Years 7 - 9 Update

Term Overview 

Welcome to Term 1. We hope that you had an excellent break and enjoyed the holidays. This curriculum newsletter will inform you and give some insight into the teaching and learning that will be taking place in our 7-8 communities and activities our students will be involved in this term. We have also included some suggestions and ways you can further support your child's learning at home. 

GITTC rotations. 

This term marks the return of our GITTC rotations. These weekly specialist classe will be taking place on a Tuesday afternoon (Tallis/Wexford) and on a Friday afternoon (Peacock/Hendy). 

Materials and Textiles - Sharon Paynter and Laura Brennan

Digital Technology - Annie Maloney 

Media - Paul Noonan and Sam Johns

Food Studies - Bal Sanman and Jo McPherson

Vis Com - Mireille Limsowtin

Wood Technology - Col Williams

Inquiry

The inquiry focus for term 1 in our 7-8 learning communities is Geography. 

Students will be learning how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Asian regions are connected to water and different types of landforms across these regions. Students will research and identify how these people are physically, culturally and spiritually connected to their environments. 

As the unit progresses students will begin exploring personal connections to landforms and their environment. 

Key Academic Vocabulary:

Scarcity, Liveability, Landscapes, Landform, Hazards, Degradation, Urbanisation, Secondary source, Corroborate, Interpretation, Conservation, Social structure

What you can to do support at home:

• Discuss where your family is from in Australia and/or the world. 
• Discuss family traditions and how they develop connections to the land e.g ‘we go camping every summer because of our connection to the beach and the enjoyment we have their’  
• Explore your local and surrounding areas by taking a walk and pointing out specific landforms e.g ‘You Yangs, Barwon River and Eastern Beach’. 
• Investigate and discuss the key academic vocab for inquiry this term. 
• Encourage the use of these vocabulary terms, try using them in a sentence. 

English

When reading, year 7 and 8 students will have a large focus on researching and reading nonfiction and informative texts. Students will continue to engage in shared reading tasks, covering inquiry specific topics to broaden understanding on geography (landforms and physical, cultural and spiritual connection to the land). 

The texts used for shared reading will range from dreaming stories, information reports/texts and newspaper articles.   

In writing students will be learning about persuasive writing techniques. Key focus areas will be on developing arguments for and against an issue, the correct use of paragraphs and conclusions, which includes the writer's opinion. 

Students will be introduced to key persuasive writing features, including present tense, use of technical terms and evidence to support opinion/argument, use of emotive words to appeal to readers emotional connection to the issue, and the use of connectives in their writing (therefore, so, because of etc..)

Alongside persuasive writing, students will also engage in writing information reports. These information reports will link to individual interest areas, and landforms students feel connected to. Students learning will focus on developing opening general statement/classification, technical/scientific terms and organization of information. 

What you can to do support at home:

• Get your child to read to you regularly. (Newspaper articles, information reports and persuasive texts) 
• Encourage your child to express ideas and opinions about current world topics. Ask them to explain their thinking. 

Why do you think that? Can you give me a reason why you believe that? 

Maths

Throughout Term 1, students will be continuing their ongoing work on number patterns and operations, and the development of problem solving skills. 

We will continue to utilise Math Pathways, Essential Assessment and focus group explicit teaching through a two week cycle. Rich learning tasks will be an embedded practice across the fortnightly cycles, enabling students to work together to explore mathematical concepts using thought provoking, open-ended activities that develop their critical thinking and reasoning skills. 

Through our curriculum directed teaching and learning for Term 1 in Numeracy, themes will be closely linked to our HASS area of study (Geography). We want our students to develop an understanding of;

1. Prime, composite, square and triangular numbers. 
2. How to interpret and use timetables. 
3. An understanding of coordinates, 
4. Cartesian Planes and plotting coordinates on the x and y axis. 

What you can to do support at home:

• Ask your child to share what they are currently working on in Maths Pathways.
• Create number patterns and have a family member solve the rule and vise versa 
• Complete some worded problems and have a discussion about it. Some prompting questions could include; 

What were the steps involved in solving the problem? Why do they work in this order? Would they work in a different order? Could the problem have been solved with fewer steps? Can you think of a different way to solve this problem?

Josh Brown

AP Peacock Campus 

7-9 Stage of Learning Leader