School News
Prep
What a busy and exciting week we’ve had in Prep!
In Literacy, we have been learning the letter names and sounds for s, a, t, p, i, n. The children are doing a wonderful job recognising each sound and have started blending them together to read simple words. We have also introduced our Fluency Friends to practise our letter sounds and blending skills, helping us build confidence in our reading.
In Writing, we are learning how to brainstorm our ideas and then select one idea to write a recount. We have also been looking at what “5 Star Work” looks like and discussing how we can include our very best effort in our writing.
In Mathematics, we have explored numbers 0–7. We practised correct number formation, subitising (recognising numbers quickly), and counting collections using the “tap and count” strategy. We also created patterns using a range of materials, building our understanding through hands-on learning.
We have been learning about our community, and we had the chance to meet some of our local community members. We learnt a lot about police, fire fighters and their role.
In Wellbeing, we have been learning how to be Friendship Ninjas! We have been exploring how to be kind to ourselves and others, how to be our own best friend, and how to solve small problems calmly and respectfully.
We also loved participating in Athletics Day! The children enjoyed running, jumping, throwing, and proudly supported their house colours with fantastic team spirit.
We are so proud of our Prep learners!
Kindest regards,
The Prep Team
Laina Brebner, Kayla Hartrick and Emma Wright
Grade 1
What a fantastic fortnight we have had in Grade 1. The children have shown curiosity, enthusiasm and growing confidence as they continue to build strong learning routines. We are so proud of the way they are approaching new challenges and supporting one another across the day.
In Reading, students continued developing their fluency and decoding skills. During Week 5, we worked with Fluency Friends to practise reading aloud and giving positive, constructive feedback to a partner. Students explored what helpful feedback can sound like and used this to support each other during reading time. We have particularly focused on recognising and reading the digraphs th, qu and ng. Students looked for these sounds in words, listened for them during reading and used them when writing words of their own. They also continued practising what to do when they get stuck on a word by applying their decoding strategies.
In Writing, we had a great time working on personal recounts, from getting a sequence of events in order, to adding some descriptions to make it exciting. Students enjoyed sharing their ideas about how events made them feel and adding lots of detail to their recounts.
In Week 6, we began our new focus on letter writing. Students learned about the key features of a letter and began drafting their own. It was lovely seeing them think carefully about who they might write to and what message they wanted to share.
In Maths, students continued to strengthen their understanding of place value. In Week 5, they worked with two digit numbers in a variety of hands-on ways to solidify the idea of working with numbers as tens and ones. In Week 6, our work focused on teen numbers. Students learned to think of teen numbers as “ten and some more,” using materials to build these numbers and say them using tens and ones language. This hands-on work helped students understand how numbers are structured and how to express them in flexible ways.
In Inquiry, we were lucky to have a parent volunteer visit our grade and talk about working as a respiratory physiotherapist. The students were completely captivated. They loved the hands-on demonstrations and the engaging presentation, and they asked fantastic questions about helping people and staying healthy. We are very grateful to our visitor for giving their time and sharing their expertise.
Athletics Day was a huge success. Grade 1 students took part in tunnel ball, vortex throwing, relay races, long jump and shot put. It was great to see the way they worked as a team, encouraged each other and participated with enthusiasm throughout the day.
Clean Up Australia Day was another important event in our fortnight. Students helped clean areas of the school by collecting rubbish and caring for our environment. This experience helped students see how small actions can make a positive difference to our school community.
Thank you for your ongoing support and partnership at home. We are looking forward to another wonderful fortnight of learning in Grade 1.
Kind regards,
The Grade 1 Team
Mel Layton, Sally Newton, Tim Huntington and Rowena Blake
Grade 2
Over the past two weeks in Grade 2, we have been busy learners!
In Reading, we have been strengthening our super decoding skills. When we came across tricky or unknown words, we didn’t give up — we used our knowledge of sounds to help us! We carefully segmented (broke apart) and blended (put together) known sounds, including digraphs (two letters making one sound, like sh and ch) and even trigraphs (three letters making one sound, like igh). We are becoming more confident and independent readers every day.
In Writing, our creativity has been shining! Inspired by Diary of a Wombat, we wrote hilarious diary entries from the perspective of different animals. We had to think carefully about how that animal would feel, what it would see, and what it might think each day. Then, inspired by Tale of a Toothbrush, we challenged ourselves even further by writing from the perspective of an object! It was so much fun imagining the world through the eyes of something unexpected.
In Maths, we continued our learning about place value. We practised partitioning numbers into hundreds, tens and ones using MAB blocks to help us see the value of each digit clearly. To make it even more exciting, we used MAB to build our names and then calculated the total value of our creations. It was wonderful to see maths, creativity and problem-solving all working together!
Our biggest event was our whole school Athletics Day. We were incredibly proud of the sportsmanship, encouragement and outstanding behaviour shown by our students. A special highlight was our Grade 2 students running the 200m for the very first time — what an amazing achievement! We loved cheering each other on and celebrating everyone’s efforts.
What a fantastic fortnight of learning and growing together! Keep an eye out on Compass over the coming weeks for important updates about our upcoming excursion to Melbourne Museum.
The Grade 2 Team
Allie Harrison, Sarah Margetts and Brendan Van Haaster
Grade 3 & 4
In Reading, we have been viewing NAPLAN style text samples and using clues from the text to justify their answers. It has been pleasing to see students feeling proud of themselves when finding evidence of their correct responses.
In Writing, students have created a “sizzling start” to a persuasive piece by including interesting details and their opinion statement. By detailing their arguments in paragraphs and adding a conclusion, they have explored the full structure of a persuasive text. Check out some samples of their drafts below.
We have continued our topic of Place Value by locating numbers on a number line. It was easier at first when given a labelled number line, but much more challenging to mark out numbers on blank number lines!
Our Grade 3 and 4 Students are super excited to show you their Learning Task samples in their Portfolios. Please be sure to bring these along to the Conferences next week!
Kind regards,
The 3/4 Team
Damien Smith, Daena Hailey, Brent Smith, Claire Cripps and Nick Pagliaro
Grade 5 & 6
It's been a busy week in 5/6! With two excursions, as well as Bike Ed, students have had an eventful few days.
Our students had a fantastic time at this year’s House Athletics Day, enjoying a day full of fun and friendly competition. There was plenty of action across a range of track and field events including hurdles, shot put, discus, long jump and sprints. Students proudly dressed in their house colours as they competed alongside their peers and cheered each other on. It was great to see the camaraderie and encouragement they showed each other throughout the day.
Our visit to the Grand Prix was also an exciting day for our Grade 5 and 6 students, as they got to experience the atmosphere and energy of a world-class sporting event.
They spent the day exploring the Innovation Hub with their friends and had the chance to see the Supercars and Formula 2 cars do practise laps and system checks.
The Innovation Hub provided an engaging look into the technology, engineering and design behind modern motorsport, as students explored interactive displays and learned more about the science that powers racing at the highest level.
On both excursions, our students represented the school wonderfully, demonstrating school values while sharing memorable experiences with their friends.
Kind regards,
The 5/6 Team
Llinos Poole, Erin Rennick, Hayley Peirce, Mykaela Oakley & Kylie Morrissey