Governing Council Reports

Early Years 1 - Foundation & Year 1

Foundation students have started learning digraphs. 

Foundation and year one students have been introducing new vocabulary using a word wizard. The children have been tallying when they are noticing the word used at home and at school. You might notice your children using this more complex language. 

In maths, foundation and year one students have started a measurement unit that they will work on until the end of the term. Students will be exploring length, capacity and mass through explicit lessons and a variety of hands-on activities. 

All students were highly engaged in the Music is Fun performance last week. It was great to see students dancing and singing along. 

Early Years 2 - Years 1 & 2 

In block 3 the students have been unpacking texts this term - `Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and `The Gruffalo.’  We have looked at the characters, the plot, language features and punctuation.  The students have been inferring the meaning within the text and trying to add more interesting words into their writing to make it more powerful.

In maths, students have been looking at location/directions and mapping, as well as revisiting multiplication and division / adding and subtraction strategies. We particularly enjoyed working with Mrs Howard in the library and making book trailers using Google slides linked to the `Pig the Pug' book series.  We learnt some new skills to add audio/pictures and animations onto our slides.

Primary Years

In week 7, we were lucky enough to participate and enjoy the Music is Fun incursion. There were so many brave students who participated on stage in a small group class musical piece. All students had a fantastic time and it was great to take a break from classroom learning and learn about music and instruments. 

Week 7 also saw us participate in Pyjama Day, we all agreed it was a great way to help out the Salvation Army while being warm and comfortable. 

We are still investigating and learning about the Stolen Generation in English for year 3’s, using narrative stories to compare and contrast how events can be told in different ways and with different voices. Year 4’s are still focusing on the first fleet. 

In math, we have been exploring multiplication, and division and practising our times tables skills. 

Middle Years PLC

The middle years students have been very busy trialling and participating in SAPSASA football, netball and soccer. The Music is Fun band came to the school, which many of the students enjoyed and had a fantastic time participating. 

The middle years have now moved on from looking at HASS and are now looking at geography. The middle year's students also really enjoyed participating in PJ Day and raising money for such an amazing cause. 

Performing Arts

Students have been learning to use the elements of dance to structure dance sequences that communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning. Students have been focusing on fundamental movement skills and safe dance practice in pairs and small groups. Students performed their improvised dance sequences in front of the class in small groups. Students practised mirroring dance techniques with a partner and in small groups. All children had an opportunity to lead the dance, and the dances the students learned are the Robot and Sports-themed dances. The students have been singing songs and dancing to music from Music is Fun, including, We Built This City, Kung Foo Fighting and FunkyTown. 

Japanese

The early years students have been working on the education department unit of identity. They have been learning how to introduce themselves and say what they like and dislike. 

Foundation students had a lot of fun learning about the Japanese festival called TANABATA or otherwise known as the Star Festival. They made Tanzaku which are special strips of paper on which they wrote wishes and practised how to draw a star as well. 

Years 3-5 students are just finishing their grammar focus of sentence construction using particles/conjunctions. Years 5 and 6 students are just finalizing their role plays, which has been very successful. 

In week 7, 9 students attended the Japanese Quiz Day at Hindmarsh and this was a lot of fun, with one of our teams finishing 3rd out of 10 schools. 

Science

This term’s area of focus has been Chemical Science where students have been focusing on materials and their properties, as well as states of matter (solids, liquids and gasses). 

Foundations and year 1 students have been investigating the common materials of objects (metal, wood, plastic, etc). They have enjoyed the hands-on activities to develop an understanding of different material properties, especially the sorting tasks. 

Year 2 students have been learning how to physically change everyday materials. They have been focusing on changing paper, how origami is used in science and the changes involved in recycling paper and other materials (plastic and metal). 

Year 3 students have been participating in a variety of investigations to develop an understanding of solids and liquids, focusing on their unique properties and structure. They have enjoyed using equipment like microscopes to discover that substances like sand are solid, even though they appear to have liquid properties. 

Year 4 students have been investigating the properties of materials and how these determine a material's use. They have been involved in scavenger hunts around the school environment identifying different materials, recognising materials by their specific properties, as well as discovering the use of materials through literary texts.  

Year 5 and 6 students have been focusing on reversible and irreversible changes to solids, liquids and gasses. They have completed a multimodal research project on the focus area and will continue to partake in investigations and experiments to further develop an understanding of reversible and irreversible changes.

Physical Education (PE)

In PE junior primary classes are focusing on eye-hand coordination. They have been using a variety of equipment to develop their skills. The primary classes have been playing modified Korfball with the lower primary developing their game skills and the upper primary implementing game strategies.

IBL

Year 5/6 students are implementing the games they designed in term 1 into a digital visual interface using the Scratch coding program.