Primary School

Year Six Camp

What an unforgettable week our Year Six students had on Rottnest Island! The adventure began on Monday with some enthusiastic singing on the bus before we even left the mainland. By Tuesday, everyone had conquered the full island bike ride − spotting seals and cooling off with fun at Pinky’s Beach. Wednesday brought snorkelling and a treasure hunt through the townsite, plus some seriously impressive trench digging. On Thursday, students trekked up to the WWII guns on Oliver Hill (with one group narrowly missing a couple of snakes!) before heading to Geordie Bay for expert fishing, more snorkelling and sand engineering. The week wrapped up on Friday with an epic ferry ride, where a pod of playful dolphins joined us − and some truly questionable karaoke finished things off perfectly! 

Here are some personal highlights: 

Annie and Emily: “Our favourite parts of camp were getting to spend time with all our friends in such an amazing place. The Quokkas were cute too!” 

Hamish and Joey: “Our secret fishing strategy was the best. We had a 100% success rate! Who knew dropping the bait on the fish's head would work.”

We would like to thank all the teachers who made it possible.

Classroom News

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

Kindergarten

We are nearing the end of our current inquiry unit, and our Kindergarten learners have been busy exploring, wondering and discovering together! As we wrap up, we are getting ready to generate our own questions for the many people who work within our school community.

Every day, we see lots of people doing lots of different jobs around our school: teachers, helpers, office staff and so many others! We have been wondering:

• How do they help people in our school?
• And how do other people help them?

Our curiosity is growing, and we are excited to find out more about the important roles that keep our school running smoothly.

We also have something very exciting happening next week! On Wednesday, we will be welcoming one of our Kindergarten parents for a visit to school. This parent has a very important job in the community that is all about helping people, and they will be bringing along a special vehicle that makes sounds or noises!

Can you guess what it might be? 🚒🚑🚓

Pre-Primary 

Marbles and snails! What do these have in common? If you answered excited Pre-Primary children you would be correct! As part of our inquiry into what causes objects to move in different ways, we were introduced to a small marble run. Were we satisfied with that? No, we had to go bigger, better and faster. We collaboratively engineered a class-sized marble run using blocks, bamboo and trellis frames. The results were fantastic – marbles zoomed, the ramps got steeper and the architectural designs more intricate. Check back next week as we change the object on the run to see what goes furthest! And the snails? Some intrepid adventurers collected the snails from the playground and inducted them as honorary Pre-Primary students. Do not fear – the snails were not put on the marble run, but we did find them to be turbo charged movers!

Year One

The children have been inspired to write more five-sentence stories, although for some they are becoming five-paragraph stories! Come and read these wonderful texts (and see the story prompt) in the Year One classroom. The class has also been learning the tongue twister Peter Piper, which has created much laughter in the classroom as everyone tries to be the fastest to recite this 1813 gem. They are also becoming pretty knowledgeable about different 3D shapes and are turning their attention to money, with coins and notes fast becoming a rare currency. The inquiry on Diwali has really lit up, with the focus being on rangoli patterns and diyas (little lights/lamps representing the triumph of good over evil or darkness over light).

Year Two 

This week, we have been busy working on our speaking and listening skills in preparation for our class assembly on Friday. We have learnt that it is important not to rush when reading aloud and to speak clearly so our audience can hear all our fabulous information. In Mathematics, we have been looking at chance and predicting the likelihood of different types of lollies being drawn from a bag. We have used the terms ‘certain’, ‘likely’, ‘unlikely’ and ‘impossible’. We have also tossed some coins to look at what happens when we have an equal chance of something occurring and posed the question, ‘Does an equal chance mean we end up with an equal result?’ 

Year Four

This week we have been scavenging the foyer, not for ideas of thrifty Christmas gifts but for angles. Students have been participating in a scavenger hunt of both mine and their own creation in the hunt for the five main types of angles. 

In our Science unit, we have been discussing how to model a process that takes thousands of years in mere minutes. The challenge: model the weathering of rocks in under ten minutes. How, you ask? Well, we used sugar cubes. They were hardy enough initially but when we recreated the rolling nature of a river they began be more like sugar circles and eventually sugar grains. We may never look at sand again quite the same way.

Year Five

This week in Year Five, we have concluded our poetry unit by completing a poem using figurative language, which we have been learning about in writing. In Science, we have completed some investigations about light and how it reflects, absorbs and creates shadows. Year Five O said farewell to our amazing practicum student, Ms Dallymore and we hope to see her at GSG once she qualifies.

Languages

This week, our ECC students were introduced to the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood − all in French, of course! They were amazed to realise that, even though the teacher did not use a single word of English, they could still follow what was happening on each page. Like true language detectives, they used their prior knowledge of the story, the pictures to make connections with the words, and their growing bank of French vocabulary. They also noticed that many English and French words sound alike, helping them guess meanings and understand whole sentences. These ‘aha!’ moments are what make learning a language so enjoyable and rewarding!

Upcoming Events

Week Five

• Friday 14 November 5.00pm and Saturday 15 November 11.00am and2.00pm, Possum Place 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
• Thursday 20 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, Pre-Primary to Year Six. Please label all items
• Friday 28 November, Orientation Day for 2026 Kindergarten to Year Five, 9.00am to 11.15am; and 2026 Years Seven and Eight, 9.00am to 1.30pm (Further information will be shared with families.)

Week Eight

• Monday 1 December to Friday 5 December, In-term swimming lessons, Pre-Primary to Year Four, and Year Six. Please label all items

   

Have a wonderful weekend.

Ms Leah Field | Head of Primary and

Mrs Hayley Ranger | Head of Early Childhood