Weetangera Primary School Newsletter | Week 1, Term 3 2022
From Julie
Dear Families
We are on the other side of the year now; Term 3!
Welcome back to a focused and exciting term of learning for your children. We have many things coming up on the calendar and below I have listed some of what we have in the ‘pipeline’ at the moment; bearing in mind other items and excursions and events may be added throughout the term:
- Week 2 – 25-29 July
- Monday 25 July the kindergarten students will be celebrating their first one hundred days of primary, a great achievement. They will be showcasing
- All week – Year 3 will be participating in the AQUA SAFE Program
- Week 3 – 1-5 August
- Athletics Carnival Wednesday - 3 August
- Kindergarten Health Checks – 4 August
- Pupil Free Planning Day – Friday, 5 August
- Week 6 – 22-26 August
- Kindergarten Health Checks – 24 August
- Week 7: 29 August – 2 September
- Kenny Koala Visits: Preschool to Year 6 – All week
- Week 8: 5 – 9 September
- Galleries of Learning – 7 September
- Pupil Free Planning Day – Friday 9 September
- Week 10: 19-23 September
- Lapathon – Thursday 22 September
- Wear It Purple Day – Friday 23 September
And then it will be school holidays all over again!
An update:
COVID-19 Update
Last week’s communication from the ACT Education Directorate was a reminder to us all that the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing, with high levels of respiratory illness and significant community transmission of the virus. As always, we will be working to minimise disruption to your child’s learning while ensuring the health and wellbeing of students and school staff.
We expect COVID-19 will continue to limit the availability of teachers, and if we are unable to support students in the classroom there may be the need to engage them in online learning for a short time, either from home or in a supervised setting at school.
Teachers at Weetangera Primary School have planned for this contingency, and we are confident we have the programs, skills and technology to enable learning to be delivered in a number of different ways.
We know the importance of predictability and will aim to provide you with as much notice as possible, if your child may be required to learn at home. As always, students who can’t stay at home for any reason can still come to school and will be supervised while undertaking the same online learning activities as their peers.
Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs)
Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) will continue to be available at our school and will be provided to staff and students as needed. Families are encouraged to contact the school office team by phone or email to make arrangements for collection.
This term, families will only need to report a positive COVID-19 case to us if your child attended school during their infectious period. Parents and carers must report a positive RAT to ACT Health and follow their advice about quarantine arrangements.
COVID Safety Measures
We thank all families for following ACT Health’s recommendations to prevent and prepare for illness, including COVID-19 and Influenza.
- Stay up to date with COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations.
- Stay home if you are unwell and get tested for COVID-19.
- Practise good hand and respiratory hygiene. While masks are no longer mandatory except for in some settings/situations, ACT Health does strongly encourage their use particularly during this period of increased COVID-19 and Influenza cases. Masks and hand sanitiser are available at our school.
If your child is a household contact, they may still attend school as long as they do not have any symptoms and have tested negative for COVID-19. Please follow ACT Health advice and also let our school know.
As COVID-19 continues to bring disruption to our lives, the wellbeing of our students, teachers and school staff remains a priority. If you or your children are experiencing increased levels of stress and anxiety, we encourage you to view the supports available on the ACT Education website (www.education.act.gov.au).
Thank you again for your support as we navigate this challenging time. To keep up to date on how COVID-19 is being managed in ACT Public Schools, visit the ACT Education website.
BUT, the most important message for this term is the following:
At Weetangera Primary School I am so very proud of the work of the students and staff as they come together, each school day, to build knowledge, skills, abilities and understandings across a broad spectrum of subjects and areas of interest. The very well attended family conversations, held at the end of last term, allowed families to delve more deeply into the learning and progress and next steps in progress for each of the students we have at school.
Always remember; if you have a questions, concern or comment make contact with your child’s teacher, myself or the members of the leadership team.
Our thought for the week to open this term of learning was this:
Have an excellent weekend.
Regards
Julie
Principal Weetangera Primary School
Upcoming Athletics Carnival
The Weetangera School Athletics Carnival will be held on Wednesday 3 August at Charnwood Oval. Students in years 2-6 will participate in rotations throughout the day with their age group in events such as the 100m, shot put and long jump. The 800m is an optional event and will be held at the start of the day for those interested students. We would encourage students that are capable of running the whole distance to compete in this event.
