Parent Teacher Conversations Week 8

It's already nearly a third of the way through the term which means Parent Teacher Conversations will be upon us soon. Running over the week starting September 8th, Parent Teacher Conversations will be held after school, either in person or via Webex.  Parent Teacher Conversations are designed for teachers to provide an a progress update on your child's academic learning, social connections and school wellbeing. We will be running two later sessions until 6pm on Monday and Wednesday, as well as sessions until 4pm on Tuesday and Thursday. We will be providing further information on how to book via Compass later this month.

2026

Planning is  underway for 2026.  If your family is leaving Ashburton Primary School at the end of this year and you haven't already let us know (other than Year 6), please email the school on ashburton.ps@education.vic.gov.au with your child's name, name of school transferring to  and the last day of school at Ashburton PS.

Orbeez!

This week highlights the importance of what students bring from home to school each day. Orbeez, the small colourful balls that expand when in water are a fun sensory toy that have been popular for a number of years. While great at home, they are not something we want at school. The dangers of them ending up in drink bottles and then being ingested afterwards is a possibility. Please keep them at home (and anything else that could cause harm). 

Principal's Day

A big thank you to the staff and students who wished myself and Mrs Roberts a happy Principal's Day last Friday. It was lovely for us all to celebrate with a lovely morning tea. Thank you again! 

Bullying No Way: National Week of Action

As always, Ashy is proudly supporting Bullying No Way: National Week of Action

The theme for this year's campaign is Be Bold. Be Kind. Speak Up.

It takes a community to be brave and address bullying behaviours, within and beyond the school gate.

Students can be bold, kind and speak up to support others being bullied. While trusted adults are there to support children and young people learn how to be kind to each other and report bullying.

For more information about Bullying No Way Week and bullying prevention, visit the Bullying No Way website.

Here's a webinar from Kids Helpline to help parents and carers support a child or young person who is being bullied.

Click here on the image to explore this Fact Sheet.

Rachel Roberts

Assistant Principal

Year 5 Newsletter – Term 3 

The Year 5s have had an exciting start to Term 3! 

We've been working hard on our narrative writing, and the creative ideas have been incredibly impressive. Students have been experimenting with figurative language and dialogue to bring their stories to life. We can't wait to transform our planners into the final piece.

In Maths, we've been exploring decimals, fractions, and percentages. One of the highlights was creating a massive number line across the learning space and working together as a cohort to order numbers from smallest to largest. This led to some fantastic cooperative discussions. 

We also had Prep Pals and had the opportunity to share our learning about directions. The Preps even taught us a few of their favourite maths games. 

In SMILE, our focus has been on active listening, teamwork, and resilience. Students have engaged in fun, interactive activities to build these skills.

We’re also about to begin an exciting art project and will be participating in an interactive session to help create our Year 5 collaborative art piece. We can’t wait to see how it all turns out!

Year 4 has had a wonderful start to Term 3!

We have been enjoying our new classroom novel, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White - exploring the setting, sharing predictions, and engaging in thoughtful conversations about Wilbur’s feelings and Fern’s kindness. 

Students have been busy stretching their imaginations in narrative writing - brainstorming lots of creative ideas and getting them all down on paper before choosing their favourites. They’ve enjoyed building exciting settings, events and characters, and it’s been great to see how proud they are of their work.

In Maths, we’ve been working on partitioning, using hands-on materials to help build understanding of fractions. We’ve also had lots of fun investigating chance through games and simple experiments, using everyday language to describe how likely something is to happen.

It’s been such a positive start to the term, and we’re so proud of the way students are supporting each other and engaging with their learning.

Some student highlights so far:

“I have enjoyed learning and sharing about different cultures in Connected Learning!”

“Reading and discussing characters in our class novel, Charlotte’s Web. I have enjoyed learning about the different characters.”

“Mr Worlley teaching us how to do triple jump”

“I am excited to start our unit on narrative writing!”

