What's Happening in the Senior School

Year 5

What’s Happening in Year 5 in September

Hi Year 5 community, we hope everyone is enjoying Term 3.

Thank you to all that represented Book Week with pride on Friday. We had a wide range of costumes which was very exciting. Well done to all involved with preparing for what was a great day.

This term we have been focusing on our Science knowledge unit. We had a fantastic excursion to Scienceworks, with the students spending time in multiple exhibitions, exploring the science of sport, technology and enjoying the Planetarium. We also had solids liquids and gases show which was very educational.

All Year 5s will be continuing their leadership workshops continuing with the Year 3s this week. The leadership workshops include Art, Sport, Digital technology, sustainability and our Upstanders Program.

Wellbeing

Explore the links between their emotions and their behaviour
Reflect on how personal strengths have assisted in achieving success at home, at school or in the community

Literacy

Understand how noun groups/phrases and adjective groups/phrases can be expanded in a variety of ways to provide a fuller description of the person, place, thing or idea
Understand the use of vocabulary to express greater precision of meaning, and know that words can have different meanings in different contexts
Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive print and multimodal texts, choosing text structures, language features, images and sound appropriate to purpose and audience

Reread and edit own and others’ work using agreed criteria for text structures and language features
Develop a handwriting style that is legible, fluent and automatic
Understand how to use banks of known words, syllabification, spelling patterns, word origins, base words, prefixes and suffixes, to spell new words, including some uncommon plurals
Read and complete associated activities with our class novel The Grandest Bookshop

Maths

Students are completing Location and Transformation. This will include:

using a protractor to measure angles in degrees and classifying these angles using angle names; for example, an acute angle is less than 90°, an obtuse angle is more than 90° and less than 180°, a right angle is equal to 90° and a reflex angle is more than 180° and less than 360°
estimating the size of angles in the environment using a clinometer and describing the angles using angle names

using a ruler and protractor to construct triangles, given the angle measures and side lengths
using a protractor to measure angles when creating a pattern or string design within a circle
recognising the size of angles within shapes that do and do not tessellate, measuring the angles and using the sum of angles to explain why some shapes will tessellate and other shapes do not

Knowledge Unit

Students will be beginning our Science unit with focuses on:

Understand the tier 3 vocabulary: matter, solid, liquid and gas
Identify the properties of solids, liquids and gases to classify matter.
Model the arrangement and motion of matter particles in solids, liquids and gases
Identify the observable properties of solid matter.

Explain the observable properties of solids, liquids and gases by modelling the arrangement and motion of their particles.

Year 6

What’s Happening in Year 6 in September

What an exciting time it has been in Year 6! Our production of Shrek the Musical JNR was a huge success, and we could not be prouder of our Year 6 students. The effort, enthusiasm and commitment they showed throughout rehearsals and on stage was incredible. There was such an amazing buzz on performance night, and it was also wonderful to share our dress rehearsal with the rest of the school. We know the students have created some very special memories that will stay with them for many years to come!

Mathematics

In Mathematics, we will be exploring location and transformation. Students will learn to recognise and use combinations of transformations to create tessellations and other geometric patterns, including the use of digital geometry tools. We will also be working with the Cartesian plane, learning to locate points across all four quadrants and investigating how coordinates change as points are moved to different positions.

We are also very excited to revisit our learning about angles! Students will put their knowledge into action by designing their own mini golf courses, thinking carefully about angles, direction and positioning. This will lead into our upcoming Mini Golf incursion, where students will have the opportunity to apply their mathematical understanding in a fun and practical setting.

Literacy

In Literacy, we will continue our study of The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan. Students will deepen their understanding of the text by comparing the picture book with its film adaptation. They will plan and write a comparative essay, exploring the similarities and differences between the two versions and considering how meaning is communicated through different techniques.

Students will also create a presentation to demonstrate their understanding of the text, drawing on evidence from both the book and film to support their ideas.

Wellbeing

In Wellbeing, we will continue our work through the Respectful Relationships program. Students will take part in discussions and activities that support the development of positive relationships, resilience, empathy and respectful decision-making as they continue to prepare for the transition to secondary school.