Learning & Teaching 

L & T AND LITERACY - Vira Pirrotta

THE CIRCUS IS COMING TO TOWN. 

At St. Fidelis, we aim to provide students with a comprehensive and robust curriculum that provides them with opportunities that challenge, engage and extend their learning. We endeavour to build the skills required to be social, active and informed citizens.

To ensure that we provide a robust curriculum that meets the needs of all our students we have engaged the services of the Circus Crew. Students will have the wonderful opportunity to participate in weekly lessons facilitated by talented performers. Through the lessons your child will learn the values of trust, teamwork, taking risks, and having the opportunity to perform in front of an audience.   

The lessons will:

• explore different forms of movement: juggling, floor displays, balance routines
• boost confidence and concentration levels
• build invaluable teamwork skills
• improve coordination 
• invite students to think and act in ways that develop resilience and build relationships.

CURRICULUM LINKS 

The program will be delivered over twelve weeks (Term 3 and 4)

Personal and Social Capability 

•  Collaboration 
• Development of Resilience

Drama 

• Explore and Express Ideas
• Drama Practices 
•  Present and Perform

Health and Physical Education

• Being healthy, safe and active
• Contributing to healthy and active communities
• Understanding movement

English - Literacy

• Interacting with others 

A LITTLE ABOUT THE CIRCUS CREW

For over a decade, The Circus Crew has been injecting a touch of magic into the curriculum with their very special circus program for schools. From early years through to secondary levels, they offer a rich seam of skills and experiences that all pupils can draw from. They offer explicit and consistent learning experiences that allow students to participate in a performance.

The Circus Crew will deliver a mind-blowing performance…where Everything is provided - the music, the costumes, the equipment, and the rehearsals all within school time.  

The Circus Crew  

As the time for the Whole School Performance draws closer we will send home a link so that you can book your tickets for the performance. There will be a limit of two persons per family as we have limited space in our school hall. There will be a cost for the tickets to cover the hire of stage, lighting and sound equipment.

We look forward to a wonderful learning opportunity for all our students and a time to come together as a community.

Orders are due this Wednesday July 20. Scholastic are giving away FREE BOOKS to help celebrate and spread the love of reading in our school. You can get up to 3 FREE BOOKS this Issue. 

Place your Issue 5 order on LOOP to select up to 3 FREE BOOKS. To qualify all you have to do is spend over $30 and you can select 1 FREE book, or spend over $50 and you can select 2 FREE books or over $70 and you can select 3 FREE titles from a special online list. The list will display after you create your order and head to the checkout.

See www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP for more information.

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT - Leanne Wenckowski

Dear Parents,

The Role of Parent Representatives for each class will be revisited at the start of the 2023 school year.

I only received interest from 3 people so Manuela and I feel that it is best to begin the role at the start of the school year in 2023.

Story Time is going very well on a Monday afternoon at 2:30pm. Last week we had 19 preschoolers/toddlers attend the session.

Leanne Wenckowski

Foundation Teacher/Family Engagement Leader

NUMERACY - Colleen Monaghan

The lesson I learnt from my oven 

(by Dr. Ange Rogers)

This blog was one I thought I would share as it helps us think about, as parents, when we help our child, do we just tell the answer or help our children work out the answer, therefore empower them to tackle for similar problems with confidence. 

Colleen.

We have recently moved house, and I am just getting to ‘know’ my new oven. 

I am pretty confident with technology and appliances so when we arrived and the oven didn’t work, I didn’t panic, I simply googled and discovered that it was most likely because the digital clock was flashing. Apparently, most ovens won’t work if the clock is flashing or in ‘Auto’ mode (bet you didn’t think you would learn something about ovens reading my maths blog!)! 

I tried everything to fix the clock, but for some reason I just couldn’t reset the time. So, for a few days I had to refrain from cooking a roast (actually, I never cook roasts, and with my house overflowing with boxes, this certainly wasn’t the time to start!)! 

I was very excited when my uncle Frank (who is a plumber) happened to come past the new house. I casually mentioned the oven to him and he took one look at it, pushed a few buttons and within three seconds it was fixed! I was so excited the oven was working that I forgot to ask him what he actually pushed to get it working. When my husband got home he asked “how did Frank fix it?”. At this point I started to feel a little anxious. My mind was thinking: ‘if this happens again I will be back at ‘square one’’.