“Using fraction walls to help us understand equivalent fractions.”

It’s been a busy and wonderful start to Term 3! Our Year 6 students have jumped straight into new learning and have also been busy preparing for the upcoming Ashy Olympics. It’s been great to see their enthusiasm across all areas of the curriculum. Over the past few weeks, they have been:

• Exploring angles in Maths, where they’ve been hands-on and collaborative - investigating different types of angles and practising how to find missing angles through a range of engaging group activities.
  
   
• Converting between units of measurement in Number. Students recently competed in a mini measuring challenge, recording their jumps, throws, and other distances. The data was collected across the whole cohort, and students analysed real results to answer mathematical questions.
  
   
• Diving into their new book study of Skellig, which will be our reading focus over the coming weeks. So far, they’ve really enjoyed unpacking the story and discussing its deeper themes.
  
   
• Getting stuck into Narrative Writing. After planning their ideas, students have now begun drafting their stories - and they’ve been loving the creative freedom this unit offers.
  
   
• Competing in the Division T-Ball competition last Wednesday. Our players represented Ashburton PS proudly and performed incredibly well against other schools. They should all be very proud of themselves!
  
   

We’ve had a cracking start to Term 3 and hope all our students are enjoying the learning, fun, and opportunities that come with it!

From Brooke, Chloe & Kristen

Our Year 3 and 4 Hoop Timers headed off to the Nunawading Basketball Centre to compete in the latest edition of Hoop Time. It was a hard day on the courts against some quality opposition, but as always the kids represented the school excellently in their behaviour and attitude. 

Thank you to our wonderful volunteer coaches!

Pete H (Boys 1)
Mark L (Boys 2)
Wila L (Girls 1)
Rebecca B (Girls 2)
 

Also-  thank you to Anthony and the Ashy Lightning Basketball club for lending us some uniforms

In Year 2 we have been:

• Working with our buddy to practise fluency, including attention to volume, tempo, expression and comprehension. 
• Learning about the value of Australian coins by accumulating and adding coins together.
• Using concrete materials to share collections into equal groups. 
• Using our own experiences to write recounts using the 5Ws and H planner.

We thoroughly enjoyed our excursion to CERES. It was designed to support students in building a deeper understanding of Aboriginal histories and cultures. The learning outcomes included:

• Histories of First Nations Australians

• Connections to Country/Place

• Continuity and change in cultural practices

• Identifying and connecting with elements of Aboriginal cultures

• Understanding that each Aboriginal person has a unique connection to their culture and a responsibility for caring for the land through the totems

• Exploring ways of keeping ancient knowledge and tradition alive through engaging activities like Tiddalik storytelling, ochre painting, traditional dance (Ngarrga), the Merri Merri Cultural Walk, and the traditional Marngrook game

• Identifying ways we can embed Aboriginal culture meaningfully within our school

In addition to meeting key History curriculum goals, this learning also supports two important general capabilities in the Victorian Curriculum 2.0:

• Intercultural Understanding: helping students appreciate cultural diversity, explore how cultural identities are expressed, and develop respect for cultural differences and perspectives

• Ethical Understanding: encouraging students to consider fairness, cultural respect, and the responsibilities we all share in recognising and valuing Aboriginal culture and heritage.

Later in the term, we are hoping students will use this learning as a springboard to reflect on their own cultural backgrounds, stories and traditions. This will help them recognise both shared and unique aspects of identity and deepen their understanding of community.

Tee Ball Divsion Finals

Last week our boys and mixed Tee Ball teams headed off to Balwyn North to compete in the Division finals of Tee-Ball. They qualified by being the dominant teams in the local district competition in Term 1. 

Competing against 4 others schools from neighbouring districts, both teams gave their all as they hit, threw, caught and ran their hearts out. The mixed team missed out on qualifying for the next Regional stage, but our boys team was successful as they won the day's final. They will now move through to the Regional game later this month. Well done to both teams!