5-8 Community News
Can you believe that we are just about midway through an 11 week term. Already, it has been a term to remember.
Firstly, on behalf of the staff in our Community, we wanted to take the time to thank you for your commitment to our Community by attending our Subject Teacher Conversations. They were fairly jam packed but we really enjoyed and value the opportunities to celebrate your child's learning.
Year 5/6
The Year 5/6 students have hit the ground running in Term 2. All students have settled back into routine quickly. Both groups have continued their comprehension and word recognition work by exploring the novels of 'Boy' and 'Wonder'. These novels will be finished midway through the Term. This Term in Maths both the Year 5 and Year 6 students have explored fractions, decimals and money and are about to move on to a Measurement unit.
Year 7
Students have continued their comprehension and word recognition work by exploring the novel 'Inside Out & Back Again'. This novel will be finished midway through the Term. This Term in Maths the Year 7 students have explored Fractions and Decimals, and have moved into Statistics & Probability where students will look to investigate the Experimental & Theoretical Probability through a 1000m horse race.
Year 8
The Year 8's have continued to work hard this Term. A change in our space has seen students adapt and practice resilience. We have finished 'Animal Farm' in English and have moved into a Poetry unit. Each week will see us engaging in a new poem, learning about the speaker, intended audience and figurative language. In Maths, we have just wrapped up the first section of 'Units of measurement' and we are starting 'Understanding algebra and linear relationships'. During RE we have started looking at different religions using the De Bono's Thinking Hats, in Science we have wrapped up our 'Organ systems and reproduction' and moved into 'Earth and space science - Rocks'. In Humanities students have continued to look at Government structures. Health has seen the introduction of an ongoing assignment, where students can select from multiple options to display their learning. There is plenty of action in the coming weeks in the lead up to the school holidays.
Partnerships for the Future
The students have continued with their text called ‘Cop and Robber’, written by Tristan Bancks. The story is starting to take a bit of a turn at the moment with the story's main protagonist having to choose between Mum or Dad. The kids are really into the book at the moment as some of the students are finding some of these situations easy to connect to their own experiences. We continue to promote the importance of reading, writing and spelling each and every day.
The students are also completing a Healthy Eating module which helps cement these concepts in TA. The students have been involved in various healthy eating practices as well as movement activities where they have been invited to participate in the local Gym in Kyabram.
SOLE
So far throughout the Term, we have continued to promote and teach individual behaviours and skills to students in Years 5-8 by using an approach that supports the students in a positive way. This fortnight for example, our focus is to work with students on the skill: ‘remaining on task by managing my distractions and managing my space’. It continues to remain imperative that we provide the children with opportunities to practise these skills where possible and the use of these visual tools are a good example of teachable moments.
We also feel that it's important that we continue to recognise when the students are displaying these skills whereby the use of our SOLE stars are good examples of positive recognition.
Our SOLE stars were recognised and awarded at our assembly on Wednesday.
Lunchtime activities:
This term, we have access to the following lunchtime activities.
Monday - Indoor Netball
Tuesday - Indoor activities
Wednesday - Soup, Slippers and Silence
Whilst the days are still very nice, we continue to promote and allow for the students to visit the Rec Reserve for their sports. The space itself provides students with the chance to play more of a competitive and friendly sporting activity.
The Resilience Project - TA
We have spent 8 weeks encouraging the students to think about their own battery. The purpose of these activities is to have the students think about what is or what isn't charging their battery. What are the students getting more or less of? And are they ready to learn?
We have explored the first 2 elements of the Battery 'Sleep' and 'Move'. Without sleep, it makes it difficult for students to be able to actively participate in any designated activity and we strongly recommend that the students strive to aim for 8-10 hours of sleep, recommended by the Australian Government Health Guidelines. It is also recommended that students need 60 minutes of vigorous activity or 5-10 minutes of quick movement activities. The students have been participating in some Just Dance and some HITT workouts as opportunities to reset!
We are now moving into the space of Nourish and what this looks like for our students. We will move towards encouraging the students to think about certain foods that can help ‘Nourish’ our battery.
Social Media Usage
I invite all families to attend our Digital Wellbeing session on Wednesday 5 June hosted by The Resilience Project, Victoria Police and Headspace. We are experiencing a lot of challenges in the space of IT and we really need your support to help us educate our students on their device use.
We are continuing to do this daily at the College. Last week, we had Shane Roberts from Victoria Police present to the students. This session provided the students with information about how to manage their devices, what and what not to send and how to remain vigilant and safe when using technology.
At the moment, we are seeing a slight increase in the number of students using certain applications online to connect with their friends. These applications have a recommended age requirement of 13.
We are continuing to spend significant time with students to identify positives and negatives associated with Social Media use by teaching the students how to manage their device connection use.
Some of these lessons can be found below.
Corey Carver and Anthony Poppa
5-8 Community Leaders