School of Foundations
From the Head of School
Student Led Conferences
Next week, parents have the opportunity to attend student led conferences. The benefits of student-led conferences are they promote increased student ownership as students take an active role in their conferences as well as a sense of ownership and responsibility for their learning. They become active participants in the process and take pride in showcasing their progress, achievements, and areas for improvement.
Student-led conferences provide an opportunity for students to enhance their communication skills. They learn to articulate their thoughts, express their ideas, and discuss their learning experiences with confidence. These skills are valuable for future academic and professional endeavours.
Students engage in self-reflection as they prepare for their conferences. They review their work, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and set goals for further improvement. This process promotes self-awareness, metacognition, and a deeper understanding of their learning journey.
Student-led conferences foster stronger relationships between students, parents, and teachers. When students present their progress, parents gain insight into their child's learning experiences directly from the student's perspective. This involvement enhances collaboration and trust among all stakeholders.
Through student-led conferences, students actively participate in goal setting and action planning. They identify areas they want to improve, set specific targets, and devise strategies to achieve them. This process empowers students to take responsibility for their learning and develop essential skills in self-regulation and goal attainment.
It provides an authentic assessment opportunity where students showcase their work, demonstrate their understanding, and reflect on their progress. This method moves beyond traditional test scores and grades, allowing students to showcase their knowledge, skills, and growth in a more holistic manner.
Student-led conferences promote a sense of empowerment and boost students' confidence. When they have the opportunity to present their work and accomplishments, students develop a positive self-image, gain pride in their achievements, and build confidence in their abilities.
It actively involves parents in the learning process. By attending these conferences, parents gain a deeper understanding of their child's strengths, challenges, and progress. They become partners in their child's education, fostering a supportive home-school connection.
Overall, student-led conferences promote student agency, communication skills, self-reflection, and stronger relationships between students, parents, and teachers. They offer a valuable platform for students to showcase their growth and actively engage in their learning journey.
Thank you for your continued support as in partnership we can achieve great things for our children.
Julianne Rook
Head of School K-4
Kindergarten
English
In writing, Kindergarten students have been learning to write informative texts about animals. They first label the different parts of the animal making sure that they are using adjectives. They then use these labels to write full sentences, giving information about the animals.
Religion
In Religion, students are working on their final product to think of different ways that they can appreciate others. They had to act out different scenarios to show them putting the needs of others before their own.
Maths
On Fridays Kindergarten participates in a number of the day focus. We think of a special number and need to think of the numbers before and after. We also need to represent this special number in different ways, for example in a 10’s frame, picture and number line.
Science
In Science, students have been learning to identify the way objects move- some objects roll, slide, bounce or fly. Students have also been learning that a force is what causes these objects to move in different ways and these forces are called a push or a pull.
Stage 1
English
In English we have been learning about the process of writing to entertain. Students have been exploring different sentence structures, language features and working on how to capture the reader’s attention.
Religion
In Religion we have been learning about how to pray to God as well as learning about the Holy Spirit and how we can demonstrate this within our school community. As a Stage 1 community we came together with our fellow peers, teachers and parents in Week 8 to celebrate our Stage 1 liturgy for the term. Through this we were able to share our learning.
Mathematics
Over the last few weeks our students have been working on place value and whole number rich tasks. The students have been consolidating their knowledge addition and place value by adding numbers together using known strategies and using concrete materials to check their answers with a partner. The students have also been working on their counting strategies; counting up by twos, fives and tens.
Science
In Science we have begun learning about food and fibre. Year 2 has been exploring the different categories of food including fruits, vegetables, grains and proteins. We have also looked at different types of fibres such as wool, silk and cotton. We discovered how we use sheep’s wool as a fibre to make clothing and blankets. Then we started to look at the production process from a sheep being sheared, the wool sorted and cleaned and then sent to a factory for processing. We identified that sheep wool is a sustainable material because it is naturally grown, not mass produced. We also explored the farm to fork process by looking at how apples get from the tree to the shops.
Stage 2
English
Year 3 - Story writing - Magicians
Year 3 has been diving into the exciting world of narrative storytelling! They've been busy planning their main characters and settings, kicking off with captivating story starters to spark their creativity. As they bring their stories to life, they've been revising their work by combining sentences and enriching their narratives with vivid adjectives, adverbs, and complex verbs. They're also exploring different sentence structures to keep their writing dynamic. To make their settings truly immersive, they are learning to incorporate the five senses, making their stories come alive for the reader. It's been an adventurous journey in creativity and expression!
Year 4 - Informative writing - Diagons
Year 4 has been perfecting the art of informing through text. Over the past term students have been trying to improve their writing skills in hopes to Inform a reader about a significant place. Students worked hard to research and gather important information in order to add depth to their writing. As well as this Students dived head first into writing procedures and came up with some great examples of effective communication.
Mathematics
Year 3
Year 3 has been exploring measurement over the last week. The Year 3 students have been exploring millimetres, centimetres and metres. The Gringotts students have put their skills to the test and have been estimating and measuring all over the basketball courts!
Year 4
Students in Year 4 have been exploring capacity by estimating, measuring and comparing the capacity of various containers. Students enjoyed being able to work outside and play around with the water.
Religion - Stage Liturgy
This week, our Year 3 and Year 4 students were able to come together as a Stage to celebrate our faith, unity and growing spiritual awareness. The photos captured the essence of our shared experience, reflecting the joy, reverence, and community spirit that define our school.
Sport
Last week, Year 10 students participated in a coaching session with Stage 2 students. Year 10 students were coaching the Stage 2 students in a range of different sporting skills. The Stage 2 students had a great time learning from the older students and were very engaged in the different fitness activities.
Health / Wellbeing: From Mr Bettiol
Our Year 3 and 4 students had fun while being involved in worthwhile activities that improved their skills and health. Year 10 students had the term to plan for this session along with being educated about health and skill related components and were taught how to incorporate that into a skill and game sense approach.
Year 10 PDHPE students were required to create a training session for primary aged students (Year 3 and 4). The aim of the program is to promote lifelong physical activity. The group selected two or more skill and/or health related components that formed the basis of a training session.
Our year 3 and 4 students had fun being led by their Year 10 peers and was involved in various health related and skill related component activities.
