Primary School
Spreading Smiles in Pre-Primary: A Visit from Looksee Dental
As part of Dental Health Week, our Pre-Primary students enjoyed a special visit from Pamela Holmes of Looksee Dental. With bright enthusiasm and a warm smile, Pamela led a fun and educational session all about the importance of keeping our teeth clean and healthy.
She spoke about the basics of good oral hygiene, including brushing twice a day, eating teeth-friendly foods and visiting the dentist regularly. Through age-appropriate conversation and hands-on demonstrations, Pamela helped our youngest learners understand how they can take charge of their dental health every day.
A key message of the visit was the value of early intervention, helping children and families see how small daily habits can lead to strong, healthy smiles for life.
We are grateful to Pamela for generously sharing her time and for the incredible work she is doing to promote dental health across our region. Her visit left the children smiling, informed and excited about brushing their teeth, a true success!
Staying Well This Winter: A Reminder to our Primary School Community
As we settle into Term Three, we have noticed a significant increase in illness across the Primary School. Colds, flu and other seasonal viruses are certainly making their rounds, and we thank families for their continued support in helping to reduce the spread of illness within our school community.
We would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of regular handwashing, covering coughs and sneezes and staying home when unwell. These simple practices remain our best defence in protecting the health and wellbeing of our students and staff.
Please note: if your child is absent from school for four or more consecutive days, we kindly ask that you provide a medical certificate to support our attendance records and ensure the absence is appropriately documented.
We understand that managing illness at home can be challenging and we truly appreciate your ongoing efforts to keep our school community safe and healthy.
Classroom News
We hope you enjoy reading about the classroom news from each week of term in our Early Childhood and Primary School classes.
Kindergarten
Kindergarten has been working hard and getting very clever at practising our sounds! We are becoming confident in identifying the initial sounds in words and one of our favourite activities is the ‘search the room’ game. Armed with a special sheet of pictures, we decide what sound each picture starts with, then go on a hunt around the classroom to find the letter that matches the sound. We love this activity because it lets us move, explore and have fun while learning!
We have also been enjoying learning more about fascinating ocean creatures and continuing our observations at the Wild Space, watching closely for any changes in the colour of the water.
Pre-Primary
On Thursday, Pre-Primary had a special visit from Pamela the Dental Nurse and her dragon friend, Alexis. Pamela showed us how to brush our teeth correctly and we learned some great techniques: using circular motions on the front of our teeth, scrubbing the flat surfaces and flicking the back ones.
We discovered that we should brush our teeth twice a day with help from an adult and that it is a good idea to swish with water after eating to keep our mouths clean.
Did you know our back teeth are called molars and our front teeth are called incisors? We use our molars for crunching and chewing and our incisors for biting.
Year One
The Year One class has enjoyed working with Ms Keall over the past two and a half weeks while Mrs Gouldthorp visited her family in the UK. The students were especially excited to see the new weather station and recording studio (role-play area) appear at the end of last week, just in time to launch their new inquiry unit: “What’s changing outside and why?”
During a class brainstorming session, the students shared some excellent ideas. Ms Keall would have been delighted by their recall of her previous geography lessons on maps and the connections they made between weather differences at the equator and in the northern and southern hemispheres.
Year Two
The Year Two class had a wonderful day on our Magical Mystery History Tour this week! We boarded the bus with great anticipation, excited about the places we would visit.
Our first stop was the Fish Traps, a site of cultural significance. We enjoyed exploring the area, reading the information displays and listening to Mr Lewis Ward explain how the Fish Traps work and what the area was used for in the past.
Next, we visited the Light Horse Memorial, which offered stunning views of our city. We learned about the ANZACs and how they departed for Gallipoli from Albany, a powerful moment in our history.
In the centre of town, we were lucky to receive a guided tour of the Albany Town Hall from past student Cameron Findlay. Did you know the clock mechanisms in the Town Hall were built by the same company that made Big Ben in London? We also had fun pretending to be famous while standing on the stage!
We then visited the statue of Mokare, learning about his role as a peacemaker with the early European settlers. Finally, we headed to Binalup/Middleton Beach for a long walk, where we learned about Nicholas Baudin, the explorer and the Point King Lighthouse.
It was an amazing, adventurous day filled with new and interesting facts. A huge thank you to Mrs Hayley Ranger, Mr Lewis Ward and our fabulous bus driver, Mrs Caroline Cameron, for assisting on the day. We are now looking forward to writing information reports about these incredible places!
Year Three
Do you like flags? Year Three does! Our Year Three students have been busy analysing the world around them to understand the “whys” and “what’s going on,” all while organising their curiosity.
Why do so many national flags have stars? Why do so many include moons? Why do so many state flags feature the Union Jack? And why are most flags rectangles, why not hexagons?
We have even learned about hexagons! There are reasons behind the seemingly random things we see around us, like the rule we discovered for the number of edges and corners on prisms. Yes, we learned about prisms too!
Learning how to organise our research and planning has helped us investigate state symbols and design flags of our own. Organisation skills would have helped organise this paragraph... Actually, we learned about paragraphs as well!
Year Four
The Year Four class has been busy applying the knowledge they gained during their Week One excursion to their inquiry into local government services and facilities. It is amazing how much they have discovered about what our local government does for us. We would live very different (and much less exciting!) lives without them.
In Mathematics, the students have been honing their skills in vertical addition and subtraction with regrouping, working with some very large numbers. We certainly have some amazing mathematicians in this class!
They have also been writing factual reports about large Australian birds and will soon be comparing this style of writing to the beautiful descriptive prose in Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy.
Year Five
This week in Year Five, the students started a Mathematics investigation using their knowledge of budgets. They had to organise a party with a strict budget and stick to a theme. We cannot wait to see what they have planned! Our classrooms are also beginning to look like solar systems, which the students are completing during technology lessons.
Year Six
Languages
In Languages, Upper Primary students are putting the finishing touches to their travel brochures, sharpening their intercultural understanding while also honing their English skills: finding key information in texts, crafting persuasive messages and getting creative with Canva designs.
Middle Primary students have been diving into the question ‘Why do we need to learn Noongar?’, leading to thoughtful, eye-opening conversations that challenge misconceptions and build a deeper appreciation of Noongar language and culture. Our ECC students have been joyfully learning the French poem Le Tout Petit Sort de son Lit (The Little One Gets Out of his Bed) and discovering the stories and meanings behind the international names we have explored together.
ECC Briefing
The following superstars have worked exceptionally well and received a Star Award for their outstanding efforts.
Kindergarten H: Llewyn Walls
Kindergarten M: Oliver Shepherd
Pre-Primary: Charlie Macdonald
Year One: Teddy Davison
Year Two: Benji Fergie
The following students have stood out for their ability to show courage.
Kindergarten H: Arzoyi Mann
Kindergarten M: Tom Hicks
Pre-Primary: Larni Jefferis
Year One: Harvey Lucas
Year Two: Jaxon Theodorou
Upcoming events
Term Three, Week Four
- Friday 15 August, Discovery Bay Excursion, Pre-Primary, 9.00am to 2.30pm
- Friday 15 August, Principal's Coffee Morning, Dylans on the Terrace, 10.30am
- Friday 15 August, Chapel Year Six L, all welcome to attend in the Hall at 9.00am
Week Five
- Tuesday 19 August, Primary School Book Week Dress-up and Parade, Multi-Purpose Sport Complex, 9.00am to 9.30am
- Thursday 21 August, Year Five and Six Dockers Shield Boys Carnival, Centennial Park, 9.00am to 2.30pm
- Friday 22 August, Assembly Year Five F, all welcome to attend in the Hall at 9.00am
Week Six
- Monday 25 August, Boarders Closed Weekend (Whole school closed)
- Tuesday 26 August, Year Five to Six AFL Dockers Girls Cup, Centennial Park, 9.00am to 2.30pm
- Thursday 28 August, Walk to School Day, Coraki Park, 8.00am
Week Seven
- Wednesday 3 September, Kindergarten to Year Two Father's Day Morning, ECC building, 9.00am to 10.45am
- Wednesday 3 September, Years Five and Seven, Spare Parts Puppet Play, in the Hall, 9.30am to 10.45am
Wednesday 3 September, Kindergarten Storytime presented by Albany Public Library, 11.30am to 12.00pm
Have a wonderful weekend,
Ms Leah Field | Head of Primary and
Mrs Hayley Ranger | Head of Early Childhood