Year Eight 

Mathematics

Welcome to our first official Newsletter post for 2023! It has been a successful start to the year where we have set class expectations and began assessments through the online platform Essential Assessment, to understand our students individual learning needs. This information will be used to tailored out learning programs, as well as guide our students during Goal Setting to set and achievement personal learning goals. 

To begin the Term 1, we will be exploring integers through addition, subtraction, multiplication, division before moving onto index laws. During our sessions, we will have a focus on differentiation through teacher focus groups and open-ended tasks. Students will have a large focus this term on Number and Algebra, before moving onto Measurement and Geometry and Statistics and Probability in Term 2. 

The main textbooks used in Math is “Jacaranda Maths Quest” and it is supported with the  online resource, JacPLUS. We will be using both the online tool as well as the textbook in class. Parents are encouraged to send their parents with their own Macbooks and resources ready for their learning in Mathematics. 

We look forward to a successful year about all things Mathematics and please keep an eye out for our fortnightly newsletter posts for further updates and information. 

Kind regards, 

The Year 8 Mathematics Team

Nesan Naidoo, Yidan Luo and Dylan Haeusler.

Science

The Year Eight students have made a great start back to Science this term. We have started in our 'First 20 Days' with Introduction to Science, where students are focusing on the hazards in a laboratory and the different equipment that they will be using. 

Students will be gaining their Bunsen Burner licences in the next fortnight and learning how to write a practical investigation using the correct Scientific method. 

Our text book for this year is "Jacaranda Science Quest 8" and we will be using the online tool JacPLUS to complete some tasks. 

We are looking are forward to a successful year this year and hope that the students enjoy Science this year.

Sara Martyn and Christina Hage

Humanities 

What responsibility do people have to minimise their harmful impact on the land they live on? This question drives our students look into Geographical skills and concepts this term. Students have had the chance to steer their inquiry towards landscapes which interest them (Rainforests have been very popular!) and have begun to analyse the global connection between multiple landscapes. Students will practice their geographical skills and be given multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of our Statement of Inquiry. 

Students exploration is strongly supported through the use of the Jacaranda textbook and JacPLUS, the online platform, which will give students an interactive, fully immersive, educational opportunity that they will not want to miss!

Health & Physical Education

The Year Eight students have transitioned into Secondary Physical Education extremely well. We started the term with Minor Games and are currently completing the Beep Test. Everyone so far has participated and gave it their best shot. Students have all been determined to beat their scores from previous years. Students over the term will be looking at Athletics and participating in variety of events like Shot Put, Discus, Javelin, High Jump, Long Jump, and Running Events.

For Health students are currently looking at essential agreements. Students are developing their own Essential agreements for Physical Education on what expectations we need to follow to improve safety and fairness amongst everyone. Students will be looking at Nutrition throughout Term 1, inquiring at how we can improve on making healthy choices. 

English

Year 8 English has gone off to a great start, with students getting back into the groove of the school routine.

In class, we’ve been thinking critically about how the English subject applies to everyday life and the student’s futures.

Different classes had various ideas about this, but they all came away with the understanding that English is how we communicate with others, and by improving our English skills, we are able to understand others and make ourselves understood better.

Some students have already started on our feature novel for this term: “The Simple Gift” and some have even managed to finish it already.

We look forward to covering this short novel and using more of the online JacPlus resources this term.

Spanish

¡Bienvenido al año académico 2023!

I hope all our Year 8 students and their families had a restful and rejuvenating holiday break.

Our Year 8 curriculum starts with Unidad Uno: Como Soy. In this Unit of Inquiry students will revise skills and knowledge from last year related to expressing personal details about themselves. We will also expand on this by learning how to describe physical appearances as well.

Students will have the opportunity to reflect on the ways that the physical appearance of an individual can influence how they are perceived by different audiences. We will also look at how our physical appearance can influence our personality and how we perceive ourselves.

Year 8 students will also be exposed to different digital tools and platforms that will enable them to up-skill in the domain of digital literacy. This is intended to reflect the the ways in which our communities are globally connected and how communication can help us navigate these relationships.

¡No puedo esperar!

Profesora Hewat