Curriculum News
English
WRITING, SPEAKING, LISTENING and READING
Writing to inform through recounts will be our focus in Term 3, with Year 5/6 classes writing Biographical Recounts and Year 6/7 classes creating Historical Recounts. Films, books, artwork and websites will be critiqued during Term 4 as all Fisher classes explore Review writing. Vocabulary expansion will be dependent on text topics, integration of all other curriculum areas as well as words focussed on through class novels.
Students also have the opportunity to regularly express their ideas and work on specific aspects of their writing through Ten Minute Writing tasks. Proof reading and editing written work will also be a focus with the expectation that students take greater responsibility for this.
Listening and speaking skills will be developed through class participation, assembly presentations, Year 7 speeches and class based oral presentations.
FISHER WORKSHOPS
Student progress in the areas of reading and spelling continues to be monitored closely so that learning is targeted to the specific needs of each student in the form of 30 minute workshop sessions. These occur over 3 mornings, Tuesday through to Thursday. The reading workshops focus on comprehension strategies and spelling workshops focus on understanding spelling generalisations and the origin of words. The students have demonstrated excellent self management with how they organise themselves and participate in workshops.
In addition to these workshops, identified students also receive support and attend workshops led by Maria Paladino which focus on improving skills with sentence construction, reading behaviours asssociated with comprehension and application of Secret Code (mental) strategies for problem solving in Mathematics.
Mathematics
Learning Mathematics is an active process where students build their own mathematical understanding through interaction with the ideas they hold and alternative ideas held by others. Students are encouraged and supported to take risks and persevere with new or different and efficient ways of thinking and solving problems, and will understand that mistake making is an important part of their learning.
Students will continue to develop understanding of the algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and will explore, and apply a range of written and mental strategies for computation to solve multi-step problems with a focus on measuring masses. Students will continue to apply their understanding of concepts related to place value, fractions, decimals and percentages.
Students will develop their understanding of probability and statistics with opportunities to represent and interpret data and investgate chance. They will investigate angles in relation to two-dimensional shapes and transformations.
Fisher Arts & Technology
Friday afternoons in Fisher are a BLAST! Each class participates in units of Drama, Dance, Music, Visual Arts and Media. Classes rotate, working with a different Fisher teacher. As well as offering students a range of experiences and expertise, this programme also prepares students for high school by providing the opportunity to work with specialist teachers. After 6 weeks, each class will do another 2 rotations.
Currently Fisher 11 are getting creative with Ms Martin in Visual Arts, Fisher 10 are being dramatic with Mr Starr in Drama, Fisher 13 are creating digital videos with Mr Tarleton in Media, Fisher 14 are dancing and jumping with Ms Brook in Tinikling and Fisher 15 are showing their creativity with Mr Clayton in Photography.
HASS & Health
H.A.S.S includes History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship and Business and Economics.
During Term 3 and 4 students will inquire into the following areas:
Year 5 - The beginning of Semester 2 will see the year 5's finishing their Political Party Campaigns. They have been working extemely well together creating excellent campaigns to win the LNPS Fisher Election. Good luck to all candidates.
After camp, our focus will be Geography, with an inquiry into how the impact of bushfires and floods on people and places can be reduced. Following this Business and Economics will come in to play coinciding with LNPS open night, giving students the chance to be entrepreneurs.
In Health, they will be investigating the role of preventative measures in promoting and maintaining health, safety and wellbeing.
Year 6
Year 6 students are currently focussing on History with the inquiry question, "How have people shaped our Nation?". Students will be investigating aspects of Federation and gaining an understanding of how Australia came to be. Research, inquiring and presentation skills will be a priority and focus throughout lessons.
In Term 4, students will turn their attention towards Health and the effects food and exercise has on people's health and well-being. A look at food labels and food choices will be the main focus.
Business and Economics will see students create a small business or enterprise in preparation for the Open Night in Term 4. It will also provide an opportunity for students to put their learning into action from a simple idea to a money making machine. Watch out big business!
Year 7
Year 7s begin the semester with a History focus inquiring into "How can we see the past in our present?" Students will be developing multiple skills and understanding concepts including contestability, empathy and perspectives as well as chronology, research and analysis.
Term 4 will see a Health focus on puberty, its impacts and developing resilience to cope with changes. More information will be sent home prior to beginning this unit.
The Open Night next term will also provide an opportunity for students to put their learning from Business and Economics into action so start saving now for whatever special offers the students decide to provide!
Science
In Science this term, our focus will be on Earth & Space Sciences. We will be exploring our solar system, natural disasters and the seasons. We will also be continuing with Robotics and expanding our skills in programming.
In Term 4, our focus will be on Biology. We will be investigating living things, their structural features and how they have adapted in order to survive. Students will engage in tasks where they need to classify organisms and investigate food chains and food webs.
Throughout the semester, students will continue developing their Science Inquiry Skills where they will get opportunities to conduct scientific investigations, plan and implement fair experimental methods and identify variables to be changed and measured. There will also be a particular focus on Science as a Human Endeavour where students will expand their scientific knowledge and make connections to the real world.
Physical Education
In semester 2, the emphasis of the PE program will continue to be the development of skills, coordination, cooperation, enjoyment and healthy, positive attitudes to physical activity, in order to prepare students for future recreational pursuits.
The main areas of study will be on:
LEARNING THROUGH MOVEMENT
Volleyball - serve, dig, set and spike
Football - The drop punt, handball, chest mark, overhead mark, goal shooting
Netball - Court positions, passing, movement, goal shooting, defence strategies
Cricket - Batting, fielding, throwing, catching, teamwork
Badminton - Forehand, backhand, overhead hit, serving, receiving, positioning
Rugby – Clinics run by Rugby SA school development officers
MOVING OUR BODY
Skipping - Individual, partner and group skipping challenges.
UNDERSTANDING MOVEMENT
Fitness Testing - Students will be assessed on their cardiovascular fitness, using the beep test, and will compare their results to their semester 1 results, in order to see if there has been an improvement.
Important dates:
SAPSASA District Athletics Day - Tuesday September 13th, week 8, term 3
Back up District Day (in case of inclement weather) - Thursday September 15th, week 8, term 3
State Athletics Championships - Tuesday 27th September, week 10, term 3
German
Students use written and spoken German for classroom interactions, to share ideas and opinions, relate experiences and express feelings. We are working on being able to use complete sentences in familiar contexts to ask questions, respond to requests and share learning experiences.
This term Die Olympischen Spiele (the Olympic games) gives a context to our language use and also a cultural perspective as we will look at Germany’s involvement in the Olympics alongside vocabulary to talk about different sports and events.
In Term 4 we will do revision to consolidate language and structures introduced as well as looking at the German festivals and celebrations. Using modelled texts, students will work on developing descriptive and expressive language. Learning experiences will include reading and creating written texts, oral interactions, listening tasks as well as online learning.
Greek
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