Welcome

As part of Concord School’s School Wide Positive Behaviour Support program we have introduced Success Cards which celebrate our students when they are demonstrating the student expectations of Being a Learner, Being Respectful, Being Safe & Being Responsible. When students receive a card they bring it to the Team Leader to share what they have achieved and then it is put in the Success Cards box. At each section assembly four cards are randomly drawn out and the students celebrated. Those four students then meet with the Team Leader to choose a reward from a list the students developed. After each section assembly the Team Leader goes to each class to hand the students the Success Card they have received so they can take it home to celebrate with their families.

Thank you to Kai from SKA who decorated our Success Cards box.

Mathematics

In Mathematics during weeks 6 & 7 we have continued our focus on Place Value as this underpins all of the learning we will do in all other areas of number and algebra this year. Students have been working on numbers written in words, standard form (675) and expanded form (600+70+5) to develop their understanding of the different value a digit can have depending on where it is placed in a number.

In the data unit students have collected data on the different countries of origin for the students in Secondary 9/10 and have worked on different ways this data can be displayed. They have looked at displaying data in tables and then creating a graph to represent the data visually.

English and Integrated Studies

In weeks 6 and 7 we have finished our writing focus on biographical recounts. Students have planned and written an autobiographical recount to share information about themselves with their classmates. This has been another really good way for the students to get to know their new classmates for 2018. In reading students have learnt about the arrival of European settlers to Australia on the First Fleet and the impact this had on Indigenous Australians. We have also continued to learn the stories of immigrants to Australia through the information on display in the Discovery Centre and classes have created displays in their rooms using a world map to show where their families came from to live in Australia.

Social Competencies

In Social Competencies classes have continued to explore feelings and how different situations can provide us with different feelings. Picture yourself on a ride at the top of a roller coaster about to fly down the dip… would you have the same feelings as those you have when you just wake up in the morning? Classes have been investigating the strategies we can use to manage our feelings so that we don’t feel overwhelmed or that we are losing control.

PreCAL

The PreCAL classes changed location for their Community Experience Excursions in Week 6. They caught the bus to Greensborough Plaza to continue their focus on safety in the community. Greensborough Plaza is a much busier place than Aldi in Bundoora. In Literacy sessions before the excursion, the classes looked at images of the places they would visit, including the very busy bus stop zone at the front of the plaza, to prepare them for the different nature of the location they were going to visit. The different safety implications of this venue were discussed, as well as what they might see when they visited Aldi in Greensborough. Would the signs be the same? Would the checkout look the same? In writing students continued to work on personal recounts of the experience day.

In week 7 the Literacy focus shifted to personal narratives. Classes looked at Ahn Do’s story WeirDo as a focus text to introduce them to the topic of fictional writing. The students worked on identifying the features of a narrative text including who was telling the story, where the story was happening and what was happening, including the problem.

In Mathematics sessions the classes have continued to plan for the PreCAL picnic. In the data focussed sessions the students used the information they had collected to create a shopping list. They will then use this shopping list on one of their Community Experience Days to purchase the items required for the picnic. In number the classes have focused on working with numbers on number lines, ordering numbers and working out what comes before and after. The students had a lot of fun learning outside on the basketball court to create a human number line.

In the PreCAL STEAM program the classes are exploring wind chimes and the science behind the sound they produce and how light reflects off them as they move. They are developing a design brief and will move onto construction in the coming weeks.

Duke of Edinburgh

Our Fit For Life program continues with students enjoying Wednesday mornings at the Watermarc gym, Action Indoor Sports, gardening etc. The students enjoy being in different groups to their home group and experiencing a break in normal learning programs in the middle of the week. Information regarding the programs on offer for Term 2 was sent via Compass in week 6.

STEAM continues to provide our students an opportunity to learn a new skill and work with a different group of people. They have now had a few weeks in their STEAM group and you can see from the images they are quickly developing new skills in the area they are working. Collaboration is a big part of the STEAM program with problem solving in a team a major focus.

Sam Birrell

Secondary 9/10 Team Leader

Secondary 9/10

Issue 3 · 14 Mar 2018

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