In Year 5/6

We’re only five weeks into Term One, but in Year 5/6 we’ve already learnt so much and done some amazing work. Here is a snapshot of our learning so far.

Leadership Roles:

At the start of 2023, all the Year 6s got a leadership role. There are lots of different leadership roles, including Sport’s leaders, Art leaders, World Justice leaders, STEM leaders and the Media leaders. We all have a really big part to play in the running of the school. We all love our roles and really enjoy being School Leaders.

Here is an example of the types of the things we do in a few of the leadership roles:

STEM Leaders (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) are proud to say that we have begun organising some upcoming lunchtime clubs. We are going to start with a Maths club for all the math-loving kids out there! We will play maths games, and have quizzes and competitions.

SPORTS Leaders: Every Monday morning, we organise and run morning fitness. We work out the activities and collect and set up all the equipment we need. Some of the activities we’ve done are dodge ball, obstacle course, fruit salad, and parachute. We also have to make sure that the sports shed is clean and organise the sports equipment. It is a very good job and we work hard to make sure everyone stays fit.

By Yiani, Jordan, Banjo & Artem

English:

For the past few weeks, The Year Six Students have been learning about ballads. Ballads are poems that tell a story, and have ABCB rhyming verses (i.e. the second and last lines rhyme.) We looked at Australian ballads like Waltzing Matilda and The Man From Snowy  River, and studied the famous bush balladist Banjo Paterson.

At the end of this, we put this learning to use by writing a ballad about any person in our family history. It was a lot of fun, especially telling all the crazy stories about various relatives. All of the ballads turned out really well and were fun to write about. 

At the same time, the Year Fives have been looking at persuasive writing. They have explored different persuasive features that help to make their writing really interesting. They can use the acronym A.F.O.R.E.S.T. to remember these features. It stands for Alliteration, Facts, Opinions, Exaggeration/ Emotive language, Statistics and Trios. To practise using these features, they have started writing a persuasive on the topic ‘Children Should Not Have Mobile Phones’. 

By Rachel, Alyx, Rocco & Jadeen

Netball Excursion

On the 20th of February, students from Year Three to Six went on an excursion to the State Netball Centre. 

We did many activities, and we learnt a whole lot of netball skills like… Footwork, Aiming, Movement, Passing, Running, Learning positions, and finally Playing Games. We learnt some netball positions like GS (goal shooter) which shoots goals with the GA goal attack.

While we were there, we played an obstacle course, a shooting competition and lots more. We played lots of netball matches too.

We went on a tour around the Netball museum and saw shoes, netball dresses and photos of players and stadiums. 

By Seraphina, Samuel, Neev and Aiden

Integrated: Australian History

In Integrated, we have been learning about Australian History. So far we have learnt about where the English settled in Australia and we looked at the events of colonisation in chronological order. We’ve also researched about the many reasons people (other than convicts) immigrated to Australia from other countries. Some of the reasons were the Irish Potato Famine, better job opportunities, and the goldrush.

At the moment we are researching important people in Australia’s early history.

In Year 5/6, we are also reading a class novel called Eureka Boys, about life on the Goldfields in Ballarat around the time of the Eureka Stockade. We have been enjoying the book so far and we recommend it for everyone to read. 

By Bianka, Josh, Sophia and Etienne

Tony’s Café

This week, a group of our Year 5/6s joined the volunteers and assisted at Tony’s Cafe. 

Tony’s Cafe is run by St Anthony’s Parish and they provide free meals to members of the community. It is run from the Parish Hall, right across the road from our school. A different group of us will go across every Tuesday to help. The first group that went on Tuesday got their instructions from Gwen and then had a great time helping to unpack the OzHarvest van and sort the food for the people who came. The people were given homemade hot meals to take away, and when they could choose the fruit and vegetables they wanted, the Year 5/6s passed them over the table to them..

All the 5/6s are really looking forward to being involved.