The Newlands Times

Leadership Report


Is there a better way to finish off Week 3, other than an outdoor cinema night of the classic Coco?!! The PFA are starting off the term with a great night planned. Make sure you bring some blankets, Oodies, snacks for the evening or cash to purchase drinks, sausages and homemade cakes! The fun begins at 5:00pm. A big thank you to the PFA for once again providing opportunities for our school community come together for a fun evening of entertainment.  

 

Over the last three years, Newlands has invested close to $ 25,000 towards improving our Literacy resources as we moved towards a systematic, synthetic phonics approach. This has included purchasing:

  • Decodable take home readers 
  • Decodable take home readers for older students
  • Decodable reading sets for small group instruction (including sets for older readers)
  • Take home readers for independent readers (to replace the previous A - Z readers)
  • Texts for small group instruction for independent readers 
  • 'Builders' resources to support the implementation of a systematic, synthetic phonics approach 

We asking families to ensure that take home readers are cared for and returned to school in the same condition they are borrowed, so the rest of our students have access!

 

There has been lots of great learning taking place at Newlands, Here is a quick rundown: 

 

Foundation                                                                                                                                        

I joined Foundation C in their Art class today. They were drawing monsters with different colours and shapes. Xanthie showed me ‘Amy’ who had a square head, triangle mouth and a range of teeth.  Amy didn’t have legs, she had wheels to move around all over the place. Xanthie used different colours to highlight the features, most notable were the green square eyes which allowed Amy to see inside of people! Our value of creativity was in full flight!

 

1/2

I sat down with Cooper while he was doing his Maths Online Interview update. This is one of the assessments that Newlands uses to ensure that teachers are having a positive impact on student learning. It was great to hear Cooper share his thinking as he solved 100 – 68. It was awesome to see Cooper use his knowledge of the relationship between addition and subtraction to find the answer. 

 

3/4

I jumped in to Clara’s class this week where the only thing they wanted to talk about was ‘Vegemite’ stories. I thanked Eric, who provided an alternative answer and talked about the Information Reports they have been writing. Taylor jumped in and told me about how you need to have a title, subtitles, paragraphs and images to have a great information report. Ezra told me the most important thing about information reports is that they need to be full of facts! Eric told me how the class has been writing information reports about Natural Disasters including Tsunamis and Earthquakes. The students are learning about writing notes and taking dot points while watching videos and reading texts.

 

5/6

Ashlee and I played one of the builder’s activities, which was a fluency task, demonstrating the relationships between multiplication and division. It was a board game activity in Spanish that gave me the opportunity to hear Ashlee answer number fact questions which were focused on the 7 times tables. All of the 5/6s are really excited about auditioning for our Term 3 School Concert. The specialist team have incredibly hard decisions to make, as they have been impressed with so many of our students. 

 

Building Update

It is a very exciting time for the teachers and students as all of the pinboards, whiteboards and bag hooks are up in the spaces. We were lucky enough to jump into the spectacle that is our new school hall. The flooring has been laid and the asphalt for the new carpark will go down at the start of next week. It still looks like we will have access to the new gym during Term 3, which is making Raul very happy!

 

Cross Country Trials

Raul has also been running the trials for Cross Country this week. Congratulations to all the students for trying their best and to the successful students who will be representing our school later in the term. 

 

Foundation Information Night 15th of May

A big thank you to all the families who have returned their 2025 enrolment forms. Our upcoming information night is on the 15th of May at 7:00pm. We recommend families to attend this night, even if they are attending the student led tours. For more information, please click the 2025 Foundation Enrolments, Tours and Information Night page. 

 

Mother’s Day Breakfast – Next Friday

Next Friday the 10th of  May is our Mother’s Day celebration. Our famous cuisine options will begin at 8:am for family members and students. This is just one way our school can say thank you for supporting and looking after your child. A big thank you to all the teachers for giving up their time to help cook the Michelin quality breakfast. 

 

31st of May Colour Run

 

We will be having our first ever Newlands Colour Run on the Friday the 31st of May. Information has been posted out on SENTRAL but more can be found on the Colour Run page. We appreciate the support as all money raised from the PFA run event will be allocated to our new school playground. More information about the playground is to come! 

 

 

 

See you tonight, 

Thanks, 

Luke