Year 3 - 6 Community

It has been a huge month of content from our outstanding Years 3 to 6 students across all four campuses. We have  lots of feedback from these students and we need to thank them and their teachers for this sharing of thoughts. These articles represent so much about the great work being undertaken in this stage of schooling.

Harmony Day Community Celebrations

Hendy Campus was on Thursday 16 March and our community came together after school for our Harmony Day Celebrations. The highlight of the afternoon was watching our students perform a traditional Karen dance and song. It was fabulous to see so many of our students in their traditional dress and teaching their peers about their culture. Parents and staff also had a great time performing a special dance in front of our community. The inflatables were also a bit hit with families, big and small!

“I was nervous to begin until the other people were behind me and singing along. It was fun.” - Ray Do

“It was good because everybody was singing and it was nice to share about my culture and traditions.” - Plur Moo

Harmony Day was at Tallis on 23 March

Bettina  - Harmony Day is about celebrating all the cultures, everyone comes together and is included. My family are from the Philippines.

Scarlett  - Harmony Days is about making different cultures feel welcome and safe and we are all part of one big family

Harmony Day at Wexford was 21 March

Au Yar Paw was one of the performers

Harmony day was an amazing event and I saw many Karen people dancing along with some Afghanistan, African, Thailand and many more communities coming together as one. he time when the song started  the dancers I felt scared to be in front of such large audiences. Once the dancing began I was able to relax and follow what we rehearsed. 

They went to two campuses to showcase our dancing and each group were able to show off by representing their culture, canteen food and places you could play like a bouncy castle at Wexford.

For me, the highlight of the night was when my friends and I were able to persuade Mr Condemi to wear dress-ups from the Performing Arts room and join us (as well as all of the other teachers and parents) for the Harmony Day dance. He was grateful because I was able to help him follow the routine and look like less of a clown. 

It was a fantastic event and I look forward to doing it all again in 2024!

Maybe you can spot Mr Condemi? 

Peacock was the first campus to celebrate on 14 April

Writing Focus

Our learning of VCOP has been in full swing. As part of the Professional Learning Community process, students and teachers have been upskilling themselves about all things ‘Connectives’ in the 3-4 area at Hendy. Students have been looking at ways of up levelling their sentences and joining two ideas together to create a compound, or a complex sentence.

Below is an example of one of the practical tasks students have been working on. This student used a really wide range of connectives to join two ideas together to create compound sentences.

“I now find it really easy to include connectives, because we have worked on it a lot in class. I use the VCOP wall in my classroom to find a range of connectives to use in my work.” - Tawlu

Character Creation in Writing

By Tristan 

In writing, we are learning to create characters using descriptive language. I have created the character of ‘Hadwin’, which translates to friend in a different language. He has bacon-like hair, a round head, glowing diamond eyes, and a muscular body. He also has the power of a god, with his necklace a symbol of friendship from the god, Housoshoku, who blessed him with his power. If his power exceeds others he can knock them out cold just by glaring at them in this god-like form. I have described him as having expensive regal clothes, which are sometimes damaged because of his enemies. He has a deep and clear voice and he can transform into different states when he has enough energy.

The Big Write

In week 7, students at Wexford campus were asked to do a ‘Big Write’ with connectives, with the help of connective posters. Our teachers strongly encouraged us to use the posters as a way to help us develop our ideas. 

After we finished our ‘Big Write,’ we worked with our ‘Breakdown Buddies’ to highlight our connectives and noticed whether we used new connectives or stuck with the ones we were used to. As it turns out, the majority of the grade were working with connectives from the top of the pyramid. 

Now, our ‘Connectives Champions’ focus group is going back and up-leveling our work with the support of the teacher to show a greater use of connectives that are more advanced than and, because, but, so, then.

I have been working with my teacher to make characters believable and bring them to life. We also spoke about how connectives can help readers follow the story and give greater meaning.  Indiana 

In Writing, we have been learning about dialogue. We’ve learnt where to put speech marks, commas and other punctuation that is used in speech.    Anastasia 

Peacock 5/6 - ‘Seeds for Stories’

The Year 5/6 students have started developing their skills as narrative writers. As part of the writing process, they have been coming up with some ideas for future writing pieces. Recently they were shown a picture prompt of a jellyfish and were asked, “What could be some settings, characters and complications for a narrative inspired by this picture?” The students spent some time talking with each other about their ideas, then recorded some of these in their writer’s notebooks. We call these ideas ‘seeds for stories’. In the coming weeks, they will have the opportunity to go back through their writer’s notebooks and ‘grow’ (develop) one of their ‘seeds’ into a full story. 

In Maths

On Monday 20th of March we sat down and did a number talk with different students from different classes in the Wexford 5/6 community.  Ms Aldridge was the teacher my maths group. For that day we were investigating four different problems that all equaled the same answer.

First we were told to look at the table to figure out the odd one out. I noticed and shared that all the other problems are plus or multiply but the 4 times 4 is basically the same as 4 squared. Everyone agreed.

