From Last Week 

Moving towards Nude Food

You might have heard that the yellow mixed recycling bins at BNWPS are gone. This is due to contamination that we have noticed through conducting weekly bin audits.

Contamination is when things that don’t belong in the mixed recycling are in there. Often these things contain food, soft plastics and mixed materials like juice boxes. This means that whole bin is then contaminated, then, if the truck that collects it has a high percentage of contamination the entire truck must turn around and go to landfill! In Enviro Science we just found out that only about 13% of recyclable materials actually get recycled in Victoria.

At school we have been using new awards to promote wearing hats in summer, looking after our class’s compost and now the Golden Apple is for putting the right things in the right bins. With the Golden Apple the senior students survey each class’s bins and give them a score out of five! Classes need to get the most points to win the Golden Apple each week but if the surveyors find recyclables that should have been taken home, points will be deducted.

So it would be great if you could bring nude food but even if you can’t, for whatever reason, please take your mixed recyclables home (we have a paper bin so don’t worry about that).  

By Ella Hendy and Hillary Shortridge on behalf of the senior school and Enviro Leaders.

Literacy

Building Vocabulary

Vocabulary refers to the words that we know.  The depth and breadth of a child’s vocabulary supports them to achieve academic success, think and learn about the world that they live in and express their ideas and feelings.  For this reason, vocabulary instruction is an important part of our teaching practices here at BNWPS.  Thinking about words and their meanings is not limited to just Reading and Writing, but instead is explored through all subject areas including Maths, Art and Playful Inquiry.  For instance, if a group of Foundation students are playing ‘shops’ in Guided Play, there is a whole range of vocabulary that they need to successfully interact.  Or if the Middle students are learning about multiplication in Maths, then they need to know the meaning of words such as ‘times’, ‘multiply’ and ‘groups of’. 

When planning for vocabulary instruction, there are different types of words that teachers consider.  These types of words can be categorised into three tiers (see diagram below).  Generally, most of our time is spent teaching students tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary.  Students are provided a range of opportunities to explore, consolidate and generalise the meaning of words, with the hope being that they will then apply them both at school and in their everyday lives.

There are many ways that you too can support your child’s vocabulary development at home.  Reading with them and tuning in to new and interesting words is one way.  Modelling the use of a range of vocabulary is also very effective.  For example, instead of describing your dinner as ‘nice’, you could use the words ‘delightful’ or ‘scrumptious’ instead.  Other strategies include choosing a word of the week  and playing word games.

Pizza Day Update

Hello BNW families,

A reminder that tomorrow will be pizza day for prep to grade 4 and Friday will be pizza day for grade 5 and 6. We will stick to this schedule for the rest of the term to help even out the distribution. Thank you for your understanding. 

Kind regards,

Sprout Team