To qualify for the Belconnen Athletics Carnival students need to finish in the first two positions overall in their event. There will be no finals at our carnival, all events are timed heats so students are reminded to run their fastest possible times in order to qualify. The events conducted at Belconnen are:
70m: 8, 9 years
100m: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years
200m: 10, 11, 12 years
800m, Long Jump, Shot Put and Discus: 10 years and under, 11 years, 12 years
A tradition at our carnival is the running of the Weetangera Gift. This race sees two races (boys and girls) where all the 100m age champions compete in a sprint race with handicapped starts. The 12 years’ competitor runs 100m, 11 years’ 95m, 10 years’ 90m and so on down to the 8 years. If time permits we will conduct this race at the end of the carnival in front of all the students, however, if we do not have enough time on the day we will conduct this event at Weetangera Oval on a date TBC.
Parents and carers are welcome to attend to watch their child participate. A timetable of events will be shared on Seesaw closer to the carnival date.
Corinne Hannan, Erwin McRae and Tyler Beltrame
P-1 Athletics Carnival
The Weetangera Junior Athletics Carnival will be held on Wednesday 3 August on the synthetic oval at school. Preschool, Kindergarten and Year 1 students will be participating in different novelty rotations with their year group. There will also be a running event held at the start for interested students. We encourage students to dress in their respective house colours (Amethyst, Emerald, Sapphire, Topaz).
Edna Lee and Kate Harvey-Sutton
Canteen Services on the Athletics Carnival Day
Parents and carers are welcome to attend to watch their child participate. A timetable of events will be shared on Seesaw closer to the carnival date.
The canteen will run a special lunch order for the carnival that will need to be pre-purchased through Flexischools.
The lunch order will be a sausage sizzle, juice box and a biscuit and the cost is $8 and orders must be received by Friday 29 July.
We will also have snack items to purchase on the day such as lolly bags, chips, finger buns and hot drinks prices ranging from $1 to $3.
If your child is sick on the day, please email canteen wpscanteen@hotmail.com for a refund of lunch order.
Thank you
Weetangera School Canteen
Weetangera Primary School – Graduate Profile
During term 2, we surveyed parents, staff and students, asking them what they considered to be the most important skills and understandings that a student should have by the time they left Weetangera Primary School. We received 83 responses from parents and staff, and 191 responses from students.
It was good to see that our parents, staff and students are pretty lined up on what they thought was most important. In some cases they used different words, but we think they were saying the same things. To help us understand and visualise this data, where it is not self-explanatory we have brought together some of these themes under common key words (see here for further information).
The skills and understandings most mentioned by all three groups were:
Literacy
This was mentioned most by parents and staff, and second most by students. Literacy includes reading, writing, spelling, punctuation and grammar. Under the Australian Curriculum, Literacy also includes public speaking, but it was mentioned on its own enough times to earn its own heading.
Numeracy
Students rated Numeracy as most important, mentioning it more than any other skill or understanding. It was second most important for staff and parents. Numeracy includes ‘maths’, understanding numbers and number operations, understanding money and time.
Social Skills
Social skills were rated highly by all three groups. This includes the ability to make and keep friends, solve problems with others, interact with a range of people, resolve conflict.
As you can see by the word clouds below (word clouds group common words together, with the larger words representing larger numbers of the same word), there were some other common skills and understandings among all three groups, including kindness, confidence, problem-solving, respect, resilience and good general knowledge.
What’s next?
Understanding and articulating what we want as a school community is an important step in school improvement. It ensures that we are all working towards the same goals and are aligned in our values. Using your responses, as well as our existing values and learning dispositions, we will craft a school mission statement and a graduate profile that guides us in our decision-making over the coming years.
We will be seeking your feedback in all stages of our school improvement journey. Sometimes, as currently, it will be via surveys and requests through our newsletter. Later, we may ask for more focused work within focus groups or parent forums. Please keep an eye on our newsletter for more information.
Our school values and learning dispositions are displayed in our school foyer. If you would like to comment on these, or you think something should be changed, please use this form to give us your feedback.
Our school values:
INCLUSION
RESILIENCE
RESPECT
RESPONSIBILITY
Our learning dispositions:
- Open-minded - I know what is precious about my culture and family and respect the ideas and experiences of others.
- Caring - I show kindness and understanding because I care about people, plants, animals and the Earth.
- Thinker - I make good decisions and think about their effect on others and try to solve problems in different ways.
- Risk Taker- I have the courage to take risks and try new things.
- Communicator - I listen respectfully and express myself in a variety of ways when I work and play with others.
- Balanced- I take care of myself by looking after my mind, body and emotions and help others to do the same.
- Principled- I tell the truth; I am fair, and I play well with others. I take responsibility for my own actions.
- Reflective- I reflect on my strengths and weaknesses and how to learn from them.
- Knowledgeable - I develop my knowledge across all areas of my life.
What's happening in the Explorers
Towards the end of last term, the Explorers began investigating “Our Bodies”-looking at the skeletal system, the role of the brain, heart and lungs as well as talking about how blood travels around our body. We even