The oven was fine for a while, but every time I walked past it, I found myself anxiously checking the clock. A couple of weeks later, we had a power outage. And when the power was restored, you guessed it, the oven clock went back to flashing 00:00! I thought about calling my uncle, but I was pretty sure he would say “I can’t remember exactly what I did, I just pushed a few buttons”. 

So, I decided that I would do the same thing. I played around with the buttons and eventually it worked. At first I wasn’t sure what I did, I had pushed so many buttons, so I went back and systematically checked I knew the correct sequence. Having discovered this sequence, I felt completely in control of the oven! 

In terms of teaching and learning maths, I think this experience presents an important lesson. When we are in a maths classroom, the same thing often happens- students feel lost and don’t know what to do. As teachers, we often believe we are helping by showing them the answer, or modelling the exact process to follow. But we are actually giving away the thinking part of the problem -and the power and confidence that comes from solving a problem! 

The ‘oven’ episode made me acutely aware that we may also be heightening our students’ maths anxiety by ‘helping’ them. I felt anxious because I knew I couldn’t replicate my uncle’s actions without him there. While it may make a student happy in the moment when you sit with them to help them ‘get’ the answer. Before long, many will start thinking- ‘oh my goodness, I get it now, but I don't know if I'll remember what to do.’ So instead of helping them we are inadvertently making many students feel more anxious and less confident in their mathematical ability. 

Dr Sarah Buckley, an Australian expert in Maths Anxiety, states one of the causes of maths anxiety is feeling of a lack of control. You can read more here from Sarah. When students make discoveries, they are in control of the maths. I think it is very important that we allow children to discover why and how the maths works FOR THEMSELVES, just like I did with the oven. I now understand how the oven works and because I found the solution I clearly remember the process! I feel confident to tackle that problem again, and as a bonus I have developed some problem solving strategies (researching on google, trial and error, check systematically) which I can apply in to any future appliance issues I may face! 

So, next time a student asks for help in maths- think of how you can encourage that productive struggle, so they will emerge with a feeling of control in their learning.

Disclaimer:The ‘oven-fixing’ advice provided in this blog is only my personal experience. For all other oven related issues, please seek a trained professional! :)

SPORT & PE - Michael Jennings

SSV COBURG DISTRICT SOCCER FINALS

As you are aware, during Term 2 your child was selected to participate as a member of the St Fidelis SOCCER Teams to compete in the School Sport Victoria (SSV) Coburg District Winter Sport Competition. Primarily this was a Year 6 competition and Year 5 students were included if possible.

The St Fidelis Boys/Mixed and the Girls Soccer Teams completed their seasons by finishing on top of their Division ladder in the Coburg District. This wonderful achievement has qualified our soccer teams to compete in Coburg District finals against the other two divisions in the Coburg District. The event will be held on Friday 22 July. 

Good luck to both teams!

SSV COBURG DISTRICT ATHLETICS

The SSV Coburg District Athletics Carnival will be held on Wednesday 17 August 2022 at the Coburg Athletics Track. Trials for Years 3-6 students are being conducted during physical education and sport sessions to select a St Fidelis Athletics Team. The team will be selected one week prior to the event. Events include 100m, 200m, 800m, 4 x 100m relay, high jump, long jump, triple jump, discus and shot put.

Events are conducted for  the following age groups:

9/10 Years

11 Years

12/13 Years

Each school can have one competitor participating in each event. A student can compete in a maximum of 2 individual events and a relay.

AUSKICK

Congratulations to Ava and Carlo who were selected to participate in the Auskick halftime game at Marvel Stadium on Sunday. Our students were very excited to be a part of this event and I know Ava was very pleased that Essendon defeated Gold Coast!

SSV Codes of Conduct For Students, Parents, Spectators, Teachers & Coaches

School Sport Vic follows and enforces codes of conduct for all participants in SSV events whether they are students, teachers, coaches, sporting officials, parents, spectators or administrators.  

Parent Code of Conduct

VISUAL ARTS -Joe Frazzetto

I would like to reintroduce and let you know that a total of five of our students have been selected as a finalist for 2022 ‘Say Yes to Respectful Relationships’ Poster Competition. This is a tremendous achievement, as to our knowledge it is the most finalists that they ever had from one school. 

They will be hosting a virtual Awards Ceremony this Friday 22nd July.

