Years F-6 

There always seems to be something happening. Today we have our House Swimming Sports and Monday we will celebrate the Chinese New Year with culturally immersive activities. We invite all parents to join us in these celebrations on Monday between 11.15am and 12.45pm. Students, staff and parents are all encouraged to wear red.

Since our last edition I have been overwhelmed with how excited students are to show me what they have learnt, as I come around and visit classes. It is so great to see students so proud of their work. Our Captains, Sports Captains and SLC representative were officially inducted into leadership roles at Badge Conferral last week. I congratulate our captains Alodia and Cody for responding in front of the entire school community, as their first official duty in their role.  

Assembly

We held our first assembly for the year on Monday. We encourage parents to join us on Monday’s at 9am (not next week, because of the Chinese New Year Celebrations!) for this, as we celebrate student successes and share work that students have been doing. On Monday we heard from some of the Year 3 and 4 class who shared their story map. 

Students of the week:

Foundation: All four Foundation students for making a positive start to their schooling, great work Scarlett, Harlow, Harry and Zander. 

Years 1 & 2: Chloe for always being ready and organised for learning. 

Years 3 & 4: Hazel for working hard in Numeracy. 

Years 5 & 6: Wally, who always contributes and assists others in a positive manner. 

3-6 Literacy

I was having a conversation with some parents last week, and they mentioned that their child/ren were talking about ‘Morphemes’. This is one of the more recent introductions to our Literacy program. Here is a basic run down of what they are:

Students in Years 3-6 will continue their learning this year through the Word Origins Program. This program builds on the phonics learning students completed in Foundation to Year 2.

‘Word Origins’ is the study of how words are formed. It looks at how words have developed over time and how different languages have influenced English. Many words are made up of smaller parts called morphemes. Each morpheme has its own meaning, and when they are put together, they create new words.

For example, the word telephone is of Greek origin. The part tele means ‘distant’ or ‘far away’, and phone means ‘sound’. When these parts are combined, the word means ‘sound from far away’.

Staff Professional Development

Just like the students, we staff are always learning. Over the past two weeks, F-6 Literacy staff have been undertaking Professional Learning provided by the Southern Mallee Network, titled ‘Teaching with Clarity’. Much of this reinforced that the processes, both teaching and assessment, that we have been implementing from when I was last in the F-6 area, are what we should be doing. We are proud to say, that our school is way ahead of the game. As always though, we will always be looking to improve how we do things. We began some conversations around what this may involve. A big pat on the back for the F-6 staff, for the passion they showed, and all the work we did many years ago and what they continue to do today.

F-6 Camps in 2026

Please add these dates to your diary. Students always look forward to camps and build social skills through their involvement. 

Around the Classrooms: