YEAR ONE
Grade Bulletin - Term One, 2023
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School provides a range of holistic learning experiences to enable students to:
- Participate in the life and mission of the school.
- Deepen their knowledge and engagement with the Catholic faith and tradition.
- Build capacity to continuously reason, reflectively, logically and critically.
- Embrace interdependence of human existence as global citizens, who are responsible to and for themselves and others.
- Engage in learning in a multitude of ways, through personalised and self-paced learning.
Religious Education
1.7 Creator of God - This unit focuses on God the creator who is present in all of creation. The focus of the creation story is God the creator, the goodness of creation and creation as a reflection of God's love and goodness. The children will be introduced to Psalms of Praise as a way of expressing our praise and thanks to God.
1.2 Lent and Holy Week - This unit focuses on the season of Lent as a time to grow in the life of God. It explores ways we can foster that growth by trying to be better people. The unit then looks at Jesus' journey in Holy Week from the Last Supper to Holy Saturday.
English
This term the new NSW K-2 English syllabus will be implemented. The students will experience opportunities to engage with narrative, informative and poetry texts including 'Our Island', 'A Bag and a Bird' and 'The Great Rabbit Chase'.
Students are learning to make connections with texts and understand how an author’s context and personal experiences help them create texts. Students are learning to understand the elements of a narrative through texts that include a journey, and use planning tools and prepositional phrases to create a narrative.
Students will continue to display and develop their knowledge and understanding in the areas of:
Oral language and communication
Vocabulary
Phonological awareness
Print conventions
Phonic knowledge
Reading fluency
Reading comprehension
Creating written texts
Understanding and responding to literature
Spelling
Handwriting - The children will continue to work on their pencil grip, correct letter formation and writing within the lines.
Mathematics
This term the new NSW K-2 Mathematics syllabus will be implemented. Children will be grouped within their own classes according to their needs and ability. All classes will be working through the early part of the Stage One outcomes.
The topics taught this term are representing whole number, geometric measure, combining and seperating quantities, non-spatial measure and data. T
he students will be engaged in open-ended tasks designed with increasing complexity and differentiated success criteria. Consolidation tasks and fluency programs will also be implemented to ensure students have opportunities to grasp key concepts and skills.
Science and Technology
This term Year One will be studying the unit ‘Spot the Difference’. The unit provides students with an opportunity to observe change and explore the materials in their world. They will explore change through the context of food e.g. ice blocks, chocolate, spaghetti and popcorn. Students will learn how heating and cooling food can change its properties and whether the change can be reversed or not. Using technology to evaluate their investigations will assist them in drawing conclusions about how fast or slow a change can happen and the consequences of these changes. Children will be engaged in design and production activities using technology and STEM skills.
Mandarin
This year students in Kindergarten to Year 6 will participate in the Chinese language program called the Meg Language Program. The Meg Curriculum is written by the co-author of the Australian Curriculum. All students and teachers will participate in the digital learning platform via Zoom weekly sessions with educators in China.
Geography
Students investigate the natural and human features of places. They describe the reasons places change and identify the active role of citizens in the care of places. Students explore activities occurring in places and how spaces within places can be used for different purposes.
Amadeus Music Program
This year students from all grades will be involved in the Amadeus Music Education program, introduced by Sydney Catholic Schools providing students with a high quality music education program. The program offers students expert classroom music lessons, ensemble lessons, and for primary students group tuition.
Students will participate in activities in listening, performing and organising sound (Kindergarten to Year 6), within their regular Classroom Music lessons. Within these lessons, students will:
- Sing in unison and in parts
- Play tuned and untuned percussion instruments
- Play available instruments such as Ukulele, Guitar and Keyboard (Grade appropriate)
Creative Arts
The children will be learning about primary and secondary colours and how colours are mixed to create new colours through the medium of watercolour paints and oil pastels. The children will focus on portraits and collages related to Key Learning Areas in English and Religion.
Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
A new program titled Open Parachute will be implemented K-6. Open Parachute aims to provide practical support on mental health to students. The program aims to reduce stigma and generate authentic dialogue in classrooms about the real issues students face. The psychological skills-building exercises aim to increase empathy, self-compassion, self-awareness, mental health literacy, and self-efficacy in students.
Physical Education this term is fundamental movement skills which include active movements such as running games, ball skills, relays and skipping. Please ensure children wear the correct sports uniform and joggers.
Homework
At Our Lady of Fatima Caringbah, we acknowledge that the time children spend with their families and their involvement in extracurricular activities, are important components in the development of the whole child.
Homework brings children's school experience into the home, allowing families to understand their progress and engage more closely with the curriculum.
This term our focus will be on reading on a nightly basis and review of spelling words that are taught from our Spelling Program 'Soundwaves'. Parents are asked to sign diaries and return them to school each day. Homework books will be sent home on a Monday and returned on a Friday for marking.
We look forward to working with you and your child this term. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher via a note or by email through Compass.
Miss Dominique Vuaran (1Blue)
Mrs Nicole Pyne and Mrs Gabrielle Devine(1Gold)
Ms Liz O'Brien (1White)
Important Dates for Year 1
Sport Day
1Blue – Wednesday
1Gold – Wednesday
1White – Wednesday
Library
1Blue – Wednesday
1Gold – Wednesday
1White – Wednesday
School Term - Friday 27th January - Thursday, 6th April 2023