Primary School

Primary Interschool Cross Country

Congratulations to our outstanding Interschool Cross Country team on their fantastic efforts at this year's competition. Every student represented our school with determination, resilience and excellent sportsmanship, demonstrating what it means to compete with pride while supporting one another throughout the day.

Our team displayed wonderful camaraderie, encouraging classmates from start to finish and celebrating each other's achievements. It was fantastic to see every runner give their best effort, regardless of the result, making our school incredibly proud.

A special congratulations goes to our placegetters:

Rosie Mitrovski – 1st Place, Year Four Girls
Billy Pieper – 2nd Place, Year Four Boys
Sophie Mitrovski – 3rd Place, Year Six Girls

These are outstanding individual achievements and a testament to their hard work, dedication and perseverance.

As a team, our students achieved an exceptional result, finishing 4th overall against a strong field of 13 primary schools, many of which were significantly larger than ours. This is a remarkable accomplishment and reflects the commitment and effort of every member of our team.

A sincere thank you to our wonderful parents for attending the event, cheering on our runners and providing such positive support throughout the day. Your encouragement makes a real difference to our students. We also extend our appreciation to the staff who assisted with the organisation and smooth running of the day. Your time, commitment and teamwork ensured a successful event for everyone involved.

Well done to all of our Cross Country competitors. We are incredibly proud of your efforts and look forward to seeing what you achieve next!

School Placings

Place	School	Yr 3 Girls	Yr 3 Boys	Yr 4 Girls	Yr 4 Boys	Yr 5 Girls	Yr 5 Boys	Yr 6 Girls	Yr 6 Boys	Total
1	Denmark PS	41	37	76	84	58	111	78	52	553
2	Mt Lockyer PS	47	92	44	74	155	99	55	52	618
3	Albany PS	55	54	68	61	40	63	161	133	635
4	Great Southern Grammar	101	143	37	55	161	108	104	62	771
5	Mt Barker PS	126	51	167	131	44	118	88	101	826
6	Yakamia PS	85	85	81	101	126	109	59	181	827
7	Little Grove PS	159	146	108	114	54	60	59	152	852
8	Saint Joseph’s College	163	112	156	71	96	105	98	134	935
9	Flinders Park PS	69	163	169	120	114	173	89	46	943
10	Spencer Park PS	79	100	127	229	123	115	129	219	1121
11	Bethel Christian College	169	106	184	98	164	197	196	66	1180
12	Australian Christian College	226	252	84	174	137	63	134	123	1193
13	Parklands School	241	145	150	182	222	176	264	123	1503

On Monday Mr Owenell and the House teachers hosted our first Year Six Transition Information session. Students and families were introduced to the differences between Primary School and Secondary School and went on a tour of Secondary School. We were blessed to have Year Nine students support the evening with a student panel Q&A, as well as join us on the walking tour. It was a great opportunity for students and families to connect with their future pastoral team and settle some initial nerves around moving to Secondary School. We look forward to further opportunities to smoothly transition our students.

Classroom News

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

Djinda

We have been busy exploring colours in our class, exploring our playground, searching the Wild Space, just to make sure we have seen all the wonderful colours surrounding Djinda. We now have a solid foundation of colours and their names; this week we used two primary colours to create a secondary colour. Children eagerly manipulated, squeezed, rolled and squished the two playdough colours together to reveal the magical colour. The excitement was contagious; giggles, gasps and guesses were heard all morning. As a class we quickly learned that red and yellow make orange, but should you get too excited and add green, the resounding colour of brown appeared!

Kindergarten

This week we have continued learning our Talk for Writing text Rosie’s Walk. Through this story, we have been exploring positional language and learning words such as over, under, around, across and through.

We have also enjoyed reading the story We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and noticed some familiar words appearing in this story too! The children were excited to recognise similar positional language, such as over, under and through and make connections between the two texts.

