Year Five/ Six
Communicating with the Year Five/Six Team
We look forward to partnering with you in 2020, and welcome your input:
Llewela Humphries (Class 56A) Llewela.Humphries@education.vic.gov.au
Gary Monopoli (Class 56B) Gary.Monopoli@education.vic.gov.au
Jessica Cameron (Class 56C) Jessica.Cameron@education.vic.gov.au
Judith Liddell (Class 56C) Judith.Liddell@education.vic.gov.au
Welcome back to Term Four
Mr Monopoli
Hi all parents and carers of 56B. What an amazing job you have done teaching your children during remote learning. They have settled back to school seamlessly. I am so looking forward to building relationships again and developing our academic and social skills that we have missed over the last 6 months. Last week we watched a series of video diaries that kids made and how it has affected kids from every corner of the world. One child said “2020 is a big time in history” and maybe we as adults haven’t seen it in the same way as our children. There are many new skills we have learned, new ways to do things and these can only enhance ours and our children’s futures. Thank you again for enriching the lives of our children during these somewhat unusual and trying times.
Mrs Cameron & Mrs Liddell
What a special week we’ve had. It has been fantastic to see so many faces back in the classroom, ready to learn and socialise! It is the energy and the buzz of the classroom that we’ve missed the most. The students in 56C have eased back into the school setting well and have shown the three R’s most of the time (naturally, some reminders will be necessary as we adapt to face to face again)!
Could you please remind your students of the iPad agreement (attached below) that we sent home at the start of the year so that they are familiar with the iPad expectations at school. It may be hard for them to go from learning solely on a device to now only on a device when instructed. We look forward to the rest of the term!
Miss Humphries
Having the students back in the classroom has been such an uplifting experience. I missed interacting with the kids and building relationships within the room. All students have contributed to class discussions in a positive and respectful manner and completed work assigned for them. 5/6A returned calm and settled and has continued to display a ready to learn attitude. Our classroom expectations have not changed throughout the year and as teachers we strive to make learning appropriate by making personal connections with the kids. Through multiple exposure of topic content we are covering so much in the time we have together.
Pre-service Teachers: Mr Masson and Mr Gale
Welcome back to school, my name is Mr Masson and I’m a student teacher currently completing my fourth-year placement at USPS. It has been so nice to see everyone’s smiling faces as we get back into the swing of things in term 4. I have really enjoyed my first week at USPS, and both staff, and students, have been so welcoming. Looking forward to the next few weeks.
Joining Mr Mop and the students of 5/6B as a Pre-Service Teacher has been an opportunity I could not be more grateful for. With Victorian schools functioning exclusively as online learning programs prior to October, it is fantastic to be able to come into the school and conduct face to face classes with the awesome students of Upwey South! One thing I found unique about U.S.P.S. is their “talk moves” communication system, which has been helpful to both teachers and students during class time. Despite the short time I have been here, I have found myself blown away by the enthusiasm and curiosity of the students in the classroom and the yard.
An Overview of our Term Four Learning
English
Reading - During this term we will be revisiting and learning new skills in our Reading sessions. Students will be covering the skills of: Searching for and using new information, Synthesising, Inferring, Making Connections, Summarising, Monitoring and Self-correction, Analysing, Critiquing, Predicting and Reading for fun. These follow the Fountas and Pinnell teaching model for understanding what we read. It focuses on three main areas: Within the text, About the text and Beyond the text. Our class novel is Jinxed, by Amy McCulloch, which ties in with our digital technologies Inquiry unit, Circuit Breakers.
Writing - During the first 3 weeks, students will be completing Writing sessions which have been planned and delivered by our pre-service teachers. Mr Gale's consecutive lessons are a historical unit, based around the movie My Place. Students are using different English skills such as prior knowledge, predicting what may happen and drawing conclusions from the text. Students are writing a short narrative text, utilising their peers to develop editing skills. Mr Masson’s writing sessions are based around the topic of human privileges and in identifying differences between each other. Students again will be using a range of reading, writing and speaking and listening skills to complete these learning tasks.
For the second half of the term Grammatical areas that have not had specific teaching focus, due to Remote Learning, will be explicitly taught. We are integrating Handwriting sessions and Writing into this curriculum area. Parts of speech, sentence structure, paragraph writing, apostrophe's, correct use of tense, punctuation and spelling are just some areas that we will cover.
Spelling: Class teachers will be continuing to utilise the SMART Spelling program that we have been using through the year. Teachers are beginning to collect and collate spelling data to begin the process of implementing Word Attack spelling sessions. This may look a little different in each 5/6 class with small focused group Word Attack sessions being delivered for this term. Future professional practice days will be used to begin the planning and implementation of whole class Word Attack in 2021.
Maths
During the term, we are continuing to cover a selection of Maths topics. Focus is on areas such as Order of Operations - BIDMAS (Brackets, Indices, Division, Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction), Number Systems: Egyptian and Roman, Angles, Chance, Fraction Processes, Money and finishing the term with Number revision and Investigation tasks. Students will be revisiting some maths topics previously taught as well as learning new mathematical skills. Learning tasks are being uploaded on the Google Classroom platform which can be accessed to complete onsite paper free learning, follow up parent lessons or if your child is absent.
Inquiry - Circuit Breaker, It’s Electric!
Circuit Breaker Themes: Students learn how energy from a variety of sources can be used to generate electricity. They explore how electrical circuits enable this energy to be transferred to another place, and then transformed into another form of energy to suit the needs of particular products. Students contribute to a group or individual design brief. They develop planned steps or modify an existing plan to create a designed solution/product for the purpose of controlling movement, or producing sound or light.
Robotics Themes: Students investigate the hardware, software and coding of Robots.
Wellbeing
Weekly wellbeing activities are planned around the observed needs of the student cohort. Bringing the students attention to different values and how they can demonstrate and identify these areas in their everyday life is a key component for wellbeing. We are continuing to use the Berry Street Education student diaries to identify learning tasks that are due, being completed and upcoming events. What a great way to aid our Year Six student in getting ready for Year Seven.