I am coordinating a food drive. The food drive will be happening from the 21st of nov to 5th of dec.       

I have put boxes for non-perishable food and toiletries items. The boxes are located at the front of the office. So, if you could please go through your cupboards and find items such as pasta, canned food, rice, UHT milk, juices. shampoo, conditioner, feminine hygiene products, deodorant, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and dental floss.    All donations will go to the Food Bank Victoria for people in need and will be much appreciated.    

 

Thank you,

Lila 

appreciation of above-and-beyond

This week’s appreciation likely comes as no surprise; we know here at BNW that Kris is a very special person in the lives of many students, staff and Parents or Carers. Sprout is so much more than a canteen; it doesn’t just feed us, it nourishes so many individuals and families across our community. Sprout’s business model is not about making a massive profit, but to provide benefits to our school and community that money simply cannot buy. Sprout has evolved over many years, and whilst Kris was not the first manager of the space, she has addded a level of value beyond anything we had imagined.

Kris, I want to thank you for the care you provide our whole community. I want to thank you for the individual knowledge you hold about each of us and how you use this knowledge to tailor your care and service. I want to thank you for always being willing to support the school in its endeavours and for proactively thinking about how you, and Sprout, can collaborate and ameliorate school events. Thank you for being a trusted member of our community, always ready for a chat, a compassionate shoulder to cry on or a beaming face to laugh with. Thank you for demonstrating such exceptional practice that other schools and local councils seek to find out more about Sprout’s philosophy and way of being. 

Oh! And thanks for the fabulous food, too <3

capital works

I know this section of our newsletter has been a bit quiet lately; after the flurry of consultation and early design, the observable progress slows slightly. On Monday of next week I am attending a meeting for further updates on our progress to complete the AMP2 Report and will communicate a detailed update in next week’s newsletter, including a timeline for the milestones still to come.

sustainability corner

Back in 2004, AMCS created Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide in response to demand from ocean lovers like you around the country. It’s Australia’s only independent, credible guide to sustainable seafood. 

Today the guide you helped create is getting a makeover, making it much smoother to use. 

The Guide is now called GoodFish: Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide.

They’ve kept everything you love about the old Seafood Guide. It still includes traffic light ratings for over 170 wild caught and farmed fish, and all the information you need to choose wisely when buying fresh or cooked seafood. 

Their new website is much more mobile friendly, so you can use it at the seafood counter or restaurant, when you need it most. GoodFish is also available as a free app on both iPhone and Android.

 

Explore the new website today!www.goodfish.org.au

 

THE VIC BAG BAN- 

The Victorian Government implemented a state-wide ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags on 1 November 2019.

The ban applies to ALL retailers – including supermarkets, greengrocers, bakeries, pharmacies, clothes stores, restaurants, cafes, markets, food outlets, and many more.

You can report a business if you believe they’re not complying on - https://vicbagban.com.au/ 

You can also find out more information on https://vicbagban.com.au/

bahasa Indonesia 

This semester foundation, junior and middle school students enjoyed an incursion (senior school students had an excursion in Semester 1 instead to see the popular Indonesian movie “Little Chiefs” as part of the Indonesian Film Festival). Foundies had gamelan workshops and showed us how well they played in a performance at the end of the day. Juniors did dance workshops and donned colourful costumes to also perform for us at the end of the day. Middle school students watched a shadow puppet show depicting popular children’s fables from Indonesia then each made their own shadow puppet. These were all great opportunities to have some hands on experience of the richness and diversity of Indonesian culture.

Students in Junior Indonesian are also thoroughly enjoying learning about Nyepi – Balienese New Year. They have learned about the famous ogoh-ogoh parade that takes place across the island. People carry  large handmade creatures/ogoh ogoh through the streets accompanied by gamelan music. Ogoh-ogoh monsters are then destroyed or burnt at the end of the parade to get rid of the evil spirits. We love saying the Indonesian word for Monster : “Raksasa”  with monster actions.

 

BANYAK TERIMA KASIH

Nadia and I have a lot of people to thank for their support of the Indonesian program this year.

