Welcome families to week six! We cannot believe we are already halfway through term three!!

BULLYING NO WAY WEEK

This week, we will recognise Bullying No Way Week. The week provides an important opportunity to strengthen our students’ understanding of respectful relationships, inclusion and belonging.

Throughout the week, students will explore what bullying is, how it differs from everyday disagreements, and the important role we can all play in creating a safe and supportive school community.

We will focus on recognising bullying behaviours, speaking up safely, seeking help from trusted adults and supporting others with kindness and courage. Most importantly, students will be reminded that every person has the power to make a positive difference through the way they choose to treat others.

We registered to join the largest ever anti-bullying lesson on Monday 17th August. through Kids Helpline. We ensured that the session was tailored to our age groups and each lesson had been created by Kids Helpline counsellors, was curriculum-aligned, and designed to give students practical strategies to respond to bullying.

On Friday the 21st of August students are invited to wear a ‘Pop of Purple’ to recognise the work we have done this week, reminding kids that together we can make a big impact.

WARRANDYTE HIGH SCHOOL

Our Grade 4 students enjoyed an exciting visit to Warrandyte High School, where they were given a special taste of what high school life might be like! Students participated in engaging PE and STEM lessons, explored a different learning environment and were even treated to a delicious morning tea. It was wonderful to see everyone embrace the experience with curiosity and enthusiasm, and there was certainly a buzz of excitement as students began thinking about the next chapter of their learning journey that awaits beyond primary school. A big thank you to Joe and the teachers at Warrandyte High School for making our students feel so welcome!

MUDDY PLAY

With the recent wet weather, we are noticing that some students are becoming very muddy during playtimes! While we love seeing students enjoying the outdoors, our supply of spare clothing in the sickbay has now been exhausted.

We ask families to please ensure that children who enjoy exploring the muddier areas of the yard have a complete change of clothes in their school bag, including underwear and socks. Having spare clothes available will mean students can quickly change and return to class clean, dry and comfortable, ready for their learning.

Thank you for helping us keep the muddy adventures outside!

TOYS AND FIDGETS

Recently, we have noticed an increasing number of toys and personal items making their way into classrooms and learning spaces. While these can be great for play and connection during break times, they can also become a distraction during lessons. Students are welcome to bring appropriate toys to school to enjoy with friends at recess and lunchtime. During learning time, however, toys and personal items need to remain safely in students' bags.

HOLIDAYS

If your family is planning a holiday during the school term, we kindly ask that parents communicate this directly with their child’s teacher, rather than relying on students to pass the information on. A quick email letting us know the dates your child will be away is all that is needed and helps us plan for their absence and return to learning.

Thank you for helping us stay informed and ensuring clear communication between home and school.

Literacy

Reading

Supporting the Bullying No Way week is Disney Pixar’s short clip and our mentor text, Lou.

Lou which is a heartwarming story set in a school playground that follows a mysterious creature who steps in when one student repeatedly takes belongings from others. Through humour and emotion, Lou explores themes of bullying, belonging, empathy, kindness and the power to change, encouraging students to consider how our choices affect others and how positive actions can help create a safe and inclusive community.

WHAT CAN YOU DO AT HOME:

Families can support this week’s learning by talking together about the themes explored in Lou, including kindness, empathy, belonging, choices and the impact our actions can have on others. Encourage your child to retell the story in sequence, describe how the characters’ feelings and behaviours change, and explain what clues helped them make these inferences. You might also discuss times when someone could speak up, include others or seek help from a trusted adult, reinforcing that we all have the power to contribute to a safe, respectful and inclusive community.

Spelling

WHAT CAN YOU DO AT HOME:

Ask your child about the “Weird Words” that we explore each day through PhOrMeS. Students should be able to tell you why the word is considered weird. Can your child spell these words accurately and can they recognise any that are homophones? Are they able to tell you the correct definition if they are homophones?

A review of weird words that we have investigated throughout the term include; prepared, area, various, wear, vary, bear, clothes, aunty

Writing

This week, students will continue developing their narrative writing through our engaging prompt, ‘The Power Within’. Building on their planning and initial ideas, students will further develop their characters, settings, problems and solutions, exploring how inner strengths such as courage, resilience, kindness and determination can influence a character’s choices and journey.

