Classroom News

Foundation

Decoding

This fortnight in Decoding, students are revisiting their Set 2 phonemes to strengthen accuracy and build long‑term memory. Through daily routines, students practise recognising these sounds quickly and confidently so they can use them automatically when reading and writing. Students are using these sounds to blend, segment, and manipulate phonemes in short words — an essential skill for developing strong decoding. They are also applying their knowledge during Buddy Reading of levelled decodables, where they practise reading with increasing fluency, expression, and confidence. These short, repeated reading opportunities help students move from sounding out each word to reading more smoothly.

We are also continuing to build Heart Word knowledge. Knowing these words automatically supports reading fluency and frees up cognitive space for students to focus on decoding new words.

Text Construction

In Text Construction, students have been working with the same sentence stem from our decodable text eg “Gus gets the bin…” and completing it using the conjunctions because and but. Keeping the stem the same allows students to focus on how each conjunction changes the meaning of the sentence. By finishing stems such as “Gus gets the bin because…”and “Gus gets the bin, but…”, students are learning to connect ideas, explain reasons, and show contrast. Students first discuss ideas together, then complete the stem independently. This routine helps them understand how conjunctions join ideas, while also supporting early writing fluency and confidence.

Mathematics

In Mathematics, students have begun exploring 2D shapes and their key attributes, including sides and corners. We have been identifying shapes in our classroom and school environment, noticing how often shapes appear in everyday objects. Students have also been using their strong understanding of part–part–whole to subitise collections of shapes, recognising how many they can see without counting each one individually. These experiences help students build early spatial awareness, strengthen number sense, and develop the language needed to describe and compare shapes with confidence.

Content Knowledge

During Content Knowledge lessons, students have begun exploring North and South America, learning about the landscapes, animals, and cultural traditions that make these continents unique. We have been building vocabulary and background knowledge to help students compare places around the world and understand how people live differently depending on where they are.

Students have learned about the moose of North America: a large, powerful animal that lives in a cold forest environment, explored the dramatic landforms of the Grand Canyon, and looked at cultural celebrations such as Day of the Dead in Mexico, learning how families honour and remember loved ones through colour, music, and tradition. In South America, students have been introduced to the llama, an important animal that helps people carry goods through the Andes Mountains. We have discussed how llamas are adapted to steep, rocky environments and how they support daily life in many South American communities.

These rich discussions help students build global awareness, strengthen oral language, and make meaningful connections between people, places, and cultures.

Junior School

Phonics

In the daily phonics block, students have been focusing on the r-controlled vowel sounds /air/, /are/ and /ear/. They have been learning how to spell words and read passages containing these sounds to develop their decoding skills and reading fluency. Next week, the focus phonemes are /our/ as in four and /ore/ as in core.

Content Knowledge

Students have continued to explore the topic of Countries, Continents and Maps. Throughout this unit, we have learned about the seven continents, including the different cultures, traditions, landmarks, landscapes and animals that are unique to each continent. Last week, we learned about the continents of Australasia (also called Oceania) and Antarctica.

Text Construction

In Text Construction, students have been learning how to write persuasive texts using information they have read about the different continents. Last week, students planned, drafted and published a persuasive text titled Which is the Better Continent – Australia or Asia? They were encouraged to use different sentence types (statements, questions, commands and exclamations) and conjunctions (but, so and because) to improve their writing.

Maths

In Maths, students have been exploring length. They have been measuring different objects in the classroom and areas in the yard using informal, uniform units such as Unifix cubes and icy-pole sticks. On Friday, students measured the heights of famous athletes, such as Patrick Dangerfield, using these tools.

Indigenous Studies

In Indigenous Studies this term, students have been learning about native Australian animals found on Wadawurrung Country — the region

encompassing the Geelong and Ballarat areas of Victoria. They have been learning how to say the animal names in the Wadawurrung language and describe them using “What am I?” clues. These clues will be used to create a “What Animal Am I?” book by the end of the term.

Middle School

Literacy

We have reached the end of an exciting and engaging novel study. Students thoroughly enjoyed following the journey of Roz the robot as she learned to survive on the island and build relationships with the animals around her. The class explored many of the novel’s important themes, including friendship, belonging, kindness, empathy and what it truly means to be “alive.” Students were highly engaged in discussions about the choices characters made throughout the story and enjoyed sharing their own opinions and predictions as the novel progressed.

