Assistant Principal

(Primary)

                                                                   Mrs Leanne Schulz

2022 Primary School Theme

What has been happening in the Primary School? 

Parent Teacher Interviews 

Research shows that students who feel a genuine sense of belonging at school are more likely to do well in school, stay in school, and make healthy choices. This sense of belonging is often described as school connectedness. Parents have a major influence on a child’s sense of connectedness by reading school newsletters, attending parent-teacher-student conferences, contributing to school events, checking out the school's website to learn what is going on at the school, and encouraging student participation in extra-curricular activities. 

Thank you to parents who attended the recent Parent Teacher Interviews, as meeting regularly with your child's teachers to discuss achievements, effort, behaviour, and learning needs has a great impact on a child’s sense of connectedness. Teachers appreciate the opportunity to speak with families about student learning and social developments. 

Prep News

Mrs Natasha Radley (Prep AHOS)

It seems that there is never a dull moment in Prep. The students have been busy learning about many things, including numbers more than and less than, looking at the digraph “ar” as in car, having fun dressing up as 100-year-old people for the '100th day of Prep', writing amazing recounts and learning about how to be a kind friend. 

The students have been reminded about some strategies to be a kind and fair friend. Healthy Harold also reiterated this and the students came up with ideas such as: help someone if they are hurt, include someone if they are lonely, do not bring up something that happened two weeks ago, forgive each other and share.

Year 1 and 2 News

Mr Jevon Scandrett (Year 1/2 AHOS)

Welcome to Week 6! 

Year 1 and Year 2 students thoroughly enjoyed the Healthy Harold incursion. Year 1 students completed the module ‘Ready Steady Go’ and Year 2 students completed the ‘Safety Rules’ module. A highlight was meeting and talking with Harold the giraffe himself! 

In Year 1, students are continuing to work on narrative writing. Students have used story planners, including ‘characters’, ‘setting’, ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ to draw their narrative stories before writing. 

Year 2 students have been thoroughly enjoying their swimming program at Splash. It has been wonderful to see the students build independence in looking after their belongings. The behaviour and attitudes of all students has been outstanding, and it has been a pleasure to witness their enjoyment of the lessons with the teachers at Splash. The swimming program will conclude next week. I would like to thank all the staff involved in the supervision of the program as well as families for supporting their child in bringing their belongings each week. 

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

Year 3 and 4 News

Mrs Anne Adams (Year 3/4 AHOS)

Year 3

Jack J - 3R

This year we did a book competition. The books were very good. We presented our books to the class. There were no violent or scary books, it was all peachy! 

Shazelle O - 3R

We have been learning about chance and multiplication in maths. Chance means the possibility of something happening. The chances are certain, impossible, likely, unlikely and even chance. In 3R we played a chance game called 4 corners. 

Sashwat D  - 3R

In Multiplication to make it easy we used skip counting, arrays, groups of and repeated addition. 

Zynah J - 3R

In Integrated Studies we have been studying Geography. We learnt about BOLTSS. The B is for Border, the O is for orientation, the L is for legend, the T is for title, S is for scale and the last S is for Source. 

Year 4

Eve T - 4S

In Integrated Studies we have been learning about ‘First Contact’. Did you know, at the beginning the Europeans and Indigenous Australians started off on good terms until they realised their lifestyle was being radically changed? 

Stutti J - 4S

The First Fleet departed from Portsmouth in England in 1787 and arrived in 1788 in Botany Bay. There were eleven ships. 

Olivia C - 4J

Comparing is when you find similarities or things that are the same between two things. 

Samuel K - 4J

Contrasting is when you find differences or things that are not the same. 

Millie S - 4J

My favourite genre is horror which has text that scares or terrifies the reader. 

Sarah D - 4J

We have been reading the ‘Burnt Stick’. The main character is John Jagamara. The only reason he got taken away is because he had lighter skin than the rest of his family. One way his mum tried to stop this, was by rubbing ash from the fire on his face. 

Mason K - 4S

The box method is one strategy to do multiplication. You make a grid and split your numbers up to multiply. Then you put it in a vertical addition to find the answer. It is not the most efficient way though.

 Lachlan M - 4S

The vertical multiplication algorithm is the most efficient. You need to make sure you put the zeros in the right places.

Asmin B - 4M 

Healthy Harold talked about medicine because he wants to be a pharmacist. There are good drugs that help you and there are bad drugs that make you drowsy. 

Summer B - 4M

In Life Skills we are making a story for the Preps that will help them with problem solving. We have planned these and we will read these to the Preps once we have finished them.

Year 5 and 6 News

Mr Nigel Keegan (Year 5/6 AHOS)

The Year 5 and Year 6 students have enjoyed a variety of activities over the last two weeks. The Cumberland Dance Party was a highlight, as well as the Year 6 Royal Flying Doctors incursion, and the Year 5 students visit to the Immigration Museum and guest speaker, Abdi, from Somalia.

On Wednesday the whole of Year 5 students got to experience the Immigration Museum as part of our Integrated Studies topic. We learnt about Immigrants who came to Australia. We walked across Sandridge Bridge and did a scavenger hunt finding various information about different countries from the display panels. There were all sorts of sculptures and other sights to see also. We listened to an education talk about different peoples’ stories and were given a ‘passport’ so we could write down information when visiting different rooms in the Museum. We also visited the Tribute Garden and saw names of various Immigrants over the years including ‘James Miller’! We had a fun day and a great experience, and learnt a lot! 

