Primary School

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A Heartwarming Grandparents’ Day Celebration

Today, our school was filled with joy and gratitude as we celebrated a truly fantastic Grandparents’ Day. From the moment our special guests arrived, they were warmly welcomed with tea, coffee and friendly smiles, setting the tone for a morning of connection and celebration.

The morning began with a delightful concert in the Multi-Purpose Sport Complex, where each class took turns performing a song they had been eagerly preparing during classroom music lessons. From energetic songs to heartfelt melodies, the children sang with pride and enthusiasm, filling the room with applause.

Following the concert, grandparents were invited into the classrooms to share in the children’s learning journeys. The students proudly showcased their work, from artwork and writing to special projects and photographs, capturing moments throughout the year. It was a touching time of reflection, pride and meaningful conversations.

The morning concluded with a relaxed community picnic, families and staff coming together under the emerging sunshine to enjoy morning tea. 

Grandparents’ Day was a true celebration of love, learning and the invaluable role grandparents and special friends play in our children’s lives. We are so thankful to everyone who joined us and made the day so special.

Classroom News

We hope you enjoy reading the news from our Early Childhood and Primary classes. 

Kindergarten

The Kindergarten students are continuing to have lots of fun exploring our inquiry topic all about farming. We have planted some wheat in cups and it has already grown quite tall! We love coming to school, especially after the weekend and seeing how much the wheat has grown. This week, our classes have worked together to transform one of the garden spaces in the swings playground. We are going to plant some different herbs and vegetables, which we hope to turn into some delicious condiments once they are ready to harvest. We love digging in the garden!

Pre-Primary

The Pre-Primary class went on an adventure to the Bird Hide Wild Space as part of our inquiry into special places. Fortunately, it did not rain, but the tide was high! We threw sticks into the water and watched them quickly drift off towards the harbour. On our walk to the bush, we saw djidi-djidis and an eagle. We thought we saw a crocodile! Luckily, it was just a big branch hiding just beneath the surface of the water.

Year One

The Year One students took advantage of some good weather and walked around the ECC building, identifying natural and constructed features before drawing a plan of the school and sorting the features. Our construction site (role play area) inside the classroom has been put to good use and, after seeing Mrs Gouldthorp’s photographs of the massive construction vehicles at Emu Point, the students have used the mini play vehicles to move sand and create beach paths of their own in the tuff tray outside the classroom. In Mathematics, the class has been learning to automatically name friends of ten through different games, and some children have been using this knowledge to recall the facts of friends of 20 (and beyond!).

Year Two

After reading George’s Marvellous Medicine and looking at the structure of procedural texts, the Year Two class has started brainstorming ingredients that they could put into their marvellous mixtures for when they design and make them. We have come up with many varied ideas from shaving cream, food colouring, milk, toothpaste, oil, honey and even slime. We have begun to look at fractions − with some hands-on activities − and capacity in the form of cup measurements for our ingredients. We are all very excited to begin the design process and to predict what will happen to our mixtures once they are made. In HASS as part of our geography unit, we have enjoyed using Google Earth to find our country, state, capital city, town, suburb, street name and number, and check out our very own houses. 

Year Three

The Year Three class is zooming through poetry, crashing into climates and kathumping along our investigation of heat. We also learned about onomatopoeia. Our repertoire of poetic devices is steadily increasing, now including such important concepts as alliteration, repetition, alliteration, repetition, alliteration, repetition, and homophones. We got so good with these tricky, sound-alike words that we were able to create our very own dad jokes. Our subtraction strategies have made it all the way up to the borrow train, and there are not many calculations left to conquer. We have also found that our laptops, Excel and the BOM website have been a great help with creating climate graphs for towns and cities around Australia. Being aware of the temperature and rainfall in different locations helps us to understand the ways people live their lives there, and to make choices about what we would do if we were to visit.

Year Four

Students in the Year Four class have been sharing their fantasy writing and working collaboratively to educate each other and expand their vocabulary in preparation for creating some interesting characters for their next fantasy narrative. They also enjoyed working with MAB blocks to play a place value game in Mathematics – the competition to reach the highest number in the time available was fierce! They will be investigating different kinds of forces in Science this week and engaging in some interesting Reconciliation Week activities.

Year Six

In Year Six Technologies, students are designing and building a ‘Boat for Hope,’ inspired by Morris Gleitzman’s Boy Overboard. The project encourages them to think deeply about resilience and what they would take if they had to leave home. Each boat must float for 30 seconds, travel 30 centimetres, and carry five symbolic items that hold personal meaning. On Grandparents’ Day, students built and tested their boats, sharing their ideas and the stories behind their chosen items with family members.

Languages

In French, our ECC students are making ‘family necklaces’. They are drawing and writing about their family members on small round pieces of paper, which will be threaded onto twine. Depending on their level, they might write just the French word (like papa or maman) or a full sentence such as Ma maman s'appelle... (My mum’s name is...). In middle primary, students are learning numbers up to 50 and using this knowledge to write sentences about their family members’ ages, like Mon papa a 40 ans (My dad is 40 years old). Our upper primary students are extending their vocabulary by learning action verbs to describe what their family members enjoy doing, for example, Ma sœur aime lire (My sister likes to read).

ECC Briefing 

The following superstars have worked beautifully and received a Star Award for their efforts. 

Kindergarten H: Sebastien Chen

Kindergarten M: Tom Hicks

Pre-Primary: Harry Downham 

Year One: Soraya Leslie

Year Two: Ava Archdale 

The following students have stood out for their ability to show compassion.  

Kindergarten H: Brooklyn Lucas

Kindergarten M: Sofia Marche

Pre-Primary: Rosie Paton

Year One: Pavleen Grewal

Year Two: Maria Grosshans 

Year Three to Six Values Awards - Courage

Year Three: Hamish Field

Year Five: Olivia Till

Year Six: Samuel Forgus and Kaiden Dawes

Upcoming events

Week Five

Friday 30 May, Whole School Interhouse Athletics Carnival at GSG, 9.00am to 3.00pm

Week Six 

• Monday 2 June, WA Day Public Holiday
• Tuesday 3 June to Friday 6 June, Year Five Camp at Woodman Point 
• Tuesday 3 June, Year One Excursion, Albany Peace Park, Eyre Park and Emu Point Playground 9.00am to 1.05pm
• Wednesday 4 June, Year One to Six, filming of Acknowledgment Song, 2.00pm to 3.00pm

• Friday 6 June, Year Three Chapel Service, 9.00am

   

Week Seven

• Monday 9 June to Friday 13 June, Albany Eisteddfod week
• Friday 13 June, Year Five Davison Assembly, 9.00am in the Hall, all welcome to attend
• Friday 13 June, Discover GSG Day

Have a lovely weekend!

Ms Leah Field | Head of Primary and

Mrs Hayley Ranger | Head of Early Childhood