Another person observed that 3 of the squares involved multiplication but one was addition. A 3rd person said that 3 of them are stars but one was circles, Ms Aldridge then said “ We are looking at the numbers not the patterns or colours just the equations.”

Finally a 4th person said they are all the odd one outs just in different ways. After our number talk we headed back to class to pack up and dismiss. 

I enjoyed working with this group and I look forward to some bigger challenges in the weeks to come.  Paiden  

HASS - ERPs

“HASS is fun because we get to use our Chromebooks and we get to learn more about Australia and other states and territories. Landmarks and landforms are very cool.”- Chase

“I like everything about HASS because it is fun. I like doing the state project because I am learning about states in Australia.” - Kiera

The students have been looking at the Geography of Australia. Now now with Year 3 using Chromebooks we use them for the production of work, as well as for research.  We have looked at landmarks and landforms, climates and land use. We are going to transfer these skills into our ERPs this term.

Phoebe  - We are learning about Aboriginal culture with our ERP’s, I am making a book with information about the Torres Strait Islander people.

We have been preparing our HASS/ERP projects for our Showcase Day on Monday the 3rd of April 2023. We have been trying our best while making slideshow presentations, posters, booklets and a diorama. We are looking forward to sharing our work with other people/classes and presenting the work we have achieved. Our projects are ready to be shared on Monday. We did the best we could to finish our work. Some people are ready to present their project and some people are not, but it’s okay, they will get up to being done as soon as possible. 

THADAR, ESTHER and MARYAM 

Sport

Netball

OShea  - We had heaps of fun playing netball, we got to play a game and my team won! It was fun to go to the netball courts because it was next to the cats stadium.

Nathaniel  - I liked seeing my friends from other campuses. We got to shoot goals, you need to bend your knees, use your right hand to stabilise the call then you jump up and shoot!

Madison

All Year fours went to Kardinia Park for netball. We lined up and sat down on the floor and the teachers told us to do some activities.One of the activities was shooting hoops with the netball. Then we went into groups and  got into different courts and did more activities on the courts.

Alaska

All Year  fours went to a netball clinic, We  lined up and did  warm up activities and then went and got split up into groups and went to different courts. We practiced throwing the ball without jumping and it went well.I liked when we had to throw the ball to our partners

5 / 6 sport

I love it. It’s fun! My favourite sport so far has been T-ball - Mila M

I like the fact that I can give people a ball in this game (dodge ball). I’m good at dodging attacks people throw at me. I haven’t gone out so far. - Savannah W

All the year 5’s gather up in front of our classrooms. We usually split into two groups and go to the game we are going to play. We switch after a certain amount of time. My favourite sport so far has been T-ball. - Jaxon R

I enjoy it because it’s sport, but I wish it was right after recess. I loved dodge ball. - Hunter P

I don’t like it when people cheat but I love it when people have fun and play fair. I’ve really enjoyed dodge ball and soccer so far. - Sheh

Student Led Conferences

Earlier in the term we had our Student Led Conferences. These were held on the 28th of February (in week 6). On our workstations we had plastic folders full of things we were sharing. These included our Focus Plans and our Interest Poster that we created on Canva. We also played a maths game with our parents was called Greedy Pig 

Our student goal sheet explained what we were working on as a learner and our School Wide Positive Behaviour Survey helped us identify a personal goal. This sheet was organised according to our college values of Collaboration, Growth, Persistence and Kindness. I felt proud to share my work and classroom with mum.   Lucas 

Near the middle of the term, in week six, we had SLC (Student Led Conferences). During this time, we showed our parents the work we have achieved so far, such as our goals in reading, writing, maths, etc. Furthermore it was a chance for our parents to ‘check in’ with us and our learning. We also showed them around the classrooms and our work space.

Because we were leading the conversations we worked hard to feel prepared with our documents and ready to explain what our day to day looked like. SLC’s were a class focus for about a week. Because of this, we were extremely well prepared, organised and we impressed our parents for sure!!! Even if our parents didn't notice, it was sour confidence and pride was certainly there. It seems ironic that we put so much preparation in for one day. Very funny.  Mia 

Finally the students had a lot to say about NAPLAN!

Naplan

It was the first time I had ever done NAPLAN. First when I did NAPLAN I thought it would be boring, but it got fun and hard. When I was done all of it I was glad I learnt something new. I had heard about it before. Jai

It was the first time I ever did NAPLAN. Writing the story about the key was my favourite part. I think I did a great job on my piece of writing. 

 Leyland  

Naplan was not the best but I liked every test, especially the writing. I kept on trying even though it was hard.  There were four tests and we had to do them over in three days. We worked in three learning areas on test days. 

It took us all a while to get started because the codes, headphones and Chromebooks were not always doing what they were supposed to. However, once we got started you could hear a pin drop. 

Later this year we will get to know how we went. Mr Condemi said that teachers will use our results to help them plan for what we need to learn next.    Zaiden 

GROWTH – Open Night – Save the Date – Thursday May 4

Juanita Mountjoy

Assistant Principal

Wexford Campus

Years 3-6 Stage of Schooling

Coordinator