Senior School News
Time is flying in the senior school and we are loving every second of it!
We kicked off last week with some of our middle and senior school students representing Sacred Heart in the Dendy Inter-school Swimming Carnival. All students did an amazing job and we are very proud of them for challenging themselves and giving their best effort. Clubs have started up again and it is inspiring to see such a huge turn out by our senior students.
The Colour Run was a huge success to close out last week. It was great to see the students getting involved and raising such a huge amount of money. A huge congratulations and thanks goes to Dara Blake and Pam Moore for organising this event.
We congratulated and sent off Mr T last week as he began his well earned time off. He is getting married and we wish him all the best for his next chapter. In his absence we are very lucky to have Lisa Biffin working upstairs in 6T for 4 weeks. She knows the students very well and has slid in effortlessly in Mr T’s absence. We will welcome Mr T back just in time for camp!
We have had our Grade 6 student leaders step up over the past weeks and get into some of the junior classrooms to run lessons and help out with our Shrove Tuesday Fundraiser. A special shout out to our R.E student leadership team who helped organise these special events; Alice Butterly, Johnny Simon, Angus Stewart and Joel Begg you all did an incredible job and showed excellent leadership skills. We look forward to getting more of our student leaders into classrooms in the coming weeks as we know they have some big plans in place for what they want to achieve.
In Maths over the past two weeks we have started our “Catch Groups” across both 5s and 6s. Catch groups allow us to target teach specific learning outcomes with each teacher having a different focus. Students were allocated to groups based on their understanding of those specific learning outcomes as stated in their data from their pre tests and these groups will change each week as the teachers focus on new learning outcomes. The past week and the coming week has been all about fractions.
In English we have continued with the Spelling Mastery program and it is beginning to feel like part of our regular routine. The students (and teachers) have all gotten their heads around how it works and we are already noticing a big difference in the students' spelling abilities. Our comprehension texts have shifted to those about government and we are currently integrating our R.E and writing programs as the students write their script for the Stations of the Cross.
Our R.E focus has been exploring the scripture related to the events of holy week and the stations of the cross. The students have done a great job interpreting, summarising, comparing and contrasting the stories across the different Gospels and are currently in the process of writing scripts that convey the key messages of these stories and include the key phrases from the scripture. The Stations of the Cross is another example of the great way our 5s and 6s can still work together within our new structure this year. The groups are made of a mix of 5s and 6s and both the teachers and students have really enjoyed this opportunity to work creatively with each other. The Stations of the Cross will be performed in the last week of school this term, more details will be released closer to the date.
The focus on typing has continued over the past weeks using typingclub.com to assist us on this journey. In addition to Typing Club, we have also had a focus on handwriting as we strive to continue to build their handwriting skills and we are also looking at introducing a coding program using the chromebooks.
A note to all Grade 6 families, stay tuned for some additional information coming out soon regarding our grade 6 camp to Canberra in week 10 this term. This will include the “what to bring” list. Please look over it with your child.
Finally, the Grade 5s have been busily preparing for NAPLAN. They are having a practice NAPLAN test on Monday. This practice test is just an opportunity to ensure the students are comfortable with the devices that will be used and the types of different ways you answer questions on a chromebook compared to an iPad.
That’s all for now, until next time,
The Senior School Team
Jayne McKay jmckay@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
Trent Thiessens (no emails while on leave please, you can send them to Jayne McKay)
Dara Blake dblake@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
Simon Brown sbrown@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
Lisa Biffin lbiffin@shsandringham.catholic.edu.au
