Filter Content
Newsletter article Week 2 Term 4
Welcome back to what will be a very exciting term. I can hardly believe the end of the school year is already in sight. As the weather turns warmer it is great to see our students outside playing with their hats on their heads and enjoying the sunshine. It has been lovely welcoming some new families to the school.
Students have been busy already this term. Our Hands on Learning group made a delicious roast pork for lunch, with everyone participating in the preparation, cooking, and cleaning processes. Personal interest groups will begin again next week with some new groups beginning such as gardening, mural painting (to finish the New Mornings garden), futsal and singing. I look forward to sharing how these groups are going in the next newsletter.
This term we welcome Miss Anna Tassell to our school as our Quality Teaching Coach. Miss Tassell has been busy learning who are students are and working with teachers around literacy. We would also like to farewell and thank Mrs Janine Gibson and Mrs Kirsten Cox. Mrs Gibson taught our 4/5/6 class for most of the year and has been working at our school in a relief teacher capacity this term. Mrs Cox was teaching our students German for terms 2 and 3.
Our staff were busy over the holidays setting up our new furniture and putting it in our classroom ready for learning this term. Thank you to Senator Anne Urquart for the grant that allowed us to purchase this furniture. Our students love their new learning environment.
Our school buses have a new departure and collection point that began term 4. They now stop on Maud Street instead of the turning circle. Due to this new location, we are now directing students to enter school via the basketball court instead of the blue door. This is so they do not need to walk around the car park. We have a duty teacher out at the bus stop in the morning to ensure our students are safely walking into school.
Thank you to Woolworths for their donation towards our sausage sizzle and Narelle Coote from our School Association who helped to cook sausages during the referendum day. Money raised from this is going towards a mural at the front of our school. A design is already being designed. This mural will be a paint by number mural so our students will be able to help paint this.
This term we will organise a float in the Christmas Parade. If you are interested in helping to plan for this please meet with me on Tuesday, 31st October. If you would like to help but are unable to come on this day please let me know and we can discuss your ideas.
Currently our students in Prep-Year 6 are being being test with PAT assessments for Reading and Maths. These tests allow teachers to know where our students have improved and identify where our students need more help.
Last week our staff attended a professional learning session with Karen Young. Karen is a psychologist and spoke with us around anxiety and the brain. We attended this professional learning with schools from our cluster.
We will also have our Celebration of Learning afternoon this term on Wednesday, 29th November. We had our first Celebration of Learning afternoon last year and it was a great success with all people who attended saying they would like to do this again. Please keep an eye out for more information regarding this in the coming weeks.
In partnership,
Sarah Crawford
Hands on Learning 24 October 2023
Term 4 is of to a fantastic start in Prep-1-2. After meeting Mem Fox last Term, we are learning about her and the books she has written. Our classroom has a Mem Fox Author of the month area and we have created a chart with things that we know, want to know, and have learnt during our Author study.
Here are some of the things our class have said about our Author of the month.
“Mem Fox writes good books” Leo. “Mem Fox writes super sentences” Tilly.
“Mem Fox is very good at rhyming” Charlotte.
“The Magic Hat by Mem Fox is my favourite” Abigail.
The first two weeks of term 4 have been a hive of activity in grade 3/4 and we have been loving using our new furniture to do our learning!
In spelling we have been investigating the /oy/ sound. By being ‘word detectives’, we have discovered that /oi/ is the most common letter pattern for this sound. We have used our ‘word noticing’ skills and made the following observations:
- /oy/ is normally used at the end of the word.
- /oi/ almost always in the middle of a word.
- /oi/ can be used at the start of a word, e.g. oil
- /oi/ can be at the start of a word, but mainly in the middle. E.g. oil = /oi/ at the start, coin = /oi/ in the middle
- /oy/ is mainly at the end of a word, it’s used a lot in names and adjectives (describing words). E.g. Troy (name), enjoyment (adjective)
Following our research, we have been left wondering:
- Why are the two sounds spelt differently?
- Are there only two /oy/ sounds?
We will investigate our wonderings in the coming weeks.
We have also started an inquiry about water. After watching a story on Behind the News that focused on the Global Water Crisis, we found the following facts:
- Only 1% of the water on earth is fresh water. – Rylie
- Earth is known as the blue planet because of how much water there is. – Rosie
- Some people in the world have no fresh water to drink. – Pheobe
- There is about 326 million trillion gallons of water on earth. – Billy
We are looking forward to using our research skills to continue our water inquiry throughout the term.
Term 4 has been a wonderful example of how learning can be wonderfully spontaneous. In week 1, some students in 2/3 started talking about space, showing a keen interest and developing wonderings.
From this, we began an inquiry into our Solar System and some basic understandings about our home in the Universe.
We began by investigating the change between day and night, and constructed a class theory about what is going on:
“We think that the sun doesn’t go down, but the Earth moves so everywhere gets sun.”
From this, we decided to do some research and present the information in a way that would be accessible to younger children. We had some wonderful creations including children’s books, songs and limerick poems!
Following this, we started to explore the wider Solar System including Planets, stars and the asteroid belt.
We are now working on publishing our research in this space as information posters. It has been an amazing start to the Term.
Upcoming dates:
3rd November: Professional Learning Day
6th November: Public Holiday
8th November: Extra year 6 transition for select students
14th November: Whole School Assembly
15th November: 3/4 Sports Day
15th November: Extra year 6 transition for select students
22nd November: Children’s University Graduation
24th November: Triathlon Challenge
29th November: Celebration of Learning
30th November: Athletics carnival
1st December: Public holiday
8th December Grade 6 Orientation
13th December: Year 6 Big Day Out
14th December: Whole School Assembly
15th December: Colour Run
18th December: Celebration assembly
19th December: Picnic day
21st December: Student’s last day
Vaping and young people
The rising number of children and young people vaping is a growing issue of concern in our community.
Electronic cigarettes (vapes) can be appealing to young people due to bright colours and flavours. But no vapes are safe as they are often full of harmful chemicals and nicotine. For this reason, vapes can be addictive and harmful for lungs, brain development and general health.
It is important to talk to your children about vaping. Try to be understanding, compassionate and non-judgemental as you support them to learn more about the dangers of vaping or in seeking support to quit.
Information on what vaping is, the impacts and how to support your child is available on the new Department for Education, Children and Young People webpage on vaping, which can be accessed here:
https://www.decyp.tas.gov.au/about-us/projects/child-student-wellbeing/vaping/
