Primary School

Classroom News 

Please see the classroom news below. Some fantastic experiences are happening in our classrooms; we hope you enjoy reading about them.  

Kindergarten 

This week we learnt about the letter Nn. We sang the song ‘Nanna is nearly ninety, n, n, n’. We also revised our s, a, t, p, i, n letter sounds and did an amazing job of matching the sounds to the correct picture. It was fun! We have also been using our puppets to retell the story of The Little Red Hen to our peers. Unfortunately, the first week of winter means that it has been raining cats and dogs, and we could not go to the Wild Space this week. We are looking forward to next week's adventure to see what exciting things we can find. We had fun introducing something new to our play this week, though! 

Pre-Primary  

Makuru has arrived with a bang! It is the Indigenous season of the first rain and is a cold and wet time of year. Did this stop our Wild Space adventure on Friday? No, it did not! We suited up in our wet-weather overalls and headed to the bridge. It was windy, rainy and the tide was very high, but we had lots of fun. We used our senses to make observations, marvelled at how small the beach was and even waved at the Kalgan Queen. We cannot wait for our next Makuru adventure. 

Year One 

What better way to soften the blow of a postponed excursion than to read the wonderful book The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson? As the rain poured down outside, the children described the features of the Gruffalo. In the afternoon, they were thrilled to take part in the Talk for Writing hook – making Gruffalo Crumble! However, this was not what they thought and as they followed the text map, they started to learn the procedure for making this rather unappetizing dish. I had to explain that putting orange eyes, purple pickles and a poisonous wart, amongst other ingredients, in this dish did not make for a delicious treat. But I was wrong … Once the dish was ‘cooked’, a magical transformation occurred! You will have to look at the photos to see how it turned out! 

Year Two 

Each week, our class enjoys participating in paired reading. Students are partnered up and read their individual decodable texts aloud to one another. We have been focusing on using punctuation correctly and reading with expression and fluency. It has been wonderful to see such improvement in everyone’s reading as the semester has progressed.

In Humanities, we have been learning how to use search engines such as Kiddle and DK Kids to find information about our chosen significant place. We discussed plagiarism and the importance of recording information in dot points rather than copying full sentences. We also explored why it is important to question information found online and not assume everything is accurate. Students looked at ways to determine whether a website is reputable and provides reliable information. In Mathematics, we have begun using our Think Mentals books and are looking forward to making this a regular part of our daily routine. 

Year Three  

We have recently completed our unit on information report writing. As part of this, students were required to research and write an information report about an animal found in Australia. Throughout this process, they applied their understanding of the structure of an information report. They also used the four writing tools we have been practising, which helped them communicate their ideas more clearly and effectively. It has been wonderful to see them develop their independence as writers and their ability to revise and improve their work. We are now looking forward to shifting our focus towards more creative writing, particularly narrative writing. In Science, we have been learning how to classify and group things in the world around us. Students explored the differences between living, non-living and once-living things, and began using a dichotomous key to help identify and group them based on observable characteristics. This has supported their understanding of how scientists organise information and recognise similarities and differences in the natural world. 

Year Four 

This week, the classes are exploring how different materials create marks on a variety of surfaces. Students will experiment with items such as fruit and vegetables, leaves, sticks and charcoal to investigate the different stains, smudges, scratches and textures they can produce. 

We will also compare processed and unprocessed materials, discussing how natural materials differ from everyday tools like pencils, paint and ink, and how this affects the marks they make. It is a hands-on week of investigation, curiosity and discovery! 

Year Five  

Camp diaries 

Day One: Please see last week’s The Anchor. 

Day Two: Today, we heard the tale of Moondyn Joe, notorious bushranger and serial escapist from Fremantle prison. Our tour guide, Jake, really brought the place to life with his charisma and captivating floggings … 10/10, but enough about my TripAdvisor review. Moondyn’s life story left us amazed at his determination to be free … He even shared a surname with one of our party … coincidence? The children were captivated by everything from the architectural choices made to the daily routines, all designed to grind people down. We then went across Fremantle for museum number two of the day: The Maritime Museum. We were given the opportunity to guide ourselves in small groups and ogle formaldehyde-preserved creatures of the deep and artifacts from Fremantle’s fishing past. The main attractions were, of course, the awesome hulls of the America’s Cup vessels that are suspended from the ceiling. We shall see if any of the students are inspired enough to feature these in our boat-building design technology units later this year.  

Finally, we spent most of the afternoon trying to avoid the gutter as we ventured into ‘Holey Moley’ for some fun. Children spent the afternoon ten-pin bowling, mini golfing and even arcading. It really is great to see how friendly competition away from the usual 10-square court can bring out the best in each other. The major learning curve of the Year Five camp is undoubtedly being reliant on public transport. Our students were great representatives of GSG, giving up their seats for the needy and happily conversing with members of the public as we shared bench spaces. 

Highlight of the day: perhaps seeing 28 students march 20,000 steps… oh and Jake the tour guide! 

Day Three: Do you know the history of the trailblazer Edith Cowan? Or perhaps why the seat colours are different in our two tiers of state parliament? Well, thanks to our tour guide, we are all the wiser. (We can even tell you whether the students believe teachers deserve a pay rise, as we held a mock vote on it.) The highlight of the day was seeing our elected MLA, Scott Leary, and his counterpart, Matt Stevens, who added some anecdotes to our tour. We then switched from Humanities to Science for a packed afternoon at Scitech. Wow, that place is a labyrinth of hands-on activities and events. Students were given the freedom to buddy up and explore the areas that interested them most. Some explored elements of space, others physics. We even got a tour of the skies in the astronomy room.  

Highlight of the day: as a teacher, probably the ruthless dorm inspections before movie night and the stellar job done by the winning girls' dorm. As a student, surely the mass lounging on the rec room floor in our ‘oodies’ as we watched Avatar: The Last Airbender, complete with snacks.  

Big thanks to the five members of staff who gave up their time to make this such a great experience for all the students: Miss L, Jodi, Ash, Mr D and Mr B. 

Have a wonderful weekend.

Ms Leah Field | Head of Primary and

Mrs Hayley Ranger | Head of Early Childhood