Here are the five finalists from St Fidelis Catholic Primary School:

Ava Soares; Louis Pirruccio; Hunter Fitzgerald; Darius Mazzarella; Eliana Kachi

We're looking forward to celebrating this year's finalists and announcing this 2022 winner at the virtual Awards Ceremony on Friday 22nd July 11:30am to 12:00pm. Here is the link to the Virtual Awards Ceremony (Click on the link below)

STEM - Joe Frazzetto 

STEM MAD

STEM MAD is designed to acknowledge and promote STEM learning initiatives that address real-world problems and demonstrate how students in Catholic schools take action that matters. Student teams are invited to design a product, service or innovation to Make A Difference (MAD) to others or the environment. 

Last term, students from Year 3 to 6 were selected to participate in the STEM MAD Inventors’ Team design sprint. They were placed into six groups and they were tasked to explore, design and construct a prototype of their invention and share their idea to ‘Make A Difference’ to others or the environment by producing a 90 sec video pitch promoting their design to the STEM MAD judges. Only one of the six groups will be selected to enter the STEM MAD Showcase in August 4th. The six groups designed an invention to make a difference in the following areas- 

• Space
• Health
• Social Wellbeing
• Sustainability
• Safety
• Environmental

Here are three of six video pitched which the STEM MAD Inventor Team have produced.

TEAM 1: Hunter F, Nicholas M, Daniel G and Eve V

How might we use technology to colonise the planet Mars without endangering human life? 

It is the question we had to solve and think by colonising the planet Mars, how can this make a difference to human life? Humans travelling and living on Mars, it will change earth’s environment and the population on earth will lesson because human life will also continue on Mars. However, we had to think about how humans will be able to live on Mars and what are the needs for humans to survive on a hasher environment like Mars. We had to investigate plant life, soil, water, and food production; housing, energy, technology and can humans live on another planet and not be reliable on earth’s resources. We believe this is the future of humankind!

TEAM 2: James K, Louis P, Alex A and Olivia F

How might we use technology to prevent people getting hurt on the roads? 

Our prototype is the CSS-Car Safety System. The CSS will help drivers stop speeding and alerting drivers if a car or person is coming from a blind spot like the rear of the vehicle. The CSS can be located at the rear of the car, when it sensors an impact (another car or person) it will automatically release an airbag to protect both vehicles or person or child.

TEAM 3: Alfie B, Caleb, Chloe P and Eva A

How might we use technology to clean our rivers and oceans? 

Our prototype is called ACCE. There are two types of prototypes. One is the Squidsaver, its purpose is to clean and collect and sucks rubbish in the shallow ocean floor. The second prototype is called the Crocodile Cleaner, its function is to collect and suck rubbish from riverbeds. The Squidsaver and Crocodile Cleaner will make a difference to keep our ocean floors and riverbeds crystal clear and safe for all creatures.

Tinkercad & The 3D Printer Robotic Animals

Year 3/4 and 5/6 students have tinkered with the Tinkercad web program where they have explored, designed and created their own three dimensional robotic animal using only 3D Shapes to design and print their robotic animal. The students have produced amazing models of their animals. Here are some of our students’ Tinkercad designs and 3D robotic animals.

LEGO WeDo 2.0

The Year 3/4 students were buzzing with excitement and curiosity when they had to collaborate in pairs and construct a racing car by investigating what factors can make a car go faster. They had to code and program their Lego racing car using a motor and start their car using a motion senor. The students had to be scientists, technicians, engineers and mathematicians to research away to code their racing car to go faster and start it using a sensor.  The students participated in a car race to find out which car went faster and we discussed why did this racing win and why didn’t their car move as faster has the winner. By the end of the session students had to think about the following, ‘What can I do to improve my racing car to go faster?’ Here are St Fidelis Formula 1 Champions for this week. 

Next session the Year 3/4 will design and construct their own racing car using the LEGO WeDo 2.0 kit and program.

LEGO Coding Express- Music Animal Concert

The Foundation students were introduced to the LEGO Coding Express Kit. The students were buzzing with excitement and couldn’t wait to get their hands into the kit. It was amazing to observe the students collaborate, construct and problem solve. Students were able to…

• Understand that the action bricks’ behaviour can be changed using the app
• Be able to recognise different animal sounds
• Be able to compose a simple melody using digital tools

As collaborators the students constructed a loop train track and built LEGO animals were each student composed their own animal melody and coded their melody using the action bricks and Coding Express app. It was amazing to observe the FLW students problem solve, thinking and collaborating. Most important seeing the students faces light up when they were performing the animal concert!