As part of our learning, we are now busy creating our own binoculars in preparation for going on our very own adventure!

We were also lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful sunny walk to the Wild Space this week, where we spent time exploring nature and making the most of the lovely winter sunshine.

Pre-Primary

This week has been a very exciting one in our Pre-Primary B classroom as we welcomed some special new friends! We now have a beautiful tank filled with six tiny guppies. The children were full of excitement as they watched the fish swim, dart and explore their new home. However, when we returned to school on Monday, we noticed something had changed. One of our fish was no longer in the tank, and we now have five guppies. This gave us a gentle and important opportunity to talk about something called the ‘circle of life’. We discussed, in an age-appropriate way, how all living things grow, live, and what they need to survive. The children showed great curiosity and care as we talked about how we can remember and appreciate our little fish friends. Alongside caring for our guppies, we are beginning to choose names for our fish! The children have been sharing creative ideas, and we will soon vote to decide on the final names. Stay tuned for our official guppie names!

Year One

Could there be any more excitement this term? Well, last week was hectic but highly productive, and the long-awaited 3D model playgrounds were built! I was so impressed by the dedication and knowledge base of each student. Having learnt about basic design building principles, for example, the A-frame shape, and from analysing playground equipment during our class excursion, the children were able to make and explain their models, which all included at least two constructed features (that could move using a push or pull force) and at least two natural features. If you have not already seen them, or had your photo taken beside them (!), feel free to walk outside the Year One classroom to view these mini masterpieces!

Year Two

This week we have been busy completing part-part-whole activities in Mathematics. It has been fun to use measuring scales to determine the different ways we can make matching whole numbers, and we even learnt that the equals sign does not have to be right at the end of an equation! We have also been busy learning our lines for our upcoming assembly, along with learning our new Talk 4 Writing Story Map, so we are confident and ready to present all the information we have learnt this term with the Primary School and our families.

Year Three

It has been an exciting week in our classroom as students have begun creating their dioramas, comparing an Australian location with a neighbouring location. This project has sparked great enthusiasm and creativity among the class. 

In addition, students have been carefully observing the growth of carrot tops as part of our Science investigations. They have been working to determine whether the carrot tops are living, non-living or once living. Through their observations, students noted that the carrot top placed in a sunny location showed more growth and a healthier colour compared to the one kept in a darker environment. Based on these findings, our Year Three scientists confidently classified the carrot tops as living. 

Year Four

Students have been putting their observation skills to the test by exploring around the school, noticing changes, collecting data and turning their findings into clear graphs. They have been looking closely for patterns and using their results to help them represent information in different ways.

In writing, students are now in the editing and publishing stage of their suspense texts. They are working hard to improve their spelling, punctuation and sentence structure, as well as refining their use of tension and powerful vocabulary to make their stories more engaging and exciting for their readers.

Year Five

I’ve got numbers, they’re multiplying, but we’re not losing contro-oh-ol … because the power you’re supplying, can be magnifying. So, if you read that as Danny from Grease, well done. We have been studying multiplication. We began our week with endless multiplication practices in many forms. Step-by-step we put these into practice, with partitioning and column multiplication strategies coming next. The results were more transformative than Danny Zucko trading in his T-Birds jacket for a letter sweater. Okay, I will stop with the Grease references now. But seriously, it is amazing how progressive steps aimed at just the right level allow children to progress rapidly.

Year Six

Year Six has been a hive of activity, with investigations, experiments and projects happening everywhere. Year Six O has finished its oxidising investigation with Mrs Mackenzie, while Year Six S found out that it is actually possible to make plastic from milk and vinegar. In HASS, we have been investigating groups of people who have migrated to Australia since Federation and it has been so interesting to see how migration has shaped the Australia we know today.

Year Six O said goodbye to Mrs Mackenzie and were very appreciative of the amazing time we had while she was in our classroom. We will miss having her in class but hope she pops in from time to time when her busy boarding schedule allows.