school life

Term Four in the Art Studio

It is going to be a massive end to the year as we gear up for ART ATTAK! The theme is monsters and my prediction is that this will be a huge way to celebrate ninety years of BNWPS, and another extraordinary year of learning together. I don’t want to spoil the surprise and blurt out the projects that are currently in the pipeline, but I will share this with you - everyone is involved and that means there will be something on show from all of the students. It also means that the classroom teachers are busy creating work themselves with their classes in their classrooms so it is not restricted to the Arts Precinct - it is an inclusive event. Everyone is welcome!

Here are some of the life skills we are developing within this monstrous project:

COLLABORATION

The students are coming together on large projects. They are working in large groups towards achieving big goals. It is important that they learn how to share and help each other. We are all in this together.

COOPERATION

We are supporting each other. It can be difficult working on such a grand scale but we are developing strategies that help us remain focussed on the end result. We are learning that we need to be efficient to be effective.

COMMUNICATION

The way we talk to each other is paramount when working collaboratively. We are sharing a space, a

concept and resources, so we need to be clear and polite when working in this way.

CREATIVITY

The artwork is coming from the students themselves. A seed is planted and they are expected to nurture that initial idea through experimentation, discussion, trial and error. It is a creative process full of variables and possibilities that are being explored.

COMPROMISE

Sometimes we don’t get want we want - our ideas can be overlooked or voted out by the rest of the

group. It is important to let that go and move forward for the benefit of a greater good. The students are playing a long game and are learning to pick themselves up when they fall rather than quit the race altogether.

CONFIDENCE

There is nothing like the feeling of achieving a goal. Especially a long term goal. Even better, a goal that you have worked towards with a team that you can celebrate with. ART ATTAK develops that pride as the students are producing work much greater than they could build on their own...and they get to share it with you!

COMMUNITY - not a life skill, but important nonetheless

ART ATTAK is a community event. It brings the students together and it brings the teachers together. And, on the last Tuesday of the school year, it will bring the entire community together. You’re all invited! Term four is busy, and it’s only just begun. Wish us luck as we work towards the grand finale of a great year. I’ll be hassling later in the term for helpers. You’ve been warned.

Cheers,

Andrew in the Art Studio

maths

Writing the newsletter is one of my favourite things to do, but this week seems like it’s been on fast forward and time has slipped away! It feels like this even more than usual because Jessie, Hannah and I were at our last PMSS course for the year!

The first session was a good one, all about NAPLAN. The wonderful Doug Clarke asked us to send in our NAPLAN questions that he would answer in that session. There were some very interesting questions (some coming from BNWPS!) that Doug was about to discuss. He talked about how often, students stumble with reading the question (comprehension) so, if they aren’t able to comprehend what the question is asking, how will they be able to answer it?! He the talked to us about how it’s important to check and see if the students actually know what is being asked of them before you start a task. Students still struggle, but aren’t struggling unnecessarily because of a language barrier. We then moved into the next room to listen to Matt Sexton talk. His topic was about chance and data and I have to admit, I was a bit reluctant to start the session however it was great! He talked about the different ways you can incorporate chance and data into games and then turn the data into easy graphs. This game called number trains was very fun! We had a number strip from 0-13 and 2 6 sided die. We put counters on the numbers we thought would be rolled and took turns rolling the 2 die, adding the numbers together. We then used unifix to graph the number that was rolled the most.

Can you tell which number was rolled the most?

The next day Jessie and I were at the Quantum building in Macleod. It was really interesting and Jessie and I learnt how to incorporate ICT.

On the last day we had some great discussion with Peter Sullivan about how to create challenging tasks. We played a really cool game with tenzies. The game starts with one person rolling 10 dice. The number that is rolled the most (for example if 6 of the 10 die were a 3) then 3 would be your target number and you’d keep rolling until all dice had landed on 3 and you won! We then moved the 10 dice to the person next to us and played a different game. Peter asked for suggestions on games like tenzies and we came up with tens facts, doubles, factors and fractions! We played this game with the teachers on Thursday and they enjoyed it very much!

After 3 big learning days, it’s always nice to get into the classroom and try these games out with the kids! We really enjoyed the number train in ½ and in the Foundies I taught them a spatial awareness activity that Doug Clarke taught us.

As Friday lunch time draws to a close (I wish I had of written my newsletter on Tuesday afternoon instead of Friday afternoon!) I wanted to remind families that in Week 6 we are having a ‘how do we extend kids?’ information afternoon (most likely on Wednesday). We will confirm the day by the end of this week. Please send through any questions you would like to ask the teachers and answer for you. I’m excited by the questions that you’ve sent through and by the teacher’s responses so please send through! https://forms.gle/eYLTW5v6mo9RUjUY6