Our focus will be on strengthening and refining our narratives through rich vocabulary, descriptive language, engaging story structure and thoughtful revision. Alongside this, our explicit grammar focus will continue to be on the correct use of talking marks (quotation marks) when writing dialogue. Students will learn how to punctuate direct speech accurately, identify who is speaking and use dialogue purposefully to reveal character, show emotion and move the story forward.

WHAT CAN YOU DO AT HOME:

Families can support our narrative writing focus by encouraging children to

Talk together about interesting characters, settings, problems and possible solutions, and encourage your child to use descriptive vocabulary to help the listener imagine the scene.

You could also practise creating short conversations between characters, focusing on the correct use of talking marks and punctuation. Reading together is another wonderful way to help—pause when characters speak and notice how authors punctuate dialogue and use it to reveal feelings, personalities and relationships.

Maths

Grade 3 – TIME

Students will continue developing their understanding of time, with a particular focus on reading and representing time on analogue and digital clocks. They will explore the relationship between hours and minutes, read time to the nearest minute, and connect different ways of expressing time, such as quarter past, half past, quarter to and minutes past/to the hour. Students will also strengthen their understanding of hours, minutes and seconds and apply their skills to meaningful everyday situations.

WHAT CAN YOU DO AT HOME:

Families can help by making telling the time part of everyday conversations. Ask your child to read clocks around the house, work out what time an activity begins or finishes, or calculate how many minutes remain until dinner, bedtime, sport or a favourite television program. Encourage them to practise saying the same time in different ways—for example, 7:45 = quarter to eight = 45 minutes past seven—and compare analogue and digital displays whenever possible. These simple, real-life opportunities are a wonderful way to build confidence and fluency with time.

Grade 4 -Angles

Students will continue developing their understanding of angles, building their confidence in identifying, estimating, comparing and classifying angles. They will use a right angle as an important reference point and explore acute, right, obtuse, straight and reflex angles, as well as a full revolution. They will investigate angles within shapes and the world around them, using mathematical reasoning to determine whether angles are smaller than, equal to or greater than a right angle.

WHAT CAN YOU DO AT HOME:

Families can support this learning by becoming angle detectives together! Look for angles around the home and community—in clocks, doors, windows, furniture, road signs, playground equipment or even the position of your arms—and ask your child to classify what they see.

Encourage questions such as, “Is that angle smaller or larger than a right angle?”, “Would you call it acute, obtuse or reflex?” and “Where can you find a straight angle or a full revolution?” You could even make a simple right-angle checker by folding a piece of paper twice and use it to investigate angles around the house.

Continue to encourage your child to practice their times tables regularly by saying them out loud, writing them down, or through quizzing.

Multiverse on Mathletics and Hit the Button (website) can be a fun interactive way to practice and strengthen number fact knowledge and work towards automaticity

CBL (Challenge Based Learning)

Our Challenge Based Learning (CBL) Big Idea is Power.

This week we continuing to investigate our guiding question - What power do you have and how could you use it?

We will introduce the Challenge; Use your power to make a positive impact. Students will be supported to plan and present their proposal on how they would like to work towards the challenge.

Wellbeing

SWBPS

Through our SWPBS program and token system, we continue to recognise and celebrate students who demonstrate positive work habits, respectful relationships and safe behaviours, helping to create a supportive learning environment where everyone can thrive.

Our focus this week supports the wellbeing focus of Bullying No Way week.

Kitchen Garden 

We continue to rely on the support of our wonderful parent helpers to ensure this program is safe and successful. We also warmly welcome help from extended family such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles. If you or a family member can spare some time to support the program, the sign-up link is:

https://signup.com/go/kLsQDpy

We post our recipes on Showbie for students who would like to recreate the amazing dishes they make in our cooking classes.

Please use the Showbie code below if your child would like to access these recipes:

9JYVE

INFORMATION & REMINDERS

Term Three Dates

August

Monday 17th – Friday 20th Bullying No Way week

Monday 17th & Tuesday 18th – Incursion “Democracy, Community and Me”

Monday 24th August – Scienceworks Grade 3 excursion

Tuesday 25th August – Scienceworks Grade 4 excursion

Wednesday 26th August - Book Week Dress Up and Author Visit

VSSS Choir have several dates on the calendar over the next couple of weeks

-please help support your child to make sure their iPad is charged and ready to use each day

Wellbeing Hub