What's Happening in Upper Division

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to 2023! A special mention to our Year 3 students; Toby and Harrison S who are settling into our class with collaboration and confidence.  We are already well into Term 1 and students have been working hard to organise and manage their new learning spaces. The children have shared some of the events of their holidays and have completed their first few weeks of school with keenness and enthusiasm.

This year we will be focusing on our writing and creating texts. We will be concentrating on all the elements that we need to compose a well-structured text and being attentive of; purpose, audience, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, ideas and paragraphing. 

In Miss Miller's English group, students will be viewing, reading, listening, composing and responding to a variety of texts constructed around ‘Fox’ by Margaret Wild and illustrated by Ron Brooks. ‘Fox’ is a contemporary classic– an extraordinary picture book that has been acclaimed throughout the world for its mastery of words and pictures. The class will be applying the six reading strategies. The Super Six framework focuses on working with making connections, monitoring, visualising, inferring/predicting, questioning and summarising. This framework allows children to engage personally with the text which gains a deeper understanding and critical knowledge of the text.

Mr Hunt's English class will be focusing on explicit narrative and persuasive writing techniques to produce high quality pieces of writing.  We will use these themes to assist our writing:

Planning for Success.

Sizzling Starts.

Tightening Tension.

Dynamic Dialogue.

Show Don't Tell.

Ban the Boring.

Exciting Endings 

Modelled reading will occur everyday before Recess. This term we are reading "Storm Breaker" by Alex Rider.

In Mathematics students will be learning about the units of measurement, number and place value, fractions, multiplication and division mental strategies, 2D shapes, addition and subtraction and fractions. 

During Creative Arts students will be learning about the elements of a range of European and Indigenous Australian Artists experimenting with colour, texture and style. Students will be involved in a learning process which allows them the independence to investigate, problem solve, and generate possibilities for their designs whilst developing critical thinking skills. 

Ms Kirrily Hahn will be taking Years 3-6 for PDHPE and Science classes. In Science, the content focus will be ‘The Physical World’ learning about the difference between contact and non-contact forces and how energy is transformed from one form to another. Students will be provided with opportunities to investigate how electrical energy can control movement in products and systems. The class will be given opportunities to design, test and evaluate a product or system that demonstrates energy transformation, further developing an understanding of the interrelationship between force and energy.

The strand Health, Wellbeing and Relationships focuses on students developing the knowledge, understanding and skills important for building respectful relationships, enhancing personal strengths and exploring personal identity to promote the health, safety and wellbeing of themselves and others. Students will develop strategies to manage change, challenges, power, relationships and learn how to protect themselves and others in a range of situations.

For Physical Education we will be implementing a new program called ‘FOOTSTEPS.’ The Year 3-6 program has been designed to allow students to explore and develop technical skills throughout multiple movement sequences. Students have the opportunity to manipulate movement using the elements of dance - Time, Space, Dynamics/Energy, and Relationships. A variety of dance styles including cultural influence will allow students to explore different types of movement and expressive dance skills. Technical skills such as balance, body awareness, and coordination are all developed throughout the progression of the online program.

Why and how did Australia become a nation? How did Australian society change throughout the twentieth century? These are our key inquiry questions for our History unit this term. Students will be moving on from colonial Australia to the development of Australia as a nation, particularly after 1901. We will be exploring the factors that led to Federation and experiences of democracy and citizenship over time. Students will build their knowledge and understanding of the significance of Australia’s British heritage and the Westminster system and other models that influenced the development of Australia’s system of government.

On Tuesday afternoons we will continue our NECOM Music lessons with Jess Suann. In Music, students will continue to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in performing music of different styles and from different times and cultures by singing, playing and moving, and in organising sound into musical compositions using musical concepts. They will also develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in listening to and discussing their own music and that of others.

Leah Miller and Brad Hunt