Student Voice
Student Voice : Springvale Campus
They say time flies when you are having fun and Term 3 definitely flew by quickly! Now, we are in our second week of Term 4, and we can already tell that it's going to be filled with special events for everyone from the FLC to the SLC. Students have been smashing their learning goals, and with 11 weeks in this term, we’ve got lots of time to do even more! The first two weeks have been very positive, with students working together, supporting each other, and collaborating to achieve their personal bests. Let's continue working together to make this term the best one ever!
SLC Reading Achievements
In Reading, the SLC have been learning to use text clues from a book to analyse a character's feelings and motives. We have been focusing on explaining and comparing different language choices the author uses to represent their ideas. In Term 3, the whole SLC started reading a book called 'Sky Dragon' by Anh Do. This book is about a resilient young teenage girl who gets powers in a freak accident. Learning to control her abilities might be the hardest thing she has ever done. Many students are really excited to learn more and more about this book to see what will happen next, let's interview some of them:
"The book is very descriptive. The author is really good at expressing all the characters' emotions with different language choices. Everything ties in well with the book." - Hy from 5/6D
"The book can be REALLY interesting sometimes. I love that I'm able to visualise and think about what will happen next in the story. I love how the author uses different words to make everyone infer and think about what will happen." - Ashvin from 5/6E
"I think the book is awesome. The book makes me compare one event to another so I can make predictions!" - Kesler from 5/6F
SLC Writing Achievements
In Writing, the SLC have been learning to write narratives that are able to grab any reader's attention. We've been focusing on using different techniques that will help us while writing our stories. Take reading for example. Reading can be very important to us as we learn different words, learn different ways to make stories, and even to learn different literary devices. We use our newly learnt words and put them into our stories to make them more engaging. We've learned all the different literary devices we can use for any circumstance, from metaphors and personification to similes and alliteration! We've practised crafting up some sizzling starts for different stories so we have a story that hooks readers in right from the start. In addition, we practise the skill of, "Showing, not telling", which can help us create a vivid picture with our words, rather than just explaining what's happening in the setting or in our characters.
All of these different ways of writing stories are helping us write more memorable pieces and prepare for the upcoming Writing CAT this Friday. Everyone is nervous, but with all of our experience we're sure to crack this test! We just can't wait to see how much improvement we've made since our pre-assessment task we did during Term 3, Week 7. I'm sure we have nothing to worry about.
Maths Achievements
In Maths, we’ve started some new learning focused on solving time-related problems. We have been actively connecting our learning intentions to real-life situations. One example of this is when we helped Mrs. Karup calculate how much yard duty time each teacher was getting every week. Every student in the SLC was eager to help and demonstrate the success criteria!
Another exciting activity was collecting data on how many hours of sleep we get per week. Some students went above and beyond and worked out the mean, median and mode as well! This was not only fun but eye-opening. We researched how much sleep people our age need, and we found out that children aged 6 to 13 require 9 to 12 hours of sleep. Wow, that’s a lot! We also looked into how much sleep elderly people need, which is between 7 to 9 hours. There are many benefits in getting enough sleep, with the most important one being that it helps to give you an energy boost so that you are ready for learning the next day!
Our Market Place Projects
In Projects the SLC students have been learning to understand how our economy works and how entrepreneurs provide products or services to meet consumers’ needs. It's almost like simulating real life, where we will have jobs, money and property. We are also going to be learning about what an entrepreneur is and how they provide products or services according to customers' needs or wants. We are also learning to manage simple budgets with the money they are earning from their given jobs. Later on in this project, we are also going to be given the opportunity to apply our previous learning and become entrepreneurs ourselves by designing game boards for the JLC. This learning cycle seems to be very enjoyable for everybody, especially due to the fact that we can make and sell our own items. We can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!
Term 3 Highlight – Swimming
In Term 3, we were lucky enough to go swimming for the second time this year! We learned many different swimming techniques, including freestyle and backstroke. Some of the more advanced swimmers even started practicing breaststroke! But it wasn't just about swimming—we also learned valuable life-saving skills. For example, when helping a friend with a pool noodle, we were taught to lie on our stomachs while handing it out. Leaning too far over while standing could cause us to fall into the water and create more problems. We also had a fun day filled with exciting activities. We could choose between free time in the shallow pool or playing on the big bouncy slide in the deep pool. Some people found it tricky to get past all the obstacles, and slipping even once meant falling straight into the pool! This swimming experience helped us grow our knowledge about swimming and lifesaving, and taught us to be more cautious when at the beach, river, or swimming centre.
Upcoming Special Events
This term is jam-packed with a bunch of fun excursions, which every learning centre deserves due to their hard work and determination throughout the year. The SLC are extremely lucky to be celebrating many special events. Some of these events are the very special Year 6 Graduation, Year 5 Leadership pplications and voting. The event Year 5's have been waiting for is also coming up… the Westall Taster Day! We are also very excited to announce that our softball team has made it to the Grand Finals! They definitely deserve it after the hard work and determination they showed throughout Term 3. That will be happening in Week 3, and we will be playing against the Heights Campus. World Teachers Day is coming up on the 25th of October, so remember to thank your wonderful teachers for all their hard work. It has been a wonderful start to the term, and everybody has done an awesome job. Keep it up!
School Leader Team