Thanks to all our Indonesian families for their time and support this year, in particular Esti for donating bilingual picture books to our library, Ratih for donating some traditional clothing for the younger children to wear and Rosa for her wonderful dance performance and at our Independence Day school assembly.

Thanks to Cath Daniels who has volunteered weekly this semester helping out in some of our foundation classes – having an additional speaker of Indonesian (not to mention an additional pair of hands) in the foundie classes has been a real asset and the children have really enjoyed having her in their classes.

Finally, a really huge thankyou to all those teachers who let Nadia and I take over their classrooms once a week! We try hard to leave classrooms as we found them but the constant stream of different units moving through the classroom during the day inevitably means that occasionally things will be disturbed or left behind. We both really appreciate your tolerance and patience in letting us use your teaching spaces.

All the best for the holidays a head and SELAMAT TAHUN BARU (Happy New Year): cool fact – Indonesia has four public holidays for New Year’s Days (Western Gregorian New Year, Chinese Lunar New Year, Balinese New Year and Islamic New Year).

Salam hangat,

Ibu Kas & Nadia

math

What’s the Big Idea?

 

Have you checked out the curriculum? It is HUGE! If you haven’t, here it is: https://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/mathematics/curriculum/f-10

When we spoke at our information afternoon last week, lots of parents wanted to know what we were actually teaching. What happens in that big building when your kids go inside at 9am?

WELL! Next year, it will be a little bit different. Jessie and I have been working hard on all things curriculum this year, and we have discovered that the curriculum is HUGE and it is impossible to cover everything, and do it well, on top of all the other learning we need to do! Which is why next year, we are giving teachers permission to slowwwwwwwwwww downnnnnnnnnnnnn and make sure we are covering those essential learnings that underpin everything in maths.

Number is a big part of maths and without having a strong understanding of number it is hard to do other topics. How can you count money if you are unsure about the number sequence? How can you measure if you can’t recognise numbers? There are so many things that would be tricky or impossible if you don’t have those foundational number skills. Which is why the focus for next year is on the Big Ideas in number.

So what are the Big Ideas you may ask?

They are:

Trusting the count.

  • Knowing that when you count a collection of things, every time you count it it, the amount will stay the same.
  • Students can draw on mental objects when thinking about numbers up to 10
  • The ability to see numbers in terms of their parts. Eg: 10 is 6 and 4, 5 and 5, 8 and 2

 

Place value.

  • Students see 10 ones and 1 ten, 20 ones as 2 tens, 30 ones as 3 tens etc.
  • Students understand that 10 of these is 1 of these.

 

Multiplicative thinking

 

Partitioning

  • Students make connections to fractions, decimals, per cent (moving past multiplication)
  • They can solve simple proportional reasoning problems

It may seem like this is really trimming it back, but again, they are essential learnings for ALL students and it is important that ALL students have a really strong understanding of these topics. It doesn’t mean that we won’t be covering other topics, but we will be doing those in a different more real life way.

Topics such as measurement, statistics and probability, money and shape will be covered in a more project based, inquiry style way of learning which means they will be covered in ways that we actually use in our real life. After all, our job is to prepare students for the big wide world and the big wide world is filled with maths!

This is just a quick overview, and the nitty gritty of teaching it is going to go into more detail. However, this is an overview of our 2020 focus and will hopefully give you some hints or suggestions on conversation starters at home or activities to play.

The main message I want you to take from this article is that BNWPS is committed to making sure all students have those core fundamental skills before they move on to the following grade. We are also committed to continue to extend capable students and to provide additional supports for students who are having difficulty grasping a certain topic. We believe that by focusing on the Big ideas we can do more targeted teaching and plug any gaps in those fundamental learnings that are essential for maths!

 Keep reading the newsletter to hear about other things we are covering in maths at BNWPS.  If there is a particular topic you’d like to read about, please let me know via this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScMu0qeE7PhvbkuK-7SpE3sjNMz5cOc_FVPXiPA4lvq4qDNXg/viewform?usp=sf_link

and I’ll make sure I write about it in an upcoming newsletter.

 

Have a great weekend,

Jessie and Alice