Specialist Reports

Visual Art 

Prep Community Art with Gabby

In Prep, students have been exploring collage and paint this term. We’ve enjoyed continuing to engage the art elements including line, shape, texture, colour and space throughout our work, and strengthened our understanding of these elements through play, research and investigation. 

We’ve created our own work pieces both in collage and paint, and have learnt from artists including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Fred Williams and even picture story book authors Jeannie Baker and Eric Carle.

Junior Community with Maria

The Junior Learning Community have been learning about paper collage and paint. During their study of collage, students learnt about geometric and organic shapes, and how to layer them to create an artwork. In the photos, you will see the monsters that students created using these shapes. During their study on paint, students were given the opportunity to experiment with paint - what it looks like, feels like, and the different marks that can be made with our hands.

Middle Community Art with Maria

In Visual Arts, the Grade 3/4 students have been studying the works of Jeannie Baker. They have learnt the skills and techniques of collage. Students have been completing a project inspired by Jeannie's book 'Window', where they have re-created a view from one of their windows using collage. The materials used for this project were both man-made and natural.

Senior Community Art with Maria 

In Visual Arts, the senior students have been working on a landscape collage project. They have studied the features of different landscapes (rainforest, desert, bush, beach, mountain, and river). Students were asked to choose a landscape that resonated with them, and create a collage incorporating natural and man-made materials, together will the skills and techniques learnt.

Prep STEM with Ramona

Weather!

The Prep classes have been keeping an eye to the sky as they learn all about the weather. They explored the different types of weather and made their own weather symbols. The preps spent some time figuring out which clothes to wear for different weather and having an excellent dress-up session. They also practised their science skill for the term, Questioning, by trying to figure out what's in the box by asking excellent questions.

Digital Technologies with Jayden

Junior Community

The Junior Community have been keeping super busy in Digital Technologies. They have been incredible little data detectives, completing investigations into some of the things that they see and experience in their everyday life. For starters, we looked at what data is and defined it as information that can be collected for analysis. After that, we started simply by asking a question we wanted the answer to so that we could collect all the information and count or tally results; the question was “what is the most common pet in our class?” From here, the Junior Community used their newly discovered skills to explore things like how many, and what types of plants we have at school and even what sorts of creatures live at our school. Students also learned to present their information digitally in the form of picture graphs on Seesaw. They are absolute legends, keep up the excellent work Junior Community!

Middle Community 

The Middle Community have been doing a deep dive into peripheral devices; devices which can be connected to digital systems to complete a function or need for the user. Examples of peripheral devices include speakers, mouse, keyboard, monitor, microphones, in fact, a lot of things we take for granted as pre-installed or ‘built-in’ to things like laptops, tablets and smart phones. They have done things like a scavenger hunt around the school, photographing any peripheral devices they could find, designing their own digital systems (computer) and labelling any peripheral devices and, finally, sorting peripheral devices into input/output or whether they are hardware/software. Most recently, the Middle Community have been completing tasks which utilise the various peripheral devices and considering how the devices make these tasks possible. Way to go Middle Community, you are all awesome!

Senior Community

In the Senior Community, students have been undertaking a term-long inquiry task called “What makes a good game?” and subsequently following the design process through its entirety. This inquiry started with that very simple question and students had to undertake research to find out what it is that people enjoy about online games, a design process step known as empathising. The next step in the design process is known as ideation and students were required analyse their research and generate as many ideas as they could for a game (or game concept) that they could produce and present to the class. Next up was prototyping and this is where students were able to get ‘hands on’ and experiment with some of the game-making platforms available. The overwhelmingly popular option was Scratch.com and let me tell you, the results of students making playable, functioning games has been nothing short of impressive! It all culminates next week as students finally get to present their games and ideas to the rest of their peers and even have fun exploring and play-testing other people’s games. Well done to the Senior Community, it has been so much fun getting to make, create and explore with you all. I cannot wait to see what the next Semester brings!

Physical Education with Narelle & Aimee

Prep and Junior Learning Community 

We have been working on throwing and kicking skills in P.E., learning and practising through fun rotational activities. The students have been focusing on their technique, remembering to make a "Big T, little t, step and throw" when they throw and "step, swing and kick" when they kick.  The students have enjoyed being introduced to lots of new activities and equipment, enabling them to practise their throwing and kicking in various ways.  All of the students have been working really hard on their transitions between activities, ensuring to tidy their activity up and sit down ready to rotate to their next activity.

Middle and Senior Learning Community

The Middle and Senior School students have been developing the skills used in AFL Football. In Football, we've practised marking, handballing and kicking.  The students have enjoyed having AFL Victoria take them through some skills and drills during their P.E session over the past couple of weeks.  

Over the past few weeks, the Middle school students have been learning how to play Invasion Games, these are games which aim to invade an opponent's territory and score a goal or point.  These are typically fast-paced games that need teamwork in order to control the ball, keep possession, move into a scoring position, and prevent the opposition from scoring.

The Senior students have been learning to play basketball over the past few weeks through games and match play.  During this unit the students played games that helped them to develop the skills of dribbling, passing and shooting.

Dig2Dine with Aimee

In Dig2Dine the students have been cooking recipes which they researched and chosen themselves. Including, ANZAC Cookies, Carrot Cake, Mighty Savoury Muffins Yo-yo cookies and Challah Bread. They have continued to build on their cooking skills including kneading, mixing, grating, cutting and measuring. It has been wonderful to see the students continue to build their collaborative skills working together to follow the recipe successfully and clean up the equipment and learning space after use.  

Performing Arts 

Prep Performing Arts with Sheree

In Performing Arts this term, we have been immersed in the wonderful world of dance  through a range of movement activities centred around sea creatures and pirates! More recently, students have learnt their very own pirate dance to 'Here Come the Pirates' by Bounce Patrol.

Junior Performing Arts with Sam

In the Junior Learning Community students have been learning about the style of hip hop. Students have been looking at different ways they can move their body parts. How they can move through the space and how we can have soft and strong dance moves. Students have been learning a variety of different choreographed pieces and improvising with their own movements.

Middle Performing Arts with Sam

In the Middle Learning Community students have been learning about different dances from around the world. Inspired by the Indigenous Australians students brainstormed dance moves that represented the Wollert Way values. Students collaborated and created formations and levels to make their performance visually engaging to an audience. 

Senior Performing Arts with Sam

In the Senior Learning Community students have covered a variety of dance styles. Students have looked at dance trends, dances from around the world and hip hop. Students have developed confidence, teamwork and resilience while learning a new dance that will be eventually taught to the whole school in a just dance format.  

Playscape with Gabby

We’ve actively explored our emotions and emotional responses throughout Playscape this term. From developing our emotional vocabulary and expression, and understanding the importance of empathy, students have increasingly developed their emotional literacy through a variety of play experiences.  Additionally, recognising strengths and abilities, needs and wants, likes and dislikes and in adding to our tool belt of coping skills, students have been positioned to better understand themselves as individuals and how their emotional responses can impact those around them. 

 Sensory play has been a big hit throughout the term with many inclusions such as kinetic sand, ooblek and soap slime to name a few, whilst construction, board games, cards and craft have also been especially popular. These experiences, particularly when offered frequently foster each child’s total learning and developmental opportunities.