News from around the school
New - Parent / Teacher / Student Conversations
Please note the change of dates for our Parent/Teacher/Student Conversations this Term. These conversations will now be held in Week 6, Tuesday 16th August & Wednesday 17th August.
Please keep an eye out in the newsletter from Week 3 for more information and the link to Signup to book your child's interview.
These conversations in Term 3 are student-led, so it is important for your child to be present. If you would like to talk to your child's pastoral group teacher without your child present, please let the teacher know and the last 5 mins can be used for this purpose or another meeting can be arranged.
New - ICAS 2022
What is ICAS?
ICAS is an online academic competition that is designed to assess students’ higher
order thinking and problem-solving skills in English, Mathematics, Science, Writing,
Spelling Bee and Digital Technologies.
Each assessment celebrates students’ accomplishments by providing opportunities for recognition and development. Every student who participates will receive a printed certificate and an online results report. Top performers will be eligible for medals.
We encourage you to consider entering your child into ICAS this year.
Learn more about ICAS here. (https://www.icasassessments.com/products-icas)
Please don't hesitate to contact the school if you have any questions.
New - Changes to Specialist Subjects
The introduction of STEM ~ Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
At our Area Leaders Meetings and as a staff community, we have been forward-planning for our school and would like to share some changes that have begun this term.
After some in-depth discussion and very open dialogue, we have made the decision that our specialist subject of Library will now become STEM, with the focus this year, Term 3 & 4 being on Technology - Coding. Our main driver for this is our Vic Curriculum and ensuring that we are catering for all areas in our curriculum and this is one we have noticed we need to invest more time in. In terms of assessment, this will be assessed and reported on in our Student Progress Reports at the end of Term 4 as a specialist subject.
We would like to thank Chelsea Renato for her flexibility and eagerness to bring STEM to life within our school. Hannah Chasemore will also assist Chelsea within the 3/4 area and will offer great support. To help and support this change the area leaders will be working on the 29th of July for a whole day to create a scope and sequence for technology across the school with our technology partners Education Advantage. To ensure that Chelsea and Hannah are well supported EA will also work alongside them to create termly overviews together.
We are so fortunate to have such a well-resourced library in our school and recognise the importance of students using this space and continuing to borrow books on a weekly basis. As a result, all pastoral groups are scheduled each week to use our library space and provide students with opportunities to continue to borrow books. Having our library space available to pastoral groups to use with their pastoral group leaders is an excellent opportunity to incorporate our literacy lessons, to explore our genre, craft, or process writing study while using library books and creating book stacks with our children, it may be used as a time to research in our non-fiction section for your inquiry units. Please see the days below for when your child needs to bring their library bag for borrowing.
Thursday ~ 1/2 & 3/4 pastoral groups
Friday ~ Foundation & 5/6 pastoral
We are excited about this new learning path within our school and recognise that the world we live in is a digital world. Our lessons will be extremely beneficial to our children. We also look forward to seeing each class in the library with their own teachers, as well as the endless possibilities for what we can do at St Mel's with our love of reading and literacy.
New - Foundation Area News
Foundation years CircUS Performance.
To celebrate the end of our Inquiry into 'working together, Money & the Performing Arts' the Prep students are very excited to present a circUS performance for our school community. Please come along and enjoy the show our young stars are presenting.
When - Tuesday 19th
Time - 9.30am
Where - In our School Hall
All parents, grandparents & families welcome
Gold Coin Donation at the door
New - Early Years Learning Area
Early Years Learning
Welcome back to our wonderful Early Years children! We’ve been super excited to catch up with our friends and share all our holiday adventures!
This week we also welcomed Brooke and Anita into our Early Years space and have spent some time getting to know them. Lila asked Brooke and Anita about some of their favourite things, and this is what they said…
