Attitudes to School Survey starts this week

Students in Years 4,5 and 6 have started taking the Attitudes to School Survey. This survey is a mandated measure that all government schools - primary and secondary, deliver to students in certain year levels. 

The questions range from students' views on their own learning, the community, social wellbeing and other aspects of their own health. Any responses are anonymous - all answers are de-identified. 

The data from these surveys will be available to the school later in the year and helps both the school, and the Department of Education as an organisation, to assess what students feel is working well and not so well in our school and education in general. 

Lots on!

A reminder that there is a lot of events on this term. Make sure you have checked out the following info for these events - 

Jump Rope for Heart

Help the Homeless HSC Fundraiser

Student Disco

and save the date for next term's Parent Trivia Night on Saturday, Auguest 15th. 

Government School Principals Conference

This week Mrs Roberts and myself attended the two days of the Government School Principals Conference at the Convention Centre. Along with every other principal from primary, secondary and special schools, we heard about the latest investments in government education and worked with other schools through a variety of sessions. 

School Tours

This week we held our 14th school tour of the year so far. For those who didn't take a tour in the last few years, we run tours on a nearly weekly basis. Tours are led by a rotating roster of two of our Year 6 students who are members of the Community team. Each week we have different students giving their own unique touch to the touring parents. 

During the tour, the group (usually no more than 10 people) visit the prep rooms, the play spaces, the specialist learning areas and other important stopping points on their way inside and out. If you know someone who is thinking of enrolling, they can book a tour via this link.  

PERFORMING ARTS WEEK 7: Bounce, Dribble, Perform! 🏀🎵

The Year 3 and 4 students have had an exciting and energetic start to Performing Arts this semester through our Basketball Rhythms unit! Students have been exploring beat, rhythm and tempo by combining music with coordinated basketball dribbling routines. Beginning with simple clapping patterns, students learnt how to transfer rhythms from body percussion to basketballs, developing their timing, coordination and concentration skills along the way.

As students built confidence, they worked on increasingly challenging rhythm sequences and routines performed to popular music. Through these activities, students strengthened their understanding of steady beat and rhythmic patterns while also developing teamwork, resilience and performance confidence. It has been wonderful to see students encouraging one another, showing persistence and proudly performing their routines with enthusiasm and creativity.

This fortnight in Year 2 we went on our first excursion for the year to Como House in South Yarra. Once owned by the Armytage family, it was built in 1847. 

We learned how to wash clothing as the servants would have using a washboard and a mangle. We danced in the ballroom and went on a tour of the house. We saw golden mirrors, the dining room, the drawing room, the kitchen and the bedrooms.

We realised that toilets used to be kept under the bed and that the huge fire in the kitchen was on 24/7, even in summer!

We went on a Scavenger hunt to solve the mystery of the broken doll and played old fashioned games outside. 

It was a great day!

In Numeracy we have been learning about Part-Part-Whole and how to find the addends of a sum using unifix and Base Ten blocks. 

We estimated and hefted objects to explore mass; heavier and lighter. 

In Literacy we know the difference between a fact and opinion and have started writing arguments to support a statement of opinion. 

We have been identifying compound sentences in our Good Fit Text and continuing to read Definitely No Ducks. 

In Smile we learned about Emmeline Pankhurst and discussed the similarities and differences between jobs and roles that men and women had in the olden days vs now. 

On Monday 18th May, Olivia from Love Me Like a Reptile visited us with an amazing range of animals for the students to enjoy. We met a green tree frog, a lizard, a very friendly python named Bella, a long-necked turtle, a baby crocodile, a rare marsupial called a bettong, and a tiny sugar glider. It was wonderful to see students who were initially feeling anxious step outside their comfort zones and bravely handle the animals. Olivia was very impressed by the students’ knowledge of animal habitats and features, as well as their impeccable manners.

In Numeracy, we have been practising recognising, making, and writing teen numbers. We also used iPads to complete our very first Essential Assessments on shapes and statistics. In addition, we have been learning about ordinal numbers using words such as first, second, third, and beyond.

In Literacy, we have learnt the phonemes c, k, u, and b, and we are looking forward to completing our single phonemes later in Term 3. Thank you for supporting your child’s learning at home — it makes a huge difference to their reading development.

We have also enjoyed learning about the difference between fiction and non-fiction texts during our reading sessions. We now know that fiction texts are made-up stories designed to entertain and usually include illustrations. Non-fiction texts provide factual information about real topics, such as space or animals, and often include features like contents pages, indexes, diagrams, and photographs.

In Writing, the students have loved using animals as inspiration for their sentence writing. Using helpful templates, they have been writing many fantastic sentences. We were thrilled to see so many students using upper-case letters at the beginning of sentences and even adding full stops at the end.

We were also very excited to reunite with our Prep Pals on Monday and hear all about their adventures at camp. The Year 5 students entertained us with photos and videos from their time away, and we loved hearing about their experiences.

This week we have jumped off to a fantastic start with our Jump Rope for Heart program! Today, we were lucky to have Nina visit us for a special presentation, helping students learn more about the importance of heart health and fundraising.

A huge congratulations to all of the students and families who have already started fundraising. Together, we have already raised an amazing $420 — wow, what a great start!

Keep up the fantastic work, Ashy PS!

This term, students will be participating in our gymnastics program during PE lessons. The program will focus on developing balance, coordination, strength, and confidence through a range of fun gymnastics activities.

Please ensure your child wears appropriate footwear to school on PE days. For safety reasons, long hair must be tied back and all jewellery removed before participating.

We’re already halfway through Term 2, and the Year 6 students have continued to stay busy with lots of engaging learning experiences across all curriculum areas. It has been fantastic to see students working collaboratively, challenging themselves and showing enthusiasm throughout the past two weeks. Over the last fortnight, students have been:

• Exploring our new class novel Sister Heart during Reading, where students have been learning about the text and unpacking its features, themes and key ideas as a class. The novel has sparked some rich discussions and curiosity.
• Developing their biography writing skills in English, researching famous people and creating their own biographies. Students have now completed these pieces and turned them into a classroom display showcasing their hard work.
• Investigating fractions and ratios in Maths, building their understanding through hands-on activities and problem-solving tasks.
• Participating in Maths Olympiad and Maths Games, where students worked through challenging questions and collaborated with their maths groups to solve problems. It was fantastic to see their perseverance and mathematical thinking.
• Representing the school at Interschool Sport, competing against Solway Primary. All teams demonstrated excellent sportsmanship, teamwork and effort while enjoying the day.
• Learning new statistics concepts, including positive correlation, negative correlation, no correlation and causation. Students explored different graphs and investigated relationships between variables.

Overall, the past two weeks have been filled with exciting learning opportunities, and students have particularly enjoyed Interschool Sport, Maths groups and continuing to build their learning across all subjects.

From Brooke, Issi, Mandy & Emma