Year 1 News 

YEAR ONE – Finally Back to School!!

The Year One team were over the moon to welcome back the Year One students to their classrooms last Thursday, Friday and again today. We were impressed with the positive disposition of the cohort, as they seamlessly made their way back into the classroom and spent time excitedly reconnecting with their classmates and teachers.

We would like to congratulate the maturity in which a large percentage of the Year One students have handled wearing a mask inside the classroom. 

Yesterday we celebrated what we now hope to be the last day of Remote Learning for 2021. The Year One students and their families are to be congratulated on the high attendance rate and engagement of the Year One children throughout this last lockdown. The students have shown great resilience and persistence, under trying circumstances. We thank our families for their ongoing support.

In readiness for reporting and in preparation for Year 2, the Year One students have recently completed testing through Essential Assessment, Reading Eggs and MathSeeds. For the majority of our cohort, we are confident that the students are performing at the expected trajectory for this time of the year. This is not only testament to the students engagement, but to the support we have had from both parents and staff, including Mrs Pam Collins (Year 1 Support Teacher), Mrs Jenny Baird (Teacher’s Assistant), our onsite care and supervision staff and our specialist teachers. Thank you! As we resume our full onsite program, we will continue to focus on wellbeing and social skills in the classroom, as well as reinforcing and extending the skills and strategies taught during Remote Learning in both literacy and numeracy. 

Our new Unit of Inquiry, with a focus on habitats, has kicked off and yesterday we were excited to announce, that under the new COVID guidelines, we are now able to take the students on their second excursion to Werribee Open Range Zoo. The Year One teachers and students will be heading off to the zoo on Monday 8 November. Please see Compass for further details, including payment and consent due by next Wednesday 3 November. 

Taking Action

Last term the Year One students completed their Unit of Inquiry investigating the processes food goes through before reaching us. During one of our remote learning lessons, students were encouraged to collect an apple seed from their store bought apple. The students were then asked to follow the easy, albeit long process involved to grow an apple tree. 

The students began the process by grafting the seed, then storing the dampened seed in wet paper towel and securing it in a zip lock bag. The next part of the process was to leave the seeds in a dark place for 7-10 days. On the 7-10th day, the students were able to see if their seed had germinated.

For seeds that has successfully germinated, the students then followed the process involved in preparing the soil and planting the seed. 

Layla (1C) demonstrated action by following the process perfectly from grafting, through to germination. Layla and her family have since ensured the seedling was kept in moist soil and with plenty of sunshine. Now Layla will wait to see if her seedling continues to grow, in what could become an apple tree for her family to eat from, for years to come!

Evelyn (1C) also showed action in germinating a seed from her apple. Unfortunately Evelyn left her seed in the fridge for three weeks, however was very surprised by what she found. Evelyn’s seeds had germinated however, had grown small spots of mould. Under microscope, Evelyn was able to look more closely at the little black spots of mould that had started to form. She was quite disgusted by the sight but also amazed. 

Thanks to Evelyn’s Dad for sending these amazing photographs in to share with the school community.