Primary

                                                                   Mrs Leanne Schulz

Assistant Principal (Primary)

Welcome back to Term 3 and the winter weather!

A warm welcome back to Mrs Gemma Jones who is sharing Year 5A with Mrs Nicole Gilbert, and to Miss Bianca Accurso who is sharing Year 6A with Mrs Emma Dowling. Ms Isabel Monroy has taken on the responsibility for teaching Spanish from Years 1-6 as Mr Martinez moved interstate. We are very fortunate to have such wonderful primary teachers. 

Last week, students from Prep to Year 2 were lucky to have a guest author, Kylie Allen, talking to them about the writing process. Kylie Allen the book "Brave As Can Be" that shows children the different ways that they can be brave and courageous. The book promotes inclusivity and diversity. It explores what happens inside of us to push through our fear, self-doubt, and anxiety to do the things that feel hard or frightening. Thank you Mrs Radley for organising this special guest speaker.  

A big thank you to our Primary School Captains, Mia P and Akshaj M, who reminded students at last week’s assembly about our College values and then focused on what ‘respect’ means.  

Here is their script. 

Mia  

Good morning Cumberland students, teachers, staff and families. 

Back in Term 2, our topic at assembly was based on the College Values which comprise of Compassion, Excellence, Honesty, Kindness and Respect. 

Let’s revisit the general meaning of our values.  

Compassion means to care about others and to be genuinely concerned about the other person or people's needs. 

Excellence means to produce quality work, to have high standards, and to have pride in what you do. To achieve Excellence, you are willing to focus and work hard to achieve these results. 

Honesty means to be truthful and faithful in what you say and do, rather than lying, stealing, cheating or being jealous. It is also the base of a trusting relationship. When you are honest, people can rely on you. 

Kindness means to be courteous, generous, helpful and understanding of others. A kind person shows genuine and considerate concern for people without expecting anything in return. 

Today we will be talking to you about our final value, ‘Respect.’ 

Aka 

What is Respect? The Oxford dictionary defines respect as: A feeling of deep admiration for someone, or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Very wordy and confusing, isn't it? Let's talk about Respect in simple words. 

My Grandma once said to me that to be successful in life, I should always remember “Give Respect, Get Respect”. It did not make much sense to me back then but now I understand what she meant. Respect is in two ways: Showing Respect and Having Respect. 

Showing Respect is when you care how your actions and thoughts affect others. Having Respect is when you feel or appreciate someone for their kind and thoughtful actions/words. Respect is very important for our overall well-being and success. It helps us to build strong relationships and makes everyone feel safe and motivated.  

Let’s integrate Respect in our lives and make the school environment safe and peaceful for everyone.  

Mia 

Respect means that you accept somebody for who they are, even when they are different from you or when you don’t agree with them.  Respect is caring how words and actions may affect others. When you're respectful, you show consideration, admiration, regard and appreciation for someone or something. Respect is important because it means we treat others the way we want to be treated.  

Some ways you could show respect are by: 

Being polite and avoid causing disturbance to others 

Listening to others and being considerate  

Lending someone a helping hand, and  

Valuing someone’s feelings and opinions. 

Aka 

We hope that you have now learnt more about the meaning of Respect. 

Mrs Natasha Radley (Head of Year Prep)

It has been a great but busy start to Term 3 in Prep. The students and the teachers have settled in well, getting straight back into school routine. 

Last week the students started their swimming program at Splash Aqua Park and Leisure Centre in Craigieburn. They had a lot of fun swimming with their friends. I heard there were some tired children on Thursday night. 

On Friday, there was a Rhyme Crime in Prep. The rhyme thief stole things from each classroom that rhymed with a clue. The students had to figure out the rhyme clue to solve what was stolen from their classroom. This caused different reactions, from excitement, surprise and questioning. At the end the teachers told the students it was actually the teachers who stole the items and supplied the clues. This Rhyme Crime was a good introduction into the rhyming the students will be doing this term as part of the reading program in Prep. 

Mr Jevon Scandrett (Head of Year 1 & 2)

Welcome to Term 3! 

Year 1 and Year 2 students have already had many exciting learning opportunities this term. 

In Year 1, students are about to begin work on addition and subtraction. Students will begin by using part-part-whole reasoning. Part-part-whole reasoning or the part-whole model is the idea that numbers can be split into parts, which can be used in Maths learning. For example, if the number is 8 the parts could be 4 and 4, 6 and 2, 7 and 1 etc. By using this model, children will see the relationship between the whole number and its component parts, helping learners to make the connections between addition and subtraction. 

In Year 2, students are working on narrative writing. They are revising the elements of narrative and will begin to write their own pieces over the coming weeks. The Year 2 swimming program will commence in Week 5. Further information will be emailed to parents in the coming weeks. We are looking forward to this exciting time! 

As always, your first point of call should always be your child’s homeroom teacher, followed by me as the Head of Years 1 and 2. 

Mrs Anne Adams (Head of Year 3 & 4)

Welcome back to a jam-packed term for Year 3 and Year 4. This term Year 3 will be exploring Australia and the neighbouring countries around it. Year 4 will be researching the history of ‘First Contact’ and the impacts of colonisation on the Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islander peoples. A big thank you to the parent volunteers who give up their time to come into school to help in the classroom. We appreciate your help.   

Student reflections:

Sienna C (3A) – Today we are listening to Class Captain and Sustainability Captains make their speeches. We choose and make a vote. We are only meant to choose one. The votes are counted. Mr Abou-eid then let’s us know who are the new ones.  

Ava G (3A) – In Life Skills we are learning about being assertive. When you are assertive, you be nice and you tell people what you are thinking but in a nice way. If you are bossy or aggressive, people don’t listen to you and don’t want to play with you.  

Lana N (3A) – In Maths we have been working on arrays and equal groups. We have also been learning out times tables. I like Maths.  

Mehreen S (3T) – I like Maths as well. I learnt vertical multiplication. It is really fun.  

Manishi R (3T) – I love Maths. We are learning about multiplication. It is easy and I love the games.  

Ashar R (3T) – I did a speech for the Sustainability Captain. I liked to hear my friend’s speeches too. I hope I am voted in for Sustainability Captain.  

Samarveer M (3W) – In Maths we are doing multiplication using different strategies like arrays and equal groups. We are also researching landmarks and learning technical words that have to do with what we are researching.  

Ronia J (3W) – Today we learnt something new in Maths. We learnt how to multiply vertically. I love it! Outside we play ‘piggy’. It is a bit like chasey.  

Freya P (3W) – I really like multiplication in Maths. We learnt lots of new strategies to use. My favourite subject is Integrated Studies. We get to learn about different places and things related to it. We are learning about regions.  

Luka O (4M) – Lately for the past week in Maths we have been learning about the highest common factor and the lowest common multiple. The highest common factor, you pick two numbers and you have to find the highest factor by skip counting.  

Chloe P (4M) – For Integrated Studies we are learning about the history of the different languages of the Indigenous people before we came here. There were more than 250 languages before colonisation. We looked at a map online.  

Alyssa R (4M) – Lately in reading we have been reading ‘The Burnt Stick’ by Anthony Hill, and learning how to work in Reciprocal Reading groups. A clarifier finds out phrases and words that the group doesn’t know.  

Mikayla R (4R) – In reading we have been learning about John Juggamara and his back story about how he was taken from his home by the British people. It is a good book. The book is called ‘The Burnt Stick.’  

Ryan S (4R) – In sport we are practising orienteering for the real competition which will happen in two weeks. People are excited about it. My partner last week was Deniz.  

Ashmik S (4R) – In Maths we have been doing factors and also prime numbers. A prime number is something that can’t be divided by other numbers except itself and 1.  

Emily T (4S) – I play with Emilia, Monique, Heerat and Saige. We chat and tell jokes. Monique is the craziest! She makes me laugh.  

Vesna K (4S) – I am enjoying Aitken College and my classes. I play with Emily and Amelia. We sit and talk at recess. Amelia and Monique make me laugh.  

Elijah T (4S) – We are currently learning about multiplication. We learn about factors and play multiplication games.

Mr Nigel Keegan (Head of Year 5 & 6)

It has been an excellent start back to school, and we are excited to see what our Year 5 and Year 6 students will achieve over this semester.  

During the coming weeks, Year 5 students will be engaged with many topics including informative text writing, fractions and decimals, group novels, and working through Integrated Studies topics on animal adaptations and Kitchen Garden.  

In Year 6 students are working on informative texts, reading comprehension skills, and justifying ideas and opinions in English. In Maths, this term’s focus is on angles, fractions, decimals and percentages. Students are also about to commence ‘Earthcraft’ during Integrated Studies which promises to be a fun and engaging problem-solving topic! 

Melbourne Zoo 

We had a brilliant day out this week with our Year 5 students at the Melbourne Zoo. It was a great opportunity to build further knowledge of ‘animal adaptations’, this term’s Integrated Studies topic. Students explored the different zoo environments, learnt about the giraffes and lions from the zookeepers, and gathered plenty of useful information during the ‘Animal Adaptations and Features’ workshop. 

Assembly Roster 

We welcome parents to Chapel and Assembly. Below is the Assembly roster for Term 3. 

Important Dates