Thank you

Today we held a short ceremony to say thank you to all the people who made the junior playground possible. Many of you will know, the journey from initial ideas to completion was not an easy one, with not one but two contractors falling into administration requiring a lot of changes, support and work. 

 In front of the school, we thanked our Grand Fair convenors Binita, Paula and Yuen for the money raised in 2023. We thanked our most recent principal, Marg Staley, for her leadership at that time. Similarly, we thanks Claire Bartlett, our previous Business Manager, for the work she put in behind the scenes.  We thanked School Council, in particular our Presidents Camy and Daniel, for their leadership throughout the ordeal. Camy and Daniel's time and expertise as we navigated through creditor meetings was most appreciated. We thank Amy from the Victorian School Building Authority for her support in sourcing a new builder, and her work negotiating various contractors to get the work done. And we thanked Jono, the site manager who was there most days, through two different employers, and steered the job to its conclusion. 

Thank you to all the families and the students for their patience through the stops and starts of the project! 

Standing in for all of you was young Prep student Camden cut the ceremonial ribbon. Camden was down to be one of the original "first sliders' when the playground first opened, but was away on the day. 

Baby news!

We celebrate some wonderful news at the end of last week with Kristen Abbott and her husband Tim welcoming their first born, daughter Rose. We wish Kristen and her family all the best as they begin their exciting journey!

Term 2 Expo

Hope to see you next Monday after school or Tuesday before school for the Term 2 Expo! Head to classrooms and specialist areas to explore this term's work.

Some dates for the rest of the year

Friday September 18th - Student Free Day (Curriculum Day) - this means that the final attendance day for Term 3 will be Thursday, September 17th. 

Friday October 30th - Student Free Day (Professional Practice Day)

Monday December 7th - Student Free Day (Curriculum Day)

JSC Fundraiser

Last Friday our Junior School Council held their first fundraiser for the year. After choosing to focus on helping homelessness, the JSC chose "Kids Under Cover" as their charity of choice, while also targeting new basketball nets as the school goal. Students were encouraged to bring a gold coin donation and free dress to help raise funds for these two initiatives. JSC also came up with the idea to have a Lego building display, with students building "homes" and bringing them in on the day. 

We ended up raising $514 on the day which is more than we have had for a gold coin donation day in quite some time! We also had nearly 60 entries into the Lego Home display, with classes moving through the conference room throughout the day to check them all out. At next week's final assembly, we will draw three lucky names from the entries to win a prize. Have a look at the entries in the video below.

Over the past two weeks, students have enjoyed beginning our class novel Brindabella, exploring character relationships, setting, mood and how authors use descriptive language to bring stories to life. In Writing, students continued developing their historical fiction pieces, moving from planning into drafting and beginning the publishing process. They have worked hard to combine historical facts with imaginative ideas to create engaging stories.

In Mathematics, we shifted our focus to additive thinking, exploring strategies for adding and subtracting 2- and 3-digit numbers. Students also collected, represented and interpreted data in a variety of ways during our Statistics unit.

Our Connected Learning investigations continued as students prepared presentations about stories from the past and explored different perspectives on historical events. We look forward to sharing our work with you at Expo next week. 

Free 'Parenting after separation' webinar for parents and carers

Year 5 Newsletter

The last couple of weeks in Year 5 have been busy and exciting, with students working hard across many learning areas.

 In Connected Learning, students have been participating in Museums in Motion, exploring famous people who have shaped Australia’s history. They have been creating presentations using Canva, websites and posters, while including interesting facts and timelines and aiming to exceed the rubric expectations. Students have also been working on a range of projects, such as their  historical fiction narrative writing and other exciting learning activities.

Year 5 students have also enjoyed working with their Prep Pals, learning about chance and probability and helping younger students use productive struggle to solve problems.

 In maths, students created their own unfair probability games using weighted dice and number combinations. We are also proud of our Year 5 students who have participated in Interschool sports with Year 6 students, with several teams progressing through to Division competitions. 

The last few weeks have been filled with hard work and enthusiasm as students prepare for the upcoming Expo.

Written by Liam (5A) and Max (5C) 

Our Grade One students have been busy preparing for Expo in Week 10. We are looking forward to having families come and see all of the great work that has been taking place in our Connected Learning unit. 

Some of other the things we have been doing in Grade One include:

• Learning about the sounds ‘ue’ and ‘ew’ in phonics along with the FLOSS rule
• Reading non-fiction texts and then writing in the style of that text
• Using Epic on the iPads to read non-fiction texts and answer comprehension questions
• Practicing our fluency with our reading buddy
• Writing an information report about life in the past, in preparation for Expo
• Investigating capacity through hands on activities and ordering containers from holds least to holds most
• Developing strategies to solve subtraction problems such as counting back, bridging to ten, using number lines and known number facts (bonds)
• Finalising our diorama construction in preparation for Expo
• Building friendships throughout the Grade One cohort through shared activities

Parent Event

Saturday August 15th

Mor info to come!