Deer Park West Primary School Newsletter

Assistant Principal Report

 Deanne Scott & Spira Antonopoulos 

Emergency Drill

At some time during the next two weeks, we will be having an emergency drill. We have four main drills that we practise, to enable us to be prepared for various possible emergencies. They are:

  1. On-site evacuation – where we evacuate to the soccer pitch
  2. Off-site evacuation – where we need to leave the school grounds and evacuate to Bon Thomas Reserve
  3. Lockdown – where all students and staff stay in their room, out of sight
  4. Shelter-in-Place – where all students and staff stay in the main building until safe to leave (with access to water and toilets)

To make the situation a little more realistic, staff won’t know which drill we will be practicing until it happens. So should your child come home talking about one of the drills, you will have a little information to discuss this with them.

 

Pride and Integrity Raffle 

Arriving late to school can have a huge impact on your learning, especially if it happens often. Even arriving 5 minutes late every day adds up to 3 days of learning missed over the year! Arriving 30 minutes late every is the same as missing 18 days learning opportunities over the year. We encourage students to be at school on time.

 

In recognition of the students who are attending school on time, we have the Pride and Integrity raffle. This is to acknowledge the students demonstrating Pride and Integrity by being ready to learn each day.

Every student who is at school, and in their classroom, before the bell (9am) will have their name added to the class attendance box. So, if they are present every day of the week, on time, they will have 5 entries into the raffle. 

Their class teacher will draw one name from the class box on Friday morning, just after 9am. This person will then go into the whole school draw (this means one student from every class will be in the whole school draw) to be drawn at assembly that afternoon. 

 

The class winners for Week 6 were: 

FA – Zoe, FB – Saanjh, 1/2A – Joseph, 1/2B – Lukas, 1/2C – Adelynn, 1/2E – Kaiden, 3A – Janice, 3B – Thao, 3C – Bhagwant, 4B – Edward, 4C – Caden, 5A – Aklas, 5B – Tiaana, 5C – Reina, 6A – Hamilton, 6B – Christopher, 6C - Aarav 

 

2023 Term 4 Challenge of the Week

Week 7 Word Web Challenge 

Students collaborating for Week 5’s Word Web Challenge for Technology earnt a Caught You Doing Right card each. 

 

The students were:

Emily FB & Andrew 1/2D

Shanvi (& mum) 5A 

 

This week’s topic for the challenge is Celebration.

You need to find as many words as possible related to the topic/word in the centre of the web. You can continue the web as much as you can.

I will have an example of Word Web for people to view, just outside of the office, to help explain how to do.

You must collaborate with at least one other person (a friend, parent, classmate, etc) and no more than 3 other people. If you do not collaborate, you will not receive a Caught You Doing Right card for Collaboration.

Thank you,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deanne Scott

Assistant Principal

 

 

 

NUMERACY IN THE EARLY YEARS for families at DPW

Numeracy is more than numbers. For example, numeracy helps us:

  • understand and use numbers and other mathematical ideas in everyday life.
  • recognise and use shape.
  • work out the chance of something happening.
  • understand the data we see in the media.

Numeracy is necessary for everyday living. From daily activities like telling the time, cooking and setting the table to more difficult tasks such as understanding mobile phone plans, planning a trip, reading a map and understanding timetables.

However, research states that one of the biggest barriers to this is parents’ lack of confidence in leading Maths education at home.

 

Through international research, type of activities that are important for early Maths learning which are easy for parents to use have been identified. 

These include:

  1. Comparing objects and describing which is longer, shorter, heavier, or holds less.
  2. Playing with and describing 2D shapes and 3D objects.
  3. Describing where things are positioned, for example, north, outside, behind, opposite.
  4. Describing, copying, and extending patterns found in everyday situations.
  5. Using time-words to describe points in time, events, and routines (including days, months, seasons, use of timetables/schedules and celebrations).
  6. Comparing and talking about the duration of everyday events and the sequence in which they occur. Extend this to weeks, months, years.
  7. Saying number names forward in sequence to ten (and eventually to 20 and beyond).
  8. Using numbers to describe and compare collections.
  9. Using perceptual and conceptual subitising (recognising quantities based on visual patterns), counting, and matching to compare the number of items in one collection with another.
  10. Showing different ways to make a total (at first with models and small numbers).
  11. Matching number names, symbols, and quantities up to ten and beyond.

Useful Maths websites for home

 https://www.lovemaths.me/gamesy-at-home/

https://numeracyguidedet.global2.vic.edu.au/

A great collection of Maths games that are fun and filled with rich learning opportunities. Short and easy videos that explain each of the games. Minimal resources required.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spira Antonopoulos

Acting Assistant Principal