Learning and Teaching
What’s happening in Music at SFS?
Senior Music
In Week 3, the Seniors had their Music lessons in the Community Room. As this year is a Production year, rehearsals will commence in Term 2. As such, the Seniors will focus on theory in Term 1. The element explored last week was Tempo. Tempo describes the speed of a piece of music. The terms taught include Lento, Largo, Adagio, Andante, Allegro, Vivace and Presto. Students were given the opportunity to explain these markings any way they wanted e.g. using percussion instruments, Google Slides, Chrome Music Lab compositions, Google Docs etc. The students will explore four other elements this term and will present one element in their last music lesson for the term.
Junior Music
This week in Music, the Juniors explored the Orchestra. To start the lesson, students sung through their Home Group’s Production Song. The students were very excited to listen and sing along. Students were then able to watch some examples of Orchestras. Students also learned a 4/4 time conducting pattern. The children partnered up and one student played four crotchets on the claves while the other person conducted. They swapped over and eventually presented to each other as a group.
Senior Choir
Senior Choir rehearsals commenced in Week 2. Students have been very prompt in attending rehearsals and are very excited to sing at Imasha’s wedding as well as preparing for school events such as assemblies and masses. The students will be singing at an assembly at the end of the term. The date will be announced soon.
If your child is in the Choir, an Operoo notice has been sent through. Please accept your child’s commitment to the choir for 2023. If you have opted to purchase a Senior Choir top through the school, please place the money in an envelope and hand it to the front office at your earliest convenience. I have made a bulk order of tops which should be delivered in eight weeks. They will be distributed once I receive them.
Production - Roles
Students were given the opportunity to audition for speaking/acting roles in Week 2 of Specialist lessons. Students who were absent have since been auditioned. Children who have a speaking/background acting role have been informed this afternoon.
Rachel and I conducted the auditions together in front of two classes and discussed/assigned roles together to ensure fairness and equality. We were so delighted to see the majority of every class audition. Thus, we added extra parts and still may do so throughout the year where we see fit. Regardless of children obtaining a speaking/acting role, it is stressed that ALL children will be participating in the Production as each Home Group will be singing/dancing to an assigned song.
The advertisement competition will be closing on this Monday, Week 5. The posters that have been submitted thus far are fantastic - well done to the students who have emailed in their posters. We don’t have many posters for ‘Destination Regulation’ - the Junior Production so would love to see some in the next few days. Please send a copy of the advertisement to kgalea@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au before Monday.
Kristy Galea
Music Teacher
SPORTS NEWS
FRIDAY SENIOR SPORTS
GRADE 5/6 TRAINING
The Grade 5/6's started their training for their respective Interschool Sport. It was another hot day, and having camp at the start of the week, I commend each teacher and student for their enthusiasm on their allocated sport. Teachers went through the rules and skill with each student and ended with a game against each other.
GRADE 3/4 RUGBY CLINICS
Thanks to Ali from Casey Warriors Rugby League Club our Grade 3/4 students had the opportunity to participate in Rugby Clinics. This was an opportunity for students to see if they might be interested in joining the club after school. Thanks to Dan, our coach, the students had a great time!
Please see the flyer in the back of the newsletter advertising a Storm Junior Rugby League Come & Try event at Casey Warriors Junior Rugby League Club situated at Casey Fields from 5-6 pm on Friday 24th February. Parents will need to visit the PlayRugbyLeague.com website. Enter your post code into the Search Bar and then select Storm Junior Rugby League Come & Try – Casey Warriors Junior Rugby League Club to register your child/children. Registration is free as is the event!!!
TWILIGHT SPORTS
Please mark Thursday March 9th (5.30 – 8.00) into your diaries. This is the date for our Twilight House Sports this year. Which House will win our Twilight Sports this year? Which House will win the Spirit Award. Students will soon begin to meet in their Houses to practise their cheering. Don’t forget for the sports night your child will need to wear a t-shirt the colour of their House and their sports shorts, skirts or tracksuit and runners:
MacKillop yellow
Patrick green
Bosco red
Teresa blue
Foundation parents and any parents of new students, you should have been notified of your child’s House so you can organise a coloured t-shirt. If not, please contact your child’s home group teacher. If you have an older child, your younger child will be in the same House.
Parents and Friends will also be providing each student with a sausage on the evening and you will receive more information about this shortly.
SFS CROSS COUNTRY
On the last day of term, which will be Thursday 6th April, the whole school will be involved in our traditional Cross Country which will be held here at school. We will be looking for the winning House as well as the winners for each level in the Juniors and age group in the Seniors. We will also be identifying Senior students who will qualify to attend District Cross Country in Term 2.
Lulli (P.E. Teacher)
Giuliana (Sport Administration)
💻 DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Term 1 💻
To start our year, the students have been learning about CyberSafety and how we can keep ourselves safe while being online.
Cyber safety is such an incredibly important aspect of being a part of the digital world. If you haven’t done so already, please make sure that you have read through and accepted the Acceptable Use Agreement (2023) which went out on Operoo.
If you would like to learn more about Digital Wellbeing or to continue the Cyber Safety discussion at home, there are some resources linked here for you.
Seniors:
As our senior students are becoming more proficient online and are participating in games that have multiplayer capabilities it is so important that they are aware of what they can do to not only protect their safety but to also make being online a positive experience.
While focusing on online safety, the students learned about and identified what clues their body can give them when they feel unsafe, such as butterflies in the stomach, feeling shaky or having a fast heartbeat. When we feel this way it is so important to ‘Stop, Block, Tell’.
The students created their own safety network, writing down 5 adults that they could go to for help if they do ever feel unsafe.
The senior students were then able to explain why it is so important to not share their personal information such as their school, age, phone number, passwords etc while online. The students showed their understanding of this by rewriting two sample posts that gave away too much personal information to make them cybersafe.
Juniors:
This week the Juniors watched an episode of Hector’s World where they learned about keeping their personal information such as their full name, school address, age etc private. They learned different strategies that they could use such as using a nickname when playing games online.
They also spoke about how important it is to be somewhere where they can be supervised when accessing any games or activities online and the strategy of ‘stop, block, tell’ if anything happens that makes them feel unsafe.
To end our session the students created posters for their learning space to promote cybersafe behaviour! Keep an eye out around the school for these posters!
Taryn Bartlett
Digital Technology teacher
tbartlett@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au