Primary School

Classroom News

We hope you enjoy reading about what has been happening in our Early Childhood and Primary School classes.

Kindergarten

The Kindergarten classes are really enjoying learning about the different types of emergency services. We have been pretending to call 000 in case we ever had to do it in a real emergency. It is an easy number to remember with our jingle ‘zero, zero, zero, call a hero!’. We have also been learning some new letter sounds/names and doing lots of big-kid writing. You should see how clever we are at writing now.

Pre-Primary

During our Wild Space walks this term, we have been discovering how each space we go to is connected to another space. Did you know that you can walk from the bird hide Wild Space all the way along the beach to the little Wild Space? You might even see the deep, blue boating channel if you look carefully! We also walked from the little Wild Space, across the dinosaur rocks to the bridge where we race sticks! But on all adventures, we have to think about safety. Some of the hazards we identified included sinking sand, snake hiding places, cranky crabs and megalodons!

Year One

The Year One class was reminiscing about their learning this year and wrote letters to Mrs Hayley Ranger to tell her about everything that they had enjoyed. Imagine how thrilled they were when she replied to each and every one of their letters! Their inquiry (how do we use light in celebrations?) has looked into the science of how we see. The students have had fun drawing ray diagrams to show how light from a light source bounces off an object and then into our eyes. They then started to explore the recent Indian celebration of Diwali, Festival of Lights. Pavleen and Hargun enhanced our discussions and gave us some first-hand experience of how they celebrate Diwali. Lots of sharing has been going on in class, through fractions and division activities and 3D shapes and their properties were investigated. The students loved discovering that a 1D shape was in fact a line – or a light ray.

Year Two

We have had a truly exciting week in our classroom! Five out of our six caterpillars have now transformed into chrysalises. It has been fascinating to observe their unique shapes and colours and the delicate way they hang. We have been learning about the incredible changes happening inside. Our bean plants have grown impressively, even without soil! Since they have reached their limit in the classroom, we will be sending them home soon. We hope that with a little care and garden space, they will continue to thrive and grow. In Mathematics, we have been exploring fractions, especially fractions of a group. The students are doing a great job applying their understanding in practical ways. We have also kicked off our persuasive writing unit. The class is learning how to craft strong, convincing arguments − a skill many parents may already be familiar with! It is wonderful to see their creativity and confidence shine through in their writing.

Year Three

Parallel processing refers to the brain's capacity to handle multiple streams of information at once. In Year Three, students learn about fractions, grid references, changing states of matter, and persuasive writing techniques, all while anticipating this Thursday’s Campover. We discuss heat transfer turning solids into liquids and that reminds me of the upcoming s'mores feast. A feast of marshmallows, crackers and chocolate roasted over an open fire! Focus! We identify fractions, which makes us think of wedges and slices of pizza, the delicious pizzas we are going to devour for dinner on Thursday! Refocus! We practise using alliteration and commands to make our advertisements more persuasive. ‘Come climb Castle Rock with your cool classmates! Try not to tremble as you take this track to the top. Wow, what a wonderful view!’ There is no point in fighting the excitement, so we will use it for motivation.

Year Four

This week in Year Four, we have been learning about X. We could tell you what X is, but equally we could just leave the X there as an unknown quantity. Confused? Well, X is the letter most used in algebra to represent the unknown quantity. We have been learning about number sequences and how we can write rules algebraically. This was tricky at first, but eventually we all began using function machines and writing out rules using algebra to produce our own number sequence bunting. If you want to test your number sequencing skills, pop into Year Four to check out our bunting and see if you can work out the rules!

We have also been learning about Mohs’ scale of hardness. Did you know saying something is rock hard might not be that impressive after all? You could be talking about talc or chalk, which we can easily break in our hands. The students have been learning how to test the hardness of rock by its ability to resist shape change. This saw us design an experiment to test our various rock samples on the pavers around the school to see how much each rock changed shape when ground against a paved surface. The winner and hardest rock was Mrs Davison’s diamond ring … just kidding, but diamond is the hardest substance known to geology.

Languages

This week in our Language Newsletter, something a little different! Here are ten fun facts about the French language. We hope you enjoy discovering a few things you may not have known about French.

A Romance Language French evolved from Latin, just like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian.
English Borrowed a Lot! About 45% of English words come from French, including beauty, fruit, colour and adventure.
England Once Spoke French After the Norman Conquest in 1066, French was England’s official language for about 300 years.
Protecting French from English France has laws encouraging the use of French terms in advertising, media and public life.
Same Alphabet, More Accents French has 26 letters like English, but uses accents: é, è, ê, ë, à, â, î, ï, ô, ù, û, ü, ç.
Accents Change Meaning Accents can transform a word’s meaning: ou means ‘or’, while où means ‘where’.
Silent Letters Everywhere Many final letters are silent, e.g. the t in chat (cat) or in croissant, and the p in beaucoup (lots).
The Famous ‘Euhhh’ To fill pauses, French speakers often say euh, a humming sound similar to ‘uh’ in English.
The Handy ‘Bah’ Another popular filler word is bah (pronounced ‘bah’ or ‘bar’), used like ‘um’ or ‘er’ in English.
Oh là là! People really do say oh là là! − and the more ‘là’s you add, the stronger your reaction!

Swimming Success

Samuel Forgus (Year Six) represented Great Southern Grammar and Western Australia at the School Sports Swimming Nationals in Ballarat.

Congratulations to Samuel on his achievements:

10/20 for 50m butterfly with a personal best of 33.8 seconds
9/18 for 100m butterfly with a personal best of 1 minute, 19 seconds
9th, 6th and 9th in the relay teams with a personal best in freestyle of 32.3 seconds.

More importantly, Samuel represented the school, made new friends and had a great time with everyone. He enjoyed seeing the next steps of training and times to aim for.

Upcoming Events

Week Four

Friday 7 November, Albany Show, Pupil Free Day. We hope to see you at the GSG stall.

Week Five

Monday 10 November, Solo Night, Year Two to Year Nine, Music Building, 3.30pm to 4.30pm
Tuesday 11 November, Remembrance Day Service, GSG, 10.35am
Friday 14 November 5.00pm andSaturday 15 November, 11.00am Backyard Possum Encounter play, Albany Entertainment Centre

Week Six

Monday 17 November, Kindergarten Athletics Event, ECC, 9.00am to 11.00am
Tuesday 18 November, Interschool Athletics Field Events, Year Three to Six (selected students), St Joseph's Primary School, 9.00am to 1.00pm
Wednesday 19 November, Interschool Athletics Carnival Track Events, Year Three to Six (selected students), North Road Athletics Oval, 9.00am to 1.00pm

Week Seven

Monday 24 November to Friday 28 November, In-term swimming lessons begin. Please label all items. (Further information will be shared with families.)
Friday 28 November, Orientation Day for 2026 Kindergarten to Year Five, 9.00am to 11.15am; and 2026 Year Seven, 9.00am to 1.30pm (Further information will be shared with families.)

Have a wonderful weekend.

Ms Leah Field | Head of Primary and

Mrs Hayley Ranger | Head of Early Childhood