Specialist Report

Hello from the 2021 Specialist team! 

Physical Education 

This term, the students have been settling into the Physical Education routine. During term 1, the Prep community will be focusing on responding to the whistle and music. This is to ensure students are following and responding to instructions. 

The Grade 1/2 communities will be focusing on the vertical jump. They will be responding in different activities by focusing on three simple cues known as batman, superman and motorbike to help ensure they are doing the correct technique. 

The Grade 3/4 communities will be focusing on some athletic events such as shot put, long jump and discus. This is to build their confidence on their technique in order to transfer these skills in competition later in the year. 

The Grade 5/6 communities will be focusing on invasion games like netball and basketball. This is to build their confidence on game play strategies like moving into space on the court, decision making on their next move under pressure, giving their team the best opportunity in holding possession of the ball, pressuring the attacking team and calling out for the ball. 

2021 House Captains:

Congratulations to the following students for becoming the House Captains for 2021.

Bradman (Red) House-Marenda and Bakari

Fraser (Blue) House-Narmin and Navroz

Evans (Yellow) House-Aisha and Mazin

Freeman (Green) House-Lacie and Anika

I am looking forward to working with you across the year. 

Hookin2Hockey:

Hookin2Hockey gives young boys and girls 10 years and under the opportunity to learn the basic skills of hockey, develop fundamental motor skills and make friends all while beginning your lifelong love of hockey!

– Introductory program

– Skill based games

– Optional Participant pack upon registration

– Fun and safe environment

– Official program of Hockey Australia

For more details contact: 

Danielle Powell on 0402 671 723 or via email on info@humehockeyclub.com 

For more information on this program you could visit the website at: https://hookin2hockey.com.au

Alannah - Physical Education teacher

Visual Arts

“Art to me is…”

There has been an overwhelmingly positive start to the year in Visual Arts, with students in the Icarus and Ulysses Communities responding to the statement, “Art to me is…”. While there are varying ideas amongst the students, it’s clear that Art is a positive space for many and we're looking forward to seeing their creativity blossom throughout the year! 

Here is a small selection of the statements that Icarus and Ulysses are making about art:

“Art is a place where you calm down and do your best work and be creative.”

– Sahar R, 3/4

“Art to me is perfect because I can be everything in my mind on the page and I can relax. It takes my stress away.” – Nimar, 3/4 

“To me art means expressing yourself on a piece of paper.” – Navroz, 5/6 

“When I come to art, I feel…inspired, excited and hopeful in my art!!” – Jasroop, 5/6

“I feel great when I step in the art room.” – Aliakbar, 5/6

“Art to me is a creation to be not just admired but INSPIRED!” – Daksh, 5/6

“To me art is when I can show the real me, it’s also something that makes me believe I can be creative and that I should believe in myself.” – Namya, 5/6

“Art to me is a wonderful world of creativity and a place to use my mind and imagine new things for art.” – Caylee, 3/4

“Art to me is fun and makes me happy and it makes me want to come to school every day.” – Fatima R, 3/4

“Art makes me feel like I know who I am.” – Aya, 3/4

“Art to me is a way to empathise with another, to feel how they felt at the time of the arts creation. Art is a way to make others know how you feel.” – Bakari, 5/6

All communities have developed a front cover for their 2021 Visual Diary. Icarus community have experimented with ink dyes, to create an abstract piece that includes a personalised photo and goals for their learning in 2021. The Ulysses community have put on their best ‘thinking pose’ for a photo and drawn a thought bubble representing their passions and interests. The Argus and Xenica community were introduced to the famous image ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch, before reproducing their own real-life versions, which they completed with oil pastel! Lastly the Achilles community experimented with colour apps and oil pastel to create their first self-portraits, that will make a lovely memento of their first primary school art class! The students’ visual diaries will continuously develop throughout the year as they experiment with materials and plan for their future masterpieces! 

2021 Visual Arts Captains

Congratulations to our 2021 Visual Art Captains: Ebony and Gracie! I know they are both excited for their new role and will enthusiastically take on their responsibilities.

