News from around the school

2021 Graduation

Congratulations to our 2021 Graduates , we wish you all the best in your future endeavours, my the sky not be the limit but encourage you to go beyond. We look forward to hearing about your wonderful adventures when you come for a visit. 

Massive thanks to parents who decorated, put together an amazing slideshow of photos and provide the 2021 Graduation Cake. The graduation success was as much yours as the students.

School Assembly -Thursday 16th December

4/5/6 Learning Space

This term students worked on, and presented their Genius Hour projects. It was amazing to see the wonderings they had going from ideas through to to completion with such  creativity. We had so my different themes and projects, such as, within humanities looking deeper in topics like stereotypes, science experiments, creation of Covid Safety games and a deep look into space (just to mention a few). We hope you were able to join us in the live feed. 

On  special note a few of the students created a wonderful free library that will be put up in the neighbourhood. It is so you can foster the enjoyment of reading. Thanks Iggy, Jett and Jai.

A huge congratulations to our first 4/5/6 cohort!

You all put on such an amazing Graduation ceremony with such charisma, confidence, attitude, leaving your mark with fireworks! What an amazing 3 years it's been! You were literally the first 4/5/6 cohort which began with you on 2019! A tough 2 years due to the pandemic, but your resilience and positivity helped you pull through stronger than ever! It has been an absolute pleasure to teach you all in grades 4 and 5! I feel like you have all developed such strong relationships with your peers and teachers! It has been really entertaining teaching you Performing Arts this year! I have really enjoyed seeing your growth emotionally and academically, as well as your care, creativity, curiosity and responsibility embedded with you all as learners! Will miss seeing you're funny, outgoing, caring and confident personalities around Newlands! It will not be the same without you! Missing you already! Please visit as much as possible!

Here for you always, Srta Laura :)

We can’t wait for 2022 and you can come and see you in person amazing work students.

The 2021 4/5/6 Team wishes all families the very best holiday season.

F/1A

We all spend an enjoyable time celebrating the wonderful year we have all had together at Merri Creek. It was fun sharing some wonderful moments together before we all say goodbye for the year.

Spectacular Dance Group

This year has not been as spectacular as we wanted it in terms of lockdowns, remote learning and special events such as State School's Spectacular being cancelled as a results! We all really wanted to be at the John Cain Arena, performing the incredible 6 dance pieces to a large audience, including our families and community! Shame that it didn't happen, hoping for a third time lucky year in 2022! 

I want to say that I appreciate all the time and effort into rehearsing during remote learning via Teams, lunch and recess breaks etc! Your time and dedication has shown in learning these and putting on our own mini shows. We attempted for Flash Mob Dance last week but the music was quite faint and hard to hear. Despite that, you still carried on dancing and performing so well to the whole school community as a surprise! We got to finally perform half of these dance choreography pieces at the final school assembly! What a Spectacular assembly with your skill, creativity, energy and performances! Until next year!

Remember that Grade 6s going into high school next year can still audition for main individual roles at Spectacular's 2022 show! The link was sent via Seesaw a few weeks ago. Please message me directly if you can't find it or have any questions!

Excited for 2022's Spectacular show, at the John Cain Arena hopefully! We have a group of amazing dancers for next year's State School Spectacular show. We will be doing measurements, fittings and getting forms signed as soon as start school next year! 

Watch this space please! 

Srta Laura :)

Performing Arts (artes escénicas)

This has been such a rollercoaster of a year with lockdowns and back to school learning. As my first year teaching Performing Arts (artes escénicas) in Spanish, I must say I have enjoyed all the perks of getting to really see and nurture creativity and curiosity through drama and dance. We have such talented students at Newlands PS, especially with so much creativity and enthusiasm shown in Performing Arts (artes escénicas).

Thank you to every single one of you caring, creative and curious learners at NPS, for always putting in so much effort to participate in the Performing Arts' activities. Thanks most of all for the overwhelming interest in performing your final dance pieces during our last few weeks of assembly! I have literally been chased down with requests to perform in assembly, it's incredible! I have been so proud watching you perform with pride in front of our school and community! Your parents have definitely enjoyed seeing these! Let's keep up the enthusiasm and interest in performing for 2022 as well please!

Thanks to all the wonderful cards, gifts and caring messages from parents. We Specialists truly appreciate your words of acknowledgement and support to our programs, delivered with dedication and engagement to your children!

I have enjoyed seeing you perform your final dance choreography in assembly, to your class, cohort and parents! I have filmed these and have been uploading these onto the Performing Arts (artes escénicas) activity onto Seesaw. Please have a look at these when you can. Bare with me please in uploading the rest of these by the end of this week!

Visual Arts

Thanks to everyone at Newlands Primary for helping to make my first foray into the world of art teaching a happy and enjoyable one. 

This term was a chance to connect a little more with the creative kids here at NPS and work together on making art together. 

Wishing you all a time of togetherness with your loved ones this holiday season.

Adiós 

Lydia 

P.E

Firstly, thank you to the Newlands school community for making me feel warmly welcomed since my very first day of my arrival as a Health and Physical Education teacher in the middle of term 3. I will always be extremely grateful for your support during online and onsite teaching. I had a fantastic time in 2021 teaching and bonding with students, working alongside our fantastic teaching crew and getting to know some parents. Now it is time to recharge energy to full to start next school year with eagerness and enthusiasm. I wish you all an amazing Christmas break surrounding by your beloved ones. See you in 2022!

Raul Berral

Health and PE teacher

Music

What a busy and fun filled 3 terms it’s been in Music since I started at Newlands in Term 2. Despite lockdown, the students and I have continued to enjoy singing, dancing, playing instruments and learning about the orchestra and different composers and music styles. 

From Mozart to Glenn Miller, African drumming to the STOMP percussion group, we have explored different ways to make sounds, unusual interpretations of classic compositions and learnt both modern and old songs. The younger students have particularly enjoyed “There’s a hole in the bucket”, (which I believe Ross learnt when he was at school), although I do apologise if the parents have been subjected to listening to this over and over and over again at home!

Year 4 & 5 students presented Music projects which they worked on during remote learning and back at school. The subjects were as varied as they were interesting and I even learnt some things I did not know before. For instance, did you know, the saying “In the limelight” originated from an early form of stage lighting when they burnt lime in lamps along the front of the stage to emit a soft green glow? (Thanks for teaching me that Adele)

Year 6 students worked diligently, rehearsing for their graduation performance. Some bravely and competently performed singing solos, while others played back up on keyboard, marimba, guitar and drums. 

They sang 3 parodies to “Lanterns” (Birds of Tokyo), “Shotgun” (George Ezra) and “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” (Elton John and Tim Rice).

Some of the lyrics included:

“Now we’re graduating, time for celebrating, we are leaving Newlands”,

“Do you best, reaching for a star, shine your light ahead, no matter where you are”, and 

“We’ll do our very best, you will all see, Oh we just can’t wait to be free!”

I have thoroughly enjoyed working with all the students this year and I look forward to 2022 when I again have the opportunity to teach Music at Newlands! 

Have a great break everyone and enjoy some long overdue time with family and friends. 

Carol Ray