Leadership Report

Is there a better way to start your Friday than seeing 500 bikes sprinting around the school grounds, surrounded by happy parents who underestimated the Murphy Street oval chill? There were so many fantastic decorated bikes across the school. We can’t thank families enough for their support in making the event a success. A big thank you to Alberto and Claire, who cleaned up some unused bikes at our school and gave them to students who didn’t have access to one!

As always, Raúl… can we say anything bad about him? Absolutely not! Viva La Vuelta de Newlands!

DAYS Network Executive Meeting

Newlands Primary School hosted the DAYS Network Executive meeting on Tuesday, which included 10 principals from both primary and secondary schools in our local network. It was fantastic to showcase all the great work happening at our school, but the one thing the principals will take away is Diego’s lunchtime dance club. Tuesday lunchtime in the gym is always a party!

Facts on Fire

We often talk about Facts on Fire and the positive impact it is having on our students’ growth and understanding in Numeracy. On Wednesday, Graeme presented Newlands Primary School’s journey of implementation, including the progression of our Facts of Fuego song, alongside Brian Poncy, the researcher and creator of the concept. A big congratulations to Graeme for showcasing our school to over 200 other schools across the state.

Neurodiversity Week

On Wednesday after school, to celebrate Neurodiversity Week, we were lucky enough to have three parents share their stories of having a neurodivergent child. The school continues to build its knowledge and capacity to support all of our students, and it was great to hear the stories, strategies, wins, and challenges from these parents. We look forward to continuing to work with our families to develop stronger processes.

Thank you to the Community Leaders (Henry, Neelix, Mei, and Elsa) for organising something to happen each day, from videos to watch in class to chalking in the quadrangle at play time - see the photos below.

If you'd like to check out the videos at home, you can find them here https://www.neurodiversityweek.com/videos Some are informative, while others are deeply powerful and moving accounts of what life can be like for neurodivergent people.

Parent Teacher Interviews

Parent Teacher Interviews begin next week! It is not too late to book your time on SENTRAL. This is an opportunity to hear how your child has settled into Newlands, how they are going, what the school is doing, and how you can support at home. At Newlands, we believe having the opportunity to meet your child’s teacher every term is important, and we make organisational changes to ensure this remains a priority. We highly encourage all families to take this opportunity!

AEU Stop Work Action

As has been communicated on SENTRAL, there will be a stop work action next Tuesday, meaning there will be significant disruptions to our school. This is in response to the lack of acknowledgement and understanding of the work that teachers do day in and day out. We are unable to confirm which teachers will not be at school until Monday. Classes will not run as normal, nor can we guarantee standard class sizes or supervision. More information will be sent out Monday at 9:00am on SENTRAL. If you would like more information on why teachers are striking, please see the AEU page in the newsletter.

Bilingual Fiesta

Next Friday, to celebrate the start of our Venezuelan Cultural Week, we have our Bilingual Fiesta. You do not want to be the person who misses this event, you may be judged for the rest of your time at Newlands! There will be food, jumping castles, music, dancing, and Aggie with an RSA! It is always a fantastic event, make sure you are there!

Newlands Unidos

It is official! Newlands Unidos will be joining the Coburg Basketball Association for the winter season, aligning with our morning training sessions. It has been fantastic seeing students come to school so motivated to play basketball in the mornings and then enter the classroom ready to learn.

To all parents: teams will be created based on the SENTRAL information sent out this week. You need to confirm your intentions by today. I suggest doing that right now before continuing on! We are excited to finally share our uniform and can’t wait to see our students out on the courts around our area.

In the Classroom

As we were filming across the school this week with videos about our Bilingual Program, Literacy & Numeracy program as well as our Wellbeing approach, I was able to see a lot of great work taking place in the classrooms!

Foundation

In the Foundation rooms, I visited the English classes where both Colleen and Luke were supporting students to practise simple sentence writing using the “who, doing what, and where” structure. A couple of weeks ago, I saw students talking about their sentences. This week, I was able to see them drawing and writing them using their sound knowledge.

In Spanish, students demonstrated their understanding of colours, numbers, and classroom items. I also appreciated the support from Foundation students in helping me pronounce my Spanish syllables correctly!

Year 1/2

I started the day with Kylee’s incredible visual timetable. Not only does it clearly show the events of the day and week, but it is also an excellent support for student understanding.

I joined Christine in a Spanish Retrieval, where students were writing words using their syllable knowledge. I kept wondering how students are supposed to concentrate on spelling when words like caramelo are involved!

I also saw Bianca running an explicit handwriting lesson, Simon teaching conjunctions and their different purposes, Paula leading a Facts on Fuego session, and even had the opportunity to see Almendra fake cry! A solid afternoon of learning and fun.

Year 3/4

Diego’s class is full of joy, and the students’ knowledge and understanding were incredible. In ten minutes, students showcased their understanding of place value by adding and subtracting 10s, 100s, and 1000s, as well as bridging strategies. They also demonstrated their understanding of time using analogue clocks to solve duration problems. La retrieval was perfecto!

I also joined Sole’s “I do,” which clearly demonstrated how to use a number line to solve subtraction problems. It was fantastic to see how well the 3/4 team is differentiating numeracy.

I visited Lucinda, Katherine, and Alysha’s classrooms, all of which were so well organised that Mary Poppins would take notes. The 3/4 area is a well-oiled machine - without the petrol prices!

Year 5/6

Kaya and Flor’s spaces are always a joy to visit. Students are reading The Lost Bear and are highly engaged, sharing predictions and discussing the story. In Kaya’s class, I saw students learning about the setting in Norway to build deeper understanding and connection to the text.

I also visited Emma’s class during a retrieval spelling session on suffixes, observed Jose running a Spanish literacy session well beyond my expertise, and saw that Flor’s class is close to finishing their narratives.

In reflection, the classrooms all look fantastic!

Have the best weekend! We will see you next week!

Thanks,

Luke