Winter Lightning Prem - Written by Harry

On Tuesday the 27th of May, the Lightning Premierships was in the mind of every student and staff member in the year 6 learning community. Of course, lightning prem had to land on one of the coldest days of the year! Jumpers, beanies, runny noses, scarves, and the wish of having a blanket and hot choccie were all around the fields, ovals, and courts that soon the Year 6 students would compete on.

Lightning Premiership was an absolute blast though! Trying their best, working as a team, and having fun was what the Year 6s had done! Versing Nazareth, Torquay Coast, St Catherine’s, Lesiux, and Geelong Lutheran College was a tricky task for our Year 6s, but they persevered, and even though they may have had losses they still had wins and it was a competitive day!

The three sports were netball, soccer, and t-ball now let’s dive into those sports! For soccer, we had three team’s A for girls, B for boys, and C for a mixed team of girls and boys. All of the teams worked hard together to score goals and beat the other teams. We had an opportunity to show our three school values and we did so with pride representing ACS! Throughout the games, we gradually improved showing the real ACS spirit in us! We went out there to have fun and represent our school. In soccer, the overall winner was Torquay Coast.

In netball, the four teams tried their absolute hardest and did get some wins! All teams in Netball kept improving throughout the day showing the 3 c’s and representing ACS with pride! Shooting goals, having a go, congratulating others, and having fun were the top things that the Netball teams for ACS were best at! In netball, Nazareth and Torquay Coast were the overall winners.

In Tee-ball everyone was freezing but had the opportunity to win, and they sure did take it! Each round goes for 20 minutes! Within that time they tried their absolute best and performed amazingly while competing against the other teams! The ACS teams for Tee-ball were successful but St Catherine’s and Nazareth were the overall winners!

Finishing the day, ACS cheered for the other teams, celebrating wins and de-frosting from the freezing morning that had occurred. Year 6 ACS students were happy with the day and would like to thank the teachers, ES, Marc, and Arron, and the volunteers who made the day run smoothly. We are excited to compete against those same schools at the upcoming summer lightning prems!

Year 2

Over the last few weeks in Year 2 Maths, our focus has been on deepening students’ understanding of place value and developing strategies for addition and subtraction with two-digit numbers, gradually building up to more complex problems involving regrouping. For example, when adding 28 and 17, students could count their blocks and realise that combining 8 ones and 7 ones required regrouping into an additional ten.

To support understanding, students used Base-10 blocks to physically build and manipulate numbers, allowing them to clearly see the value of each digit and what happens when we regroup. While regrouping is quite a challenging concept, the tactile approach gave students a concrete foundation before moving to the more abstract written strategies.

We will gradually transition from using materials to recording the process as written number sentences, always encouraging students to explain their thinking. The students enjoy the opportunity of manipulating the numbers with these hands-on activities and gain confidence from “seeing” the maths with the blocks.

It has been a productive week, with many students showing growth in their ability to solve problems accurately and explain their reasoning. The hands-on materials helped bridge the gap between concrete understanding and written methods, giving students the tools they need for future success.

Great job, Year 2’s!

Year 4: “Celebration of Cultures”

This year’s Education Week theme was “Celebration of Cultures”. Year 4 students spent the week talking about family traditions, favourite dishes and where we all come from.

On Friday May 23, many of the students came dressed in traditional clothing, while others wore something important to their cultural identity. Students shared with pride, the names of their traditional clothing. Here are just a few; kurtas, saris, jostas, tanis, berets, ao dais and barong tagalogs. Some students dressed in the colours of their country’s flag, while others wore their favourite band t-shirt or their sport’s team jersey. They also brought food from all over the world, to enjoy at lunch.

We counted how many countries were represented across the year level and came to the grand total of 28. We thought that was pretty amazing!

We also learned that the Year 4 staff members came from 9 different countries. Ash Kaye shared a well known Scottish saying with the Year 4 students, which is “We’re a Jock Tamsan’s bairns” This saying reminds us, that even though we don’t all look the same, we are all human beings who deserve kindness and respect. Our different cultures are what makes us unique and should always be recognised and celebrated.

Year 5 Rocking Their Multiplication Goals!

Our Year5 students have been working hard—and having fun—as they power through their multiplication learning goals this term! Using a mix of skip counting strategies, engaging multiplication games, and the hugely popular Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS), students are building confidence and fluency in maths every day.

A highlight of our program is TTRS, where students track their progress using their own heat map—a vibrant visual tool showing which multiplication facts they’ve mastered and how quickly they can recall them. Once their heat map turns completely green, they earn a "Gone Green" certificate. Congratulations to the students who’ve already hit this milestone! We’re excited to hand out many more as learning continues.

Friday's have become an exciting fixture in our maths week with our Friday Fluency Tournaments. Each class goes head-to-head in a friendly competition to see who can earn the title of Top Class of the Week—and the rivalry is heating up!

Recently, Year 5 also joined the statewide Victoria Rocks competition on TTRS. Students had the opportunity to play for up to 60 minutes a day, with every correct answer earning points for their class and school. A big well done to our Most Valuable Players, who achieved top scores and helped lead our year level to success! We’re incredibly proud of the effort, enthusiasm, and teamwork our students have shown. Maths has never been more fun—and this is just the beginning!

Performing Arts - Drama in the Primary Years

This term, our Primary students have been diving into the exciting world of drama, exploring storytelling, character development, and performance through a range of creative activities.

Foundation students have been enjoying The Gruffalo, using puppets and physical acting to explore character, expression, and emotion in a fun and engaging way.

Year 1 students brought The Three Billy Goats Gruff to life, using voice, movement, and expression to enhance their storytelling and understand dramatic elements.

Year 2 students explored improvisation and character relationships through the comedic story Mr Linford’s Lesson, using facial expressions and gestures to convey a variety of emotions.

Year 3 students took on the exciting challenge of creating original scripts from scratch. They planned, rehearsed, and performed their plays, and then used storyboarding to prepare for filming and sharing their work with peers.

Year 4 students worked with prepared scripts such as The Door That Wasn’t There and ABCs If You Please, developing their performance skills and exploring script editing to introduce more dramatic conflict and audience engagement.

Year 5 students explored The Rainbow Serpent, a Dreamtime story, to deepen their understanding of the Elements of Drama. They used this as inspiration to create and perform their own original group scripts.

Year 6 students have been rehearsing and performing more advanced comedic scripts, with a strong focus on memorisation and polished delivery. Looking ahead, they will be exploring Shakespeare’s The Tempest and using their discoveries to create original scripts in collaboration with their peers.

We’re incredibly proud of the creativity, confidence, and collaboration shown by all our students this term—it's been a joy to see them bring stories to life on stage!

Future Pathways (Careers)