Aaliyah C and Lucy B - 5A  

Eliana K and Sariah E - 5J

Year 5 Photos

Zara G - 6P

On Thursday last week, the Year 6 students had the opportunity to learn about the Royal Flying Doctors Service. The Royal Flying Doctors Service is a community that cares for patients in remote areas in Australia. We got to go on one of their non-operational planes and experience what it would be like for the Royal Flying Doctors while they are doing their job. It was a very engaging and informative incursion. 

Moussa H - 6P

The Royal Flying Doctors is a service that helps people in need who don’t have any medical help near them. The Royal Flying Doctors usually help the people in the outback of Australia. During the incursion, two people who work at the Royal Flying Doctors were Tom and Judy, taught us about their past and stories which really interested us.  

Eva J - 6P

The RFDS is an amazing organisation that works to assist Australians in many ways. They are a 24-hour emergency service that can reach anywhere in Australia, no matter how remote, within hours. Well, what do they do? They help people that live in remote, rural areas such as Darwin and Tasmania as they have no shops, clinics or really anything near them! They fly their plane to the patient’s house to provide medical treatment. They have many other organisations within the RFDS that helps for things such as: dental, eye, speech therapist, and psychologists. They also give out to communities a medical chest that contains 300 different types of medical equipment. Oh, and fun fact, the man on the $20 note, John Flynn, was the founder of RFDS. So next time when you see a $20 note, look at the pictures, it tells the stories of how RFDS was made.

Term 3 Assembly 

We had a wonderful performance from Songsters at the Fairview Assembly this week. Well done to all the students who come to practice each week and take up the opportunity to be a part of this group. Thank you to Ms McCarthy, Mrs Radley and Mr Scandrett who give their time to the Songsters! 

If you are interested in joining us for Chapels and Assemblies, the roster for the remaining of the term is as follows:

Let’s Celebrate Book Week!

This year, Book Week celebrations run from Monday 22 August until Friday 26 August. To celebrate Book Week, all Fairview and Cumberland students will experience a talk by a well-known children’s author and/or illustrator.

• Year Prep, 1 & 2 - Coral Vass  

• Year 3 - Adam Wallace  

• Year 4 - Lili Wilkinson  

• Year 5 - Nova Weetman  

• Year 6 - George Ivanoff  

Further to the talks, to celebrate Book Week, all Primary students are invited to dress up as their favourite book character on Friday 26 August. Students can wear their outfit all day and Fairview students will have a parade. If students choose not to dress up, they are required to wear school uniform. Fairview parents are welcome to join in the celebrations on Friday 26 August at 2:10pm in the Chapel and Performing Arts Centre. Younger siblings are invited to dress up as a book character and join the parade.

In addition to this, on the same day, Cumberland students will have a Book Week Quiz in period 3 (11:20am), in the Chapel and Performing Arts Centre. The student shortlisted picture story books and winners will be announced at that time. Parents are welcome to attend. 

Thank you for your assistance in making your child’s day special and memorable. We look forward to celebrating Book Week with you and your children. 

Uniform Reminders 

A gentle reminder that it is a College expectation for blazers to be worn to and from school. Parkas are only to be worn outside. Hair must be tied up fully in the Primary school for health and safety reasons and it also prevents the spread of head lice. There should be no jewellery, with the exception of one stud or sleeper in each ear and a watch. Nail polish is not to be worn. Leather school shoes must be worn with the uniform and not black runners. Thank you for supporting the College uniform expectations.  

Cumberland Dance Party

The Cumberland Dance Party was a huge success! The Year 3-6 students had a ball dancing the night away. A very big thank you to Josh, our DJ, who kept the music pumping! The night was such a success due to the hard work and effort by the Parents & Friends Association. Many teachers also came along to help with supervision. Thank you all for providing such a great night for Cumberland students!

Community Service 

The Year 6 Community Service Captains, Eva J and Roman P, with the help of Scarlett P from Year 4, would like to assist people in need. They are asking Aitken families to support a Food Bank Drive, so that donations can be delivered to their local church. A box has been placed in each Primary classroom with a list of suggested food items and goods. During the last week of term, Eva and Roman will collect all the boxes and organise delivery. 

VCAL students need your donations! 

The Year 12 VCAL students will be gathering clean, pre-loved JUMPERS, BEDSHEETS, BLANKETS and TOWELS to donate to the Cat Protection Society or upcycle old materials used in the items listed above.  They are going to make pet beds from old jumpers, use the materials in sheets to produce threads for making bathroom rugs, pet blankets etc. before the end of Term 3. Unwashed goods CANNOT BE USED. This project is linked to WRS (Work Related Skills) and PDS (Personal Development Skills) subjects.

All acceptable items will be collected at the College Administration building (Reception) and Senior School office. 

We hope to gather a large quantity yet quality of pre-loved clothes so we can recycle the material, as well as blankets and towels to donate to the Cat Protection Society Greensborough on behalf of the Aitken College community.  We don’t mind if the clothes have a few holes in them, as long as they are clean! 

Ms Mona Harsan and Year 12 VCAL students