Leadership
Que semana más maravillosa de aprendizaje hemos tenido en Newlands!!!!
Everyone hurdled through the week and entered the water with both ankles together to make a splash-less entry. While some of these reports may feel like a marathon, I will attempt to reduce it to a 100m World record, or at least 3rd heat 400m in a comfortable time.
What has made the Australian Kookaburras Hockey Team so successful? It is not only their ability to be relaxed, focused and ready for each game, but having a strong understanding of everyone’s likes, values, goals, strengths. It builds strong relationships which is needed for a successful game. Hmmm…it does sound familiar, before each game, the Kookaburras start with circle time, just like every class at Newlands Primary School.
Here is the page about circle time which is one of the Tier 1 positive behaviour strategies that can be found in our Wellbeing Principles, Processes and Procedures Handbook. The school will be sharing the completed handbook with the community later in the term to share all the great work and strategies teachers are using in the classroom.
Over to the Velodrome…
5/6
The 5/6 students are learning about Cuba in Spanish Literacy as their Inquiry focus for the term. This week in class while learning, they have been listening to Trova (a traditional musical genre) while building their vocabulary to create persuasive pamphlets, posters and booklets to visit the greatness that is Cuba. I joined in the Spanish skill up this week and worked with Martina as she showed off her extensive Spanish vocabulary to me.
3/4
Mel’s classroom was incredibly calm and focused when I joined in their literacy lesson. Mel was on the floor taking a workshop while every other student was engaged in Nessy practicing their spelling skills. I sat with Winona who showed me her fantastic spelling skills focusing on ‘ce’ and ‘ci’ words. Winona told me that she thought Nessy was fun because you learn a lot and the videos are weird and funny.
1/2
I sat with Vivienne, Enid, Hugo and River in Moira’s class while they were learning about the ‘ow’ phoneme. After identifying all the ‘ow’ words while reading a story about the ‘The Brown Owl’ and identifying the different ‘ou’ and ‘ow’ words in the piece, the students had to write the underlined words into sentences. I was amazed by how neat and beautiful the handwriting was for the 1/2 area. At the completion of the lesson I witnessed the Ninja silent transition. Stealthy and deadly are the only words to describe the experience!
Foundation
Due to the great work of the ‘TPI’ (Toilet Private Investigators) asking students to log in the times they are going to the bathroom as a way to identify the times our bathrooms are being mistreated, our foundation students are learning about recording digital time independently. The students were excited to show me their numbers and their understanding of reading the time.
Before we hit the final turn…
The PFA are synchronising perfectly at the beginning of Term 3. Not only are they starting with a majestic Read-A-Thon which coincides with book week, but they flawlessly move into a Morning Tea for all parents in the staff room next Tuesday. If you want to see the whole routine , more can be found on the PFA page.
Working Bee - This Sunday…
The Buildings and Grounds Team are quick out of the blocks and are organising a working bee this Sunday in preparation for Planet Ark’s plant a tree day. The school will aim to have a brand new garden that students can hop, skip and jump through before the end of the year. They are asking for everyone, even the spectators to join in This SUNDAY!
2025 Foundation Students
We will be calling families first thing next week to offer positions to families that have enrolled. While the school would love to offer positions to all families, unfortunately we are over our capacity. We will be calling:
Monday – In Zone families
Tuesday – Siblings
Wednesday – Out of Zone Families that meet Bilingual Policy requirements.
Athletics next Friday!
It is one of the most exciting days for Newlands. If you are available, we highly recommend coming to the event and joining in the fun. Music, cheering and water bottles will be a plenty.
100 days of Foundation
Before heading down to Coburg Athletics Track, come and join in the fun for the 9:15am parade, where all of our incredible Foundation students will be decked out in their track and field gear to celebrate their 100 days of life at Newlands Primary School.
We hope you having a winning weekend, with or without the Olympics!
Thanks,
Luke