Spotlight on Learning

Early Stage 1

We're thrilled to report that our Kindergarten students have transitioned seamlessly into school life, embodying the spirit of curiosity and enthusiasm. Over the past two weeks, they've become familiar with school routines and expectations, demonstrating remarkable adaptability. Our little learners have been exploring every nook and cranny of our school grounds, familiarising themselves with their new environment. One particularly heartwarming highlight has been the bond formed with their older buddies, who have been guiding them both inside the classroom and on the playground, fostering a strong sense of care and support. 

In the classroom, our Kindergarteners have been diving into engaging phonics lessons, laying the foundation for strong literacy skills. Through various fine motor activities, students have been exploring numbers 1-10 as well recognising and describing 2D shapes in the environment. Let's not forget about their adventures in sports, where they've been developing their fundamental movement skills and teamwork abilities. As educators, we couldn't be prouder of their excitement and positive attitudes towards starting school, and we eagerly anticipate the exciting journey ahead in this new school year. Please enjoy the photos below showcasing their first 2 weeks of school! 

Miss Raj & Mr Widjaja - Kindergarten Classroom Teachers 

Stage 2

Welcome to 4F, 2024. We have had a busy start with lots of learning from the new English and mathematics syllabuses, settling into a new class and routines, and making friends with new classmates.

Maths learning has centred around place value where students consolidated their learning through lots of games and hands-on activities. Students played a ‘ladder’ game where the aim was to place numbers in ascending and descending order by identifying place value. A lot of fun and discussion was involved in another place value game where students had a 4-digit number put on their back. Each group member had to work out the mystery number taped on their back by asking their partners questions and recording their answers. Once all students had worked out the mystery, we took our learning outside to place our 4-digit numbers in ascending order. Next, we will be looking at how an understanding of place value can assist with fluency in multiplication.  

In English, we have started reading Roald Dahl’s ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. Students were asked to identify the descriptive language used by Roald Dahl to create the farmer and other characters. Using this descriptive language, students then drew their own versions of the three farmers before they were shown the illustrations. When the book character illustrations were revealed, most students were happy with how similar their drawings were. This led to a great discussion about how Roald Dahl uses specific vocabulary and descriptions to create his characters (characterisation), as we were able to depict what the character looked and acted like through his words.

We also decided to share information about our own characteristics. We wrote a list of clues about ourselves for our ‘Guess Who’ wall and then tried to guess who each one was. The students are keen for you to read the clues and see if you can find your child or guess who each child is. You will also be able to see if you can work out which clues belong to Ms Fairgrieve!

Next in English, we will be looking at what is involved in a narrative and how authors create tension.

It has been a great start by the students in 4F, and I am looking forward to seeing more great work over the term.

Miss Fairgrieve - 4F Classroom Teacher

Stage 3

In stage 3, our students have adapted well in their routines and are progressing in all areas of school life, focusing on academic excellence and giving their best at all times. Teachers have high expectations for each student and concentrate on quality teaching, using the new curriculum in English and mathematics. We differentiate for a variation of learning needs and styles. We explicitly teach, give students the opportunity to reason, discuss and explore, give effective feedback, and set learning intentions and success criteria to reach the best outcomes in learning. Primarily, our students’ wellbeing and personal growth forms part of a healthy community.

On Monday, we started off our week with the Swimming Carnival and students thoroughly enjoyed the day. Selina and Madison in 5J reflected on the day:

“We had our Swimming Carnival on Monday the 12th of February with 9 races all together! The students did awesome with ages ranging from 8-12! Our students had the option to swim in any races in their ages under the condition that they could swim. Now on to the races we go! There were 9 races including, 50m freestyle, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, 50m butterfly, 100m freestyle, 400m medley (all strokes), relay, finals and the student and teacher race. The year 6 students vs teacher race is a competition between the teachers and students with each team having 4 competitors. On the teachers’ team the competitors were Mr Love, Mrs Jones, Mr Chong and Mr Jones. On the year 6 students team they had Regina, Kate, Evie and Finn. The race started and the teachers and students lined up and… the teachers won with a few seconds gap! The students and teachers did well and the cheering burst everyone’s eardrums but other than the very loud cheering, everyone did very well. And that night everyone had a very good sleep! Good job to all who participated in the Swimming Carnival and we hope to see you next year!”

We are implementing the new maths curriculum and we wanted to know how students are experiencing this so Yanjeh, Daniel and Benjamin wrote a brief summary on what they have learnt so far in mathematics. This is what they said:

“It has been a really busy week for year 5s in math. Year 5 students took part in a fun and challenging start at math. We did Matharoo and a practice test for NAPLAN.

One of the most fun activities for math was Matharoo, which is a set of 9-10 questions based on current events happening this week which we need reasoning and problem solving to find the correct answers. There are 4 levels of Matharoo which include lower primary, middle primary, upper primary and extension. Each level gets harder and harder. Extension is the hardest with challenging questions. We worked in pairs and finally finished it all.

We participated in many fun activities and games like daily number sense which is a guessing game, and we also learnt numbers in ascending and descending order with millions and hundred thousands, which was extremely challenging. We also worked on decimals and fractions; learning how to order decimals and fractions, placing decimals on a line and converting fractions to decimals, decimals to percentages.

Maths is a really fun subject but in year 5 they take it to the very next level.”

In English the focus areas for each stage support students’ growing knowledge and understanding in the areas of oral language and communication, vocabulary, reading fluency, reading comprehension, creating written texts, spelling, handwriting and digital transcription, and understanding and responding to literature. Here’s a snapshot of how our students in 5J responded about English in our classroom:

“In 5J we have been focusing on a book called The Wild Robot. We are describing parts of the landscapes in the narrative, analysing characters, answering comprehension questions and identifying adverbial clauses. 5J is also working on their writing and vocabulary, this helps us to focus and to perfect our writing and reading skills.

-Livia 

In year 5 we have been learning about character description. This helps us understand better the emotions and actions of characters across a wide variety of fiction. While this helps us with reading The Wild Robot, we also learn about many other English skills.

-Charlie

In year 5 we have been learning about adverbial clauses and the subject of different parts from the story ‘The Wild Robot’ . We have been doing multiple worksheets related on finding the subjects of sentences. We may read the story document using Immersive Reader. Then we draw comic strips on the  paper and watch a cool animation clip of a robot. We've also been writing descriptive words about Roz. 

-Dhruv

In 5J we have been reading a new novel called The Wild Robot. We also have been doing worksheets to describe the main character. In our writing books, we have been learning interesting vocabulary, like raspy, stooping and blundering. Also, we have drawn pictures based on The Wild Robot. 5J has been having fun learning and reading about The Wild Robot.

-Joanna

In year 5, we are focusing on a new novel called "The Wild Robot", which is about a robot called Roz, who gets washed ashore on an island. Roz learns   how to communicate with other animals on the island.

-Jiwan

Thank you, students, for responding to what we have learnt so far. It appears that you are on a ‘Learning Journey’ and we are proud to be teaching you.

Mrs Janssen - 5J Classroom Teacher