Senior and Middle School News

NAPLAN Results

The NAPLAN results for our Year 3 and 5 have now been distributed to families over the past week. If you have not yet received your results, please contact the school office for details on how you can receive your child's report.

It is important that parents are able to read and interpret the report correctly, so that they can gain a beneficial insight as to the current academic progress of their child. The following video link gives a brief description on how to interpret the results provided;

If you have any queries concerning your child's individual results, please contact their classroom teacher to discuss them further.

Year 3 and 4 Mathematics

Our year three and four students have commenced term three investigating the concept of place value, specifically in relation to partitioning, rearranging, regrouping and ordering whole numbers into the tens of thousands. To help develop their understanding students have been encouraged to use a variety of concrete resources such as MAB Blocks, spike abacuses, number expanders and digital technologies.  All students have made significant progress in their understanding, and some have provided some reflective comments about their current unit of study;

'I really liked making the number expanders, they were really fun. I tried to make them as perfect as possible.' - E.

'We learnt how to make numbers and add them up.' - Isla.

Year 5 & 6 Literacy

Our focus early this term is around finding information in text such as locating the main ideas and then the key supporting information to be able to provide a consise summary of the text on hand.

Students were able to take a page of text and condense this into just a few lines which they did a fantastic job of. 

We have also been looking at finding inferences made from text as well as determining the point of view a text is presented in - first, second or third person. 

If listening or discussing text with your child, be sure to have a discussion around this. It is great for their reinforcement. Remember, shared discussions around text and reading modelling is critical in establishing a love of reading and the ability to comprehend what is read.

Year 5 & 6 Maths

Fractional and decimal equivalence - wow, did you know that 5/10 is the same as 0.5 which is the same as a 1/2 and 2/4 and 50/100 and .................?

This week we are learning about creating bar and line graphs, focusing on understanding that data can be categorical or numerical. Students have looked at the requirement for labeling a graph, using titles and the X and Y axis. 

Buddies

This week in Buddies we have looked at the Olympic Torch, discussing its origins and the journey that it takes each Olympic year. The Foundation students worked with their year 5 and 6 buddies to create their own Olympic torch using cellophane to create the fire effect.

ISAC (Inter Schools Activity Challenge)

This week Grade 6's and some lucky Grade 5's are heading off in three teams for a STEM Challenge at Bluescope Steel and run by the Rotary Club of Somerville.

The teams challenge is to study the principles of flight and apply these principles to making a paper aeroplane. These include thrust, lift, weight and drag.

The challenge is based on the aggregate score of the four team members and is awarded based on distance achieved x hang time. There will be an accuracy component for the finals. All teams receive a cash award for the school with the winning team earning $300 for the school.