Secondary 7/8 Learning
Welcome
Year 7 and Year 8 campers arrived back at school yesterday. I haven’t heard any stories yet but I am certain all students and staff will have had a great 3 days away. I am also certain that they all had a warm bath or shower, a dinner with family and a big sleep in their own beds last night. I will include camp reports and photos in the next section newsletter; until then, engage your child in conversations about what they did on camp and their thoughts on their experience.
It is always important to evaluate and reflect after such a fun event; so all students will complete an SWSW within class groups – either individually or in groups as their writing lesson and will participate in camp meetings to debrief and view the many photos that were taken.
Mathematics
Secondary 7/8 classes have now finished working on addition and next week, will begin the connection of addition with subtraction. Students are grouped into small groups to work on activities or tasks set at their progression point of learning. Each maths lesson has: a group working with the teacher who introduces explicit strategies, a group with the aide who follows on from the explicit teaching and a final group who works independently. The independent group usually completes assigned tasks from Mathletics content focus areas; students need to repeat each task until they achieve 100% accuracy and then the can play Live Mathletics. Teachers set further tasks for students to then complete at home, students all know or have their logon details so please encourage them.
Initially in subtraction students will investigate the concept of less and smaller using resources such as counters and unifix blocks. They will then move to practical situations to model and complete simple subtraction problems to 10 and then beyond. As students develop their skills and become more proficient they will solve subtraction problems using a range of strategies including counting on, partitioning and rearranging parts.
Our focus in the Measurement and Geometry strand of maths has moved from time to location. Location lessons will begin in week 6 and will continue until the end of term.
English
In reading lessons students have continued to read a variety of fiction texts. There certainly has been a variety of interests covered in texts read this term. Here are some of the titles of books your child may have read and investigated: ‘Stop Snoring’, ‘Five Seconds to Blast Off’, ‘A trip to Rio’, ‘Broken Arm Blues, ‘A Bad Movie’. Teachers and students work together to choose a text that is interesting and meaningful so that students will be engaged in learning. Comprehension strategies predicting, questioning and visualising are being utilised by students in all reading lessons. Students also participate in guided, modelled or shared reading sessions each day.
Lessons are also focusing on the concepts of print: the front of the book, the back of the book, the title, the text, the direction in which to read (left to right), where to go next at the end of the line and the index, tables and glossary when we study non-fiction text beginning week 7. Students have all now worked through the authorthink circle process and have published at least one narrative. Some students hand wrote their stories while others typed them in a word document. Illustrations were either drawn or pictures/photos that matched the text were copied and pasted from the internet.
The students are very proud of their work, some examples will be on display in our corridor during Education Week so come and have a look. Students will begin informative writing next week!
Social Competencies
Rock and Water Year 7 Boys
The Rock & Water program is an experience that provides boys a pathway to self-awareness, and increased self-confidence and social functioning. Each participant of the Rock & Water program undergoes a journey of self-awareness as they learn about responding to life with either a "rock" or a "water" attitude. The program is excellent in supporting boys in finding their grounding, learning how to centre oneself and learning how to self-manage in social settings.
Year 7 boys are new to this program and have already been introduced to many Rock & Water games, options, strategies and exercises. Each lesson begins with a salute and Kiai, ask your son to demonstrate this to you! Kiai is a sound that denotes harmony and it is said by the boys while standing in the rock and water stance.
Hopefully social skills were put into practise last Sunday when students got to spoil their mums on Mothers’ Day. Many students bought presents for their mums from the Secondary 11/12 shop. Students in SAS then had a lesson on how to wrap their gifts.
Integrated Studies
All classes have investigated the impact the British settlers had on the lives of Aboriginal people. They have watched episodes from the series ‘My Place’ about a young Aboriginal person named Waruwi. In one episode she encounters a cow for the first time and is unsure what to make of it. After seeing some marines and a drummer boy, she returns home to Nana to tell her about the 'ghost people' and the cow. In the second episode she takes a soldiers boots while he is in the water but does not find them to be very comfortable. Observing the camp of the marines, Waruwi is fascinated by one of their musical instruments.
Students completed a t-chart and shared their responses with their class. They had to: ‘Imagine how you would feel if you welcomed strangers into your home and they never left. In fact, what would it be like if they took control of your house and made you relocate far away? What if they abused you physically and financially, and spread disease throughout your community? Can you imagine how this would affect your children and grandchildren’s view of these strangers for generations to come?’
Some classes have begun to investigate the impact of the gold rushes on the development of Australia.
Secondary Spectacular
There is a buzz of excitement going around Secondary 7/8 – the acting roles for ‘Hairspray’ have been announced!
Our cast of actors is as follows:
Tracy Turnblad, Leading lady – Mia G
Penny, Tracy’s best friend - Mia C
Edna Turnblad, Tracy’s mum - Olivia
Wilbur Turnblad, Tracy’s dad - Roger
Corny Collins, Host of CC Show – Ben R
Link Larkin, Star of CC Show – Jake D
Victor, Manager of CC Show - Sam L
Teacher - Ahmed
Student 1/Student 2/ Detention Student - Arsham/Nicola/
WofieLink’s friend - Cooper W
WYZT Manager - Jake W
News Reporter - Luke (Will)
Weather Reporter - Lachlan S
Congratulations to these students, they will begin rehearsals with Vera on Friday afternoons. Laura will continue to work on the finale dance with all other classes and will begin class dances this week.
PreCAL Secondary 7/8
SFC’s term two project is to write, create and film a documentary about Emergency Services. They have been looking at different jobs in our school and the wider community that help us in emergency situations and what we need to do to keep safe.
In writing sessions the students created interview questions to ask Rosemary, our school nurse, and Colin, the chief warden in school evacuations; they then interviewed Rosemary and Colin.
SFC have begun filming their documentary with the help of Ashley from the Discovery Centre. Students will soon be interviewing a police officer and a paramedic about their important role in keeping our community safe.
Karen Hickling
Acting Secondary 7/8 Team Leader