Suzie - Visual Arts teacher

Performing Arts

Year Prep: 

In Performing Arts, the students have been participating in a variety of Music, Dance and Drama activities. They started learning a song called, ‘Come On In’ using body percussion and voices to sing. Students were introduced to drama, where they used their facial expression, body and voice to explore how a character feels and acts in the space. We role-played a teddy bear’s picnic together, where we adventured to a forest and jungle using our imagination to play pretend. 

Year 1/2:

In Performing Arts, the students have been participating in a variety of Music, Dance and Drama activities. They started learning a song called, ‘Welcoming Song: Hey Everybody’ using percussion instruments and body percussion to build their understanding of beat and rhythm.  Students are beginning to develop their drama skills by working in groups to improvise and act out different picture task cards with a variety of imagined situations. 

Year 3/4:

In Performing Arts, the students have been participating in a variety of Music, Dance and Drama activities. They began the term with dance activities that involved using body percussion and improvising simple locomotor actions for everyone to copy. Students are currently developing basic drama skills with creating group freeze frames in response to a variety of environments such as being at the circus, hospital, zoo and gym. 

Year 5/6: 

In Performing Arts, the students have been participating in a variety of Music, Dance and Drama activities. They started the term by acting out different mime scenarios to the class to build their confidence and creativity in the space. Students explored different ways to create shapes with their body  to make a whole class obstacle course for dance. They are presently practicing the actions to the popular song, ‘Cha Cha Slide’ to prepare for an assembly performance!

Performing Arts Captains

Congratulations to Wyllow and Prabhleen on their achievement for becoming our new Performing Arts captains!

Stay tuned for a whole school incursion from Alpha Shows coming in June! 

Emily - Performing Arts Teacher

🅸🆃🅰🅻🅸🅰🅽

CIAO!

Aitken Hill Primary School students have commenced their very first year of language study with enthusiasm and excitement. 

A big congratulations to our 2021 Italian Captains: Salam and Jesse of year 6! Bravi!

All of our students have enjoyed learning about the similarities and differences between the English and Italian alphabet, as well as starting to learn about the history of the language, and the geography of Italy.

All communities from Prep to year 6 have learned some Italian vocabulary, such as ‘ciao’ (hello), ‘mi chiamo’ (my name is) and the difference between ‘bravo’ and ‘brava’ (meaning ‘well done’ or ‘good’ in the masculine or feminine form,) as well as some common greetings. 

Students have worked on their first cultural study of Italy: Italian Carnival, and we have had a lot of fun creating carnival masks and learning about the origin and purpose of Carnevale!

Lastly: a  reminder for students to download the DUOLINGO app - it's free, and you can practise Italian at home!

Grazie mille! (Many thanks!)

Best wishes,

Signora Michelle 

Italian Studies

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths)

It has been an exciting start to the year for our budding scientists, coders, engineers and mathematicians. 

The Achilles community have taken to their first ever specialist classes in their stride, with many of the students getting right into personalising their first ever STEM journals. The Prep students are developing their critical and creative thinking as they begin learning about logic and algorithms through organising things into their correct sequence and steps.

The Argus and Xenica communities have been working closely with two teacher candidates from RMIT University - Nik and Estelle. This term Argus and Xenica are working on their Algorithmic thinking - that instructions have to be clear in their order for them to work. Soon the students will put their thinking to the test with a bit of coding.

The Ulysses community started this term thinking about how we communicate information at home by thinking of all the technology they have there, and how they work together. Next the Ulysses will look at their school and community to see how information is shared in different ways.

The Icarus community collaboratively work through logic problems using flow charts and logical sequencing this term. They have created flow charts of simple tasks that are complete and logical, whilst also engaging in some collaborative tasks. Moving forward we will put their logical processing to the test using written and digital logical coding.

Finally, a big congratulations to Angad and Harvin who have been successful in their applications to be the inaugural STEM Captains of Aitken Hill Primary School. We look forward to seeing how these two young leaders champion STEM for the School. 

Aaron - STEM Teacher and leader of the Specialist team.