Dear Families and Friends

TRANSITIONS – HIGH SCHOOL 

Last newsletter we talked about Prep transitions. This newsletter is flagging another important area for transitions – moving to high school. Do you have a student currently in Yr. 6? Have you enrolled your student in high school for 2024?

You may not be aware but In Term 4, we start collaborating with the teachers from our local high schools. We meet up and discuss students’ needs for high school and update them with students’ progress and general trends in learning areas of strengths and need we are seeing in our students. Last year we met with all our local high school  and primary schools representatives and we discussed important issues around ensuring successful transitions for our Yr. 6 students. We discussed the importance of regular attendance and the links to engaged, successful learners. Students who attend regularly in primary school tend to have more successful starts in high school. As we say in primary school “Every day counts!!” and this is certainly true for high school as well.  At this meeting, we also recognised how important it is to tailor support and interventions for families who may have significant barriers to access high schools such as distance and financial difficulties.

Students who are first in their family to attend high school may also need a more considered transition as this will be the whole family’s first experience of high school. If you or your Yr 6 student would like more information about high school and next steps, please reach out to our Yr 6 Transition Team consisting of the Yr. 6 teachers, our HOC and myself and we would be happy to support you in any way we can.

YEAR 1

The focus for Yr. 1 in English this term has been retelling a cultural story. Why? Because retelling stories from our past how to keep cultures, memories and important events alive. The Yr. 1’s have been learning how to write interesting retells about a variety of cultural stories such as How the Birds Got their colours (Dreaming story), The Two Bullies (A legend from Japan) and Handa's Surprise (Africa).

Right now, they are learning to retell a story in a logical sequence with main ideas and characters to add interest. They have also created a Cultural Word Wall to reflect and help describe the setting of each story. Ask your Yr. 1 student what their writing goal is.

YEAR 2

Year 2 are learning how to create and present entertaining multimodal procedures. Over the last 2 weeks, they have been creating procedures for a specific purpose, to make delicious or disgusting food. They have chosen specific describing words and adverbs to help add interest and to fit the purpose.

SCIENCE NEWS

Year 2 are learning about living things and what they need to survive. They have been hatching silk worms and growing bean seeds. They will be setting up favourable and non-favourable conditions for their plants to grow in our new garden beds. Learning through experimentation and inquiry enhances our students’ understanding of the natural world and allows them to ask the question - WHY?  One of the most powerful words to promote learning and understanding.

IMPORTANT PBL NEWS!       

Our Awards are: Be Kind, Be positive, Be Responsible, Be Respectful, Be Proud and Be Tolerant. The Principal’s Award is also given out each week.

Every week we also have 4 students who receive GOTCHA awards. These students are spotted by other teachers in the playgrounds and classrooms and rewarded for doing the right thing with a GOTCHA award. They then go into the draw box where very week 4 students names are pulled out of the box. The winners receive a prize from the Prize Box and an ice block voucher.