From the classroom
Literacy
This term our teachers will be completing individual Reading Benchmark Assessment for all students from Prep to Grade 6. The Benchmark Assessment is an important assessment tool for our teachers as it allows teachers to assess their student’s growth in reading and comprehension. Teachers will listen to students read and then analyse errors and self corrections that have been made. Students are then asked a series of question about the text to determine the students understanding and the application of the what has been taught.
Writing
This term our teachers are learning about the 6+1 traits of Writing. We will be conducting professional learning which will culminate in our Curriculum Day later this term.
Ways to support your students writing at home
- Write shopping lists, letters, postcards, emails
- Don’t get bogged down in correcting grammar and punctuation – praise your child’s effort!
- Encourage a love of reading!
- Have writing and drawing material readily available for your child.
Grade 5/6 News
We have had a very busy time in Grade 5/6 to start this term. Our basketball team did us proud in the Echuca Basketball Competition. Our girls were competitive in every game, drawing their last game against a team that made it through to the Grand Final. Our boys had an excellent day and lost their semi final by 1 point with a shot after the siren.
On Tuesday next week our students are going to the Secondary College to have a transition session. This will happen from 1:30pm – 3:15pm.
Next Thursday we have our tennis teams travelling to Swan Hill to compete in the Regional Tennis Teams Championships after performing well at the Zone level. On Wednesday, we also have 24 students competing in the T20 cricket competition in Rochester.
Our camp to Cottage By The Sea is fast approaching and the children are very excited about everything that this has to offer.
In Reading, the children have been completing an author study on Roald Dahl. Students have been analysing the themes and messages that he includes in his writing. We have just finished reading Fantastic Mr Fox and will be watching the movie of this to compare the movie to the book.
Our Writing focus has been narratives and children have been looking at using Roald Dahl books to give them ideas of what they can include in their own writing. It has been pleasing to see the increase in description and detail that the students have included in their writing, making their pieces much more engaging.
In Numeracy, our focus has been patterns and algebra. As part of this, children have looked at Order of Operations. One of the challenges that some children worked on, was using exactly four 4s, try to come up with an equation that answers every number from 1 – 20. It was amazing to see the work that children were able to come up with for this and some students were able to come up with an answer to all 20 numbers. This is an example of one student’s work:
Student Action Team
It has been a busy year for the Student Action Team. We have completed several projects across the year. Our latest project is ‘student led’ lunchtime clubs/ activities.
The members of the Student Action Team formed groups, with the older students teaming up with our Prep-2 students. Next, we filled out an application of what activity they would like to run for their peers at lunchtime.
We had to consider not only what we would like as an activity but what others in the school may enjoy and how we can make that accessible to all levels.
This follows our Student Voice protocol - ‘implementing ideas for the good of everyone.’
We have already begun a couple of our clubs including netball and gardening, with more to come!
