PLC News

Professional Learning Community Foundation  (Preps)

Hi PLC F Families,

Wow! What a crazy way to finish our assessment week by heading back into Remote Learning, well done to everyone for completing our remote learning packs, we are so glad to be back in the classroom. We loved hearing how creative some students and families 

got with learning activities during lockdown. Including the Eva family pictured below. Grace (Prep) and her sister Chloe (Grade 1) were selling produce from their garden to neighbours.

We have another exciting week in our classroom this week in Numeracy we are practising our skip counting by 5s and 10s. In Literacy we are continuing to learn skills to read accurately including the diagraphs /th/ and /ng/ and in writing we are practising our figurative language strategies as we write about different objects around our classroom. 

Another reminder about labelling students jumper/jackets. The weather outside is cold but the classrooms are warm, so jumpers are coming on and off regularly - unnamed items are very difficult to return to their correct owner and often end up in Lost Property. 

We hope you all have a great week.

The PLC F team. 

Professional Learning Community 1  (Grade 1 )

How great it is to see our students back in the classroom after a short but very inconvenient lockdown. It’s been terrific to see them transition back to on-site learning so effortlessly, especially after two weeks of assessment prior to this. 

We have been extremely busy in our classrooms this week! In Reading, the focus has been on monitoring and correcting when reading texts by breaking down words into parts, using illustrations and rereading sentences and passages of text to assist in solving words. In Writing, our students have been focusing on figurative language strategies in preparation for their writing of descriptions and narratives. The theme is popcorn, which connects with our Science theme of ‘Chemical Changes’, and already our gifted students have produced some incredible similes, hyperboles, alliterations and power of 3. The PLC 1 teachers are very excited to read the finished pieces over the next few weeks. In Numeracy, we have been investigating 2D shapes where students have been labelling the features of a vast array of shapes including equilateral triangles, pentagons, octagons and even megagons, which have one million sides!   

We look forward to seeing our PLC 1 students continue to display their fantastic attitudes and dedication towards their learning as we approach the half way mark of the year. 

Professional Learning Community 2 (Grade 2 ) 

We are so excited and relieved to be back in the classroom again this week to hopefully finish this term on a high note! On behalf of the Grade 2 teachers we would like to congratulate the students on their fantastic efforts during assessment weeks—doing their personal best and being respectful towards their peers. 

We are back to our normal learning structures this week and look forward to all the exciting things we’ll be learning for the remainder of Term 2.

In Reading this week, we will be learning how to adjust our reading to suit the genre of the text we are reading. In Writing we will be looking at some figurative language strategies and vocabulary we can be using when writing about all the exciting Science experiments we have been doing lately. In Numeracy we are continuing to work on our addition and subtraction skills and using different strategies to solve problems. 

Now that we are experiencing some wonderfully Wintery weather, please make sure your child has a clearly named school jumper to wear.

Stay warm everybody! 

Professional Learning Community 3 (Grades 3)

What a crazy couple of weeks we have had recently! We would just like to say how proud we are of our students and their families during the snap lock down. It can be a stressful time when things are unknown, but you all took it in your stride and kept going. We were midway through our assessment when the announcement was made but have been able to pick up where we left off with ease. Congratulations to our students for continuing to show their personal best when completing assessments, these assist teachers in writing reports. 

We have noticed some of our student absences have been very high recently and would like to remind you that " every minute counts" so please do your best to be at school, on time, each day! Same goes with Reading Club. Lots of the same students are attending regularly when they can read to themselves and sign their own diaries. Please encourage and value reading at home. 

Breakfast Club is open Wednesday to Friday from 8:10 til 8:40 and please return those library books that have been home for quite a while!

We look forward to our school concert and will let you know shortly what we will need regarding costumes, we are trying to make this as simple as possible! 

Not long now until we reach the end of term, take care all!

Professional Learning Community 4 (Grades 4)

We are nearly through the second term, hasn’t it flown?

We have been busy assessing our students over the last couple of weeks and despite the little hiccup with the lockdown most students have been trying their very best.

Students have been working on the projects for our ‘Material matters’ PBL topic this week. They will be presenting their final poster and information during the last week of this term.

Remember as it is getting very cold here in Ballarat, students can wear a jacket and school beanie to keep themselves warm during our break times outside.

Enjoy your long weekend,

PLC 4 teachers.

Professional Learning Community 5 (Grades 5)

It is great to be back for our second week of assessment and normal routine. Students this week will be completing more numeracy and literacy tests to finalise their goals and showcase all their hard work for Semester 1. 

This week will also be the kick off for the Dodgeball Tournament. Students in Grades 5 and 6 will verse each other, until the final showdown - students vs teachers. 

Just a reminder it is getting cooler so please ensure jumpers have names on them. Also, do not forget to bring back camp notes, Term 4 will come quicker than we think.

Have a great week. 

Professional Learning Community 6 (Grades 6)

How good is it being back at school?!

The kids came back from the snap lockdown with a fresh enthusiasm and excitement for school, I wonder how long this will last?!

It was extremely pleasing to see how many of the students completed the set work during the lockdown, this made coming back to school that much easier. 

We were also excited to get back to school and finish assessment, the kids have achieved amazing results and have showcased the wonderful knowledge that we knew they had. We are very proud of them all.  

This week in Numeracy, we are learning about data and completing a task called ‘fitness fest’ very fitting task considering the Olympics aren’t too far away! In Literacy, we are focussing on Synthesising and learning new information about the ‘ice age’ (not the movie – much to the student's dismay). With this new information the students are gathering they are writing a range of sentences where they are incorporating a range of figurative language, which we will use in the next few weeks of term. 

We have plenty of exciting events to look forward to for the remainder of the term: health day, police in schools and a dodgeball tournament just to name a few. 

Just a little reminder that the weather is getting really cold and we want to see students wearing appropriate clothing for this time of year. 

Have a great week,

PLC 6 😊