Whole School News

Payments & Consents for Events

To secure your child's participation in any organised school activity such as excursions, incursions, sports events or camps please ensure that all consents and associated payments are completed via the Compass Parent Portal before the due date. Once the due date has past, Compass access to consent/pay for the event is automatically disabled and can no longer be extended. Should consent/payments not be received your child will not be able to take part in the scheduled activity and alternative supervision at school will be arranged.

 

Due dates are typically set for a week prior to the event, to ensure that there is time to confirm numbers and final costs with outside companies and allow  time for teachers to prepare for the activity. 

Permissions & Agreements - COMPASS

Parents are asked to please complete all the Permissions & Agreements on Compass for themselves and their child/ren, if they have not already done so to ensure their child's participation in activities, use of their childs photos in the DVD and newlsetter and the use of technologies and devices throughout the school year. These can be found in the the Course Confirmation/School Payments section on your Parent Portal. 

 

Parents/Carers wishing to help out in the classroom or on excursions etc. must complete the Child Safe Code of Conduct via Compass or in person at the school Office. Parent helpers are also required to have a current Working With Children Card which the office must have a copy of. 

Please contact the office if you have any questions regarding this process. 

Foundation News

The term is already flying by and we have nearly completed our full week 3. Hopefully you all received our Term 1 newsletter with more detail to our program for the start of the year. The children have just commenced full lunchtimes outside and have been encouraged to play with their Foundation friends. If they have trouble finding their friends they have been reminded to look in the two junior playgrounds or the sandpit. If any issues, we have discussed seeking assistance from yard duty teachers and if significant problems of course they will be referred/relayed to us classroom teachers.

 

Our next two words of the week are TIN and TAP, introducing the letters ‘I’ and ‘P’. At the beginning of each week we will do a ‘guess the word’, so would be great if these words were still a surprise. As we near the last fortnight of testing we will be able to group the children to prepare for working in independent groups with more differentiated learning. The children have just taken home their first reader and as mentioned in the notice the children are just encouraged to look for letters or words that they know and to read the story based on the pictures. We will send the sight words home once they start their first full week.

 

In Maths we have been representing numbers to 10 with hands on materials and starting to see known numbers in different ways e.g. on a number line, tens frame, telly marks etc. We will be looking into subitising which is the ability to state the number of items without having to count, for example knowing the number of dots on a dice and for those ready, working towards representing and ordering numbers beyond 10.

 

In inquiry we have started looking into the important components that make each person an individual. We will discuss different things that create happiness for us, our likes and dislikes and the differences between one another. We will tie in our feelings and look at the memories/ stories that make each and every prep student special.

 

In English this term, the students will be learning about the foundation skills of literacy, which are speaking and listening, reading and viewing, spelling and writing. Each week we introduce a new word focus; the first word being CAT. Our literacy program focuses on recognizing the word, the letters used to form the word, and the handwriting and phonemes associated

with each letter.

 

Speaking and listening is an extremely important component influencing reading and writing. Our Ormond Values teddy bears will be an important part of speaking and listening development. Students will build confidence in the ability to

speak to a group and develop the understanding that we all have information that we can share. We will play various games to engage and develop these skills. Help your child with pronunciation and the articulation of sounds, as this

ability is evident when writing and will help phonemic awareness and spelling.

 

In writing, students will be given daily opportunities to write about things

that they know a lot about and build on the belief that ‘they are great young writers with fantastic ideas to share’. They will be encouraged to

sketch their message, add labels and have a go at saying the words that they want to write. They will be taught to listen to the sounds that they

hear and write the letters that make those sounds. We encourage our students to be ‘Brave Writers’ and have a go at writing, even if this means writing strings of letters. It’s important to think about what they are going to write, rehearse it and have a go at writing it. We celebrate

all efforts and attempts.

 

In Visual Art this term, the Foundation students will experiment with a variety of different media and techniques to explore the elements of line and pattern. Please ensure that your child has an

Art smock clearly labelled with their name.

 

During term 1 Korean,  students in Foundation will be learning some basic Korean alphabet characters and sounds through Korean children’s songs, stories and craft activities. They will also be introduced how to say basic greetings such as hello (An-nyeong-ha-se-yo), good-bye (An-nyeong-hee ga-se-yo) including thanking (go-mab-seum-ni-da) for daily use.

 

For Foundation students, Performing Arts this term will focus on Drama. Through dramatic play activities, students will explore different character perspectives from familiar folktales and learn how

to use their bodies, voice and facial expressions to create a range of characters.

 

In PE the Foundation students will be practising

fundamental movement skills including; throwing, jumping, skipping and changing direction. Students will also be working on cooperating with others and following

the rules of different games.

 

Year 3 Melbourne Museum

The Year 3 students had a wonderful time at the Melbourne Museum on Tuesday 19th February. They were fortunate enough to visit the 'First People's' exhibition and have an experienced staff member leading the session. Students took photos during their sessions on the Ipad which we will be able to view in the coming weeks. They were also able to explore the different aspects the Melbourne Museum has to offer. We look forward to continuing to further their knowledge on the Bunurong and Wurundjeri people, the traditional owners of our land.