News from the learning areas

Primary Maths Specialist Training

For the last 2 years, Prue and myself have grown as leaders, developed our knowledge and witnessed amazing teachers and academics as part of our Primary Maths (and Science) Specialist training.

You might not know it, but teachers are not just born learning dispensers, we continue to grow as professionals through learning experiences such as PMSS, connections with other schools and research based reading.

20 days over two years of face to face presentations from leading academics such as Peter Sullivan and James Russo (Monash Uni), Doug Clarke, Matt Sexton and Ann Downton (ACU) and Charles Lovitt - Prue’s absolute idol - have just concluded and I am feeling nostalgic.

Funded by the Department of Education, Prue and I have worked together out of the classroom to improve our practise for two whole days each week, a luxury no government primary school could afford on their own.

We have worked alongside approximately 200 exceptional teachers from across north and western metropolitan regions, as well as north and western country regions - teachers who travelled from Swan Hill and Warrnambool on a Sunday night to stay in the big smoke for a couple of nights; challenging each other's thinking by estimating and testing conjectures, learning about how other schools manage their mathematics (and everything else in between) and building friendships that will hopefully last for years to come.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank John and Donna for supporting Prue and I throughout the journey these last two years, and also to Bec Spink (Acting Principal, 2019) for pushing me outside of my comfort zone. My husband snickered before quickly adjusting to a more appropriate expression when he heard the words “Roxanne” and “Maths Specialist” in the same sentence. I minored in children’s literature at university. Maths was just something I taught. Now, it is my passion and while 2020 has been an absolute train wreck of a year, I can say after 11 years in this profession, the day I stop learning for myself and being passionate about helping the students and staff that I work with, is the day I can no longer call myself a teacher.

Roxanne

Sustainability Team

Hello everyone! We hope you are settling back into the classroom. In the last few weeks we have added three new things to our school: a brand new compost bin, for outdoors and a small compost bin and a soft plastic recycling bin in every area. For more information, check out our website. https://sites.google.com/view/mpssustainabilityteam2020/our-news

The Sustainability team is also launching a brand new project and we are renovating the upstairs courtyard to become an epic outdoor learning space. However, we have come across a problem, we need seedlings, seeds and soil! So we are asking for seeds and baby plants to be donated to our cause, we would like anything from herbs to veggies and more!

If you are interested in helping with donations, please email Em, emily.mah@education.vic.gov.au

Have a great day from all of us.

Prep Learning Area

As part of NAIDOC week, the Preps have read ‘My Country’ by Ezekiel Kwaymullina. They talked, drew and wrote about things they like to do on Wurundjeri Country. This work was collated into a class book for each homegroup to keep and reflect on. We have shared some wonderful examples for everyone to enjoy.

Next week, as part of our Integrated Curriculum topic, we will be investigating ways to look after the land and Country we live on.

A great way to engage your child in this learning at home would be to go for a walk around your local area and talk about what they notice.

Reminders:

- Please remind your child to bring their home readers to school each day so that they have the opportunity to change them and practice reading a wide range of books.

Thanks,

The Prep team

1/2 Learning Area

Place Value Robots

In Maths, Grade 1 & 2 students have been working and revising numbers and their place value.

They’ve also shown many different ways of demonstrating their understanding of numbers with a lot of fun and excitement.

In the following examples, you will find some cool work. Students selected a number and presented it within a special place value robot ‘s think-board.

The robot’s number was displayed in 4 different forms:

Standard form
Expanded Form
Base 10 Form (MAB)
Word form

3/4 Learning Area

The Year 3/4s have been investigating War on Waste during Semester 2. The final piece of this unit was to take their learning of this topic, and specifically the waste situation in the 3/4 learning area, and suggest a change that we can make that will help us reduce waste. They then used their understanding of persuasive techniques to make an advert for their cause.

5/6 Learning Area

Hi everyone this week the 5/6s have been up to some amazing stuff, such as making great progress on our new project...Morelandtopia!!!!!!

During Morelandtopia we have had multiple mini lessons and now in the process of deciding which pieces we are going to do. We have to complete a written piece, a visual piece and a recorded piece. Each piece is all about our version of Morelandtopia….

Other than that we have finished reading our first Book Club book and have just started reading a new one. In maths we have started two new units, chance and fractions.

This week we have also acknowledged NAIDOC Week by discussing the purpose of the week and why it is important. NAIDOC stands for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders day Observance Committee’ and it can be traced back to 1938.

Each year the week’s celebrations are centered around a theme which is chosen by the committee. This year the theme is ‘Unsung Heroes- Closing the Gap by Leading Their Way’ and it’s focus is on showing how Indigenous people themselves have and are taking ownership of closing the gap. We had lots of discussions in our grades.

The teachers have been making everything fun! Hope you have all had a great week and we can’t wait to tell you more about the amazing things we get up to in the 5/6 learning area.

By Astrid and Uma

Community News

Community News