Text Construction

Students have continued to build their understanding of a range of literary devices, including similes, personification, alliteration, repetition and the power of three. Students explored how authors use these devices to create imagery, build emotion and make writing more engaging for the reader. They then applied these techniques in their own writing. Students have also been developing their paragraph writing skills by learning how to support their ideas with evidence directly from the text. Using structured paragraph responses, students responded to prompts such as “Roz is a good mother,” “Roz should have left the island,” and “The Wild Robot is a book about animals.” It has been wonderful to see students confidently justify their opinions using examples and quotations from the novel while participating enthusiastically in class discussions.

Mathematics

Students have been exploring measurement by using informal and formal units to measure length and calculate the perimeter of shapes. Students also used their multiplication knowledge to calculate the area of regular shapes. As part of our Daily Review, students have continued building mental addition skills using strategies such as doubling, halving and bridging to 10. Students have also enjoyed participating in Number Talks, where they share their knowledge of the properties of numbers.

Senior School

Word Study

Over the week, we have been adding suffixes to base words and exploring when to drop the ‘e’ and put an ‘i’. An example is ‘write’. You change the ‘e’ to and ‘i’ when adding the suffix ‘-ing’ and that makes ‘writing’. We have been doing the suffix of ‘ing’ for the week, which is used for present tense verbs, such as running, lifting, jumping, and eating.

Cameron H

Content Knowledge

We have finished the detailed and intriguing book of A Ghost In My Suitcase. This book shows how Celeste traveled to China fearlessly to spread her mother’s ashes. On the way, she met her Por Por who is a kind and caring grandmother. We have also been focusing on family history and why it is so important and crucial to improve mental health and your wellbeing! We have investigated how real life people find their family history and how it brings them pride and joy!

Halle N

Text Construction

This week in Text Construction, we have learnt many ways to make our sentences interesting and complex. Firstly, we have done appositives, which help us add more details about a noun in only a few words. Secondly, we have worked on sentence types to level up our sentences in a bold and interesting way. Thirdly and lastly, we have learnt about the structure of a concluding statement to sum up our whole persuasive piece.

Ella C

Numeracy

In Numeracy this week, Senior School has been learning lots of new skills. We have been learning about Multiplication by 2-3 digit numbers. We get our sums by rolling a dice and using those numbers to multiply in a vertical algorithm. Sometimes the teachers will give us a fun way to do our multiplication such as giving us a puzzle that we have to build. Although we have fun ways, we still try our hardest with the new way of vertical multiplication. Sometimes others might do:

2 digit by 1 digit
2 digit by 2 digit
3 digit by 2 digit
3 digit by 3 digit or more!

It’s still the same pattern to solve the equations. Since you have read about what we have this past couple of weeks, I'm now going to give some photos to show our learning.

Olivia C

Kitchen Garden

Our budding chefs have been busy in the kitchen this semester, turning seasonal produce into delicious creations! From fresh ingredients to hands-on cooking, students have loved exploring how food grows and how it can be transformed into tasty recipes.

One of the biggest highlights was making homemade butter - and according to our young cooks, it tasted absolutely amazing! There was plenty of excitement (and arm exercise) as students shook, mixed and discussed the science behind cream becoming butter.

A big thank you to the families who have generously shared produce from their gardens. We've included some of the recipes we've been using so you can try them at home too. We hope they inspire a few family cooking adventures in your own kitchen!

Pumpkin Scones: https://www.kidspot.com.au/kitchen/recipes/easy-pumpkin-scones/r0g5uq14

Zucchini Soup: https://www.recipetineats.com/creamy-zucchini-soup/

Zucchini Lemon Muffins: https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/lemon-zucchini-muffins/

Zucchini Slice: https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/zucchini-slice/eb7eed59-5f53-4f6f-bfb5-9b7e3f81a702

Roasted Figs: https://www.giverecipe.com/simple-oven-roasted-figs/

Smashed Spuds: https://sweetsavoryandsteph.com/easy-smashed-potatoes/

Homemade Butter: https://www.bigbearswife.com/how-to-make-homemade-butter-in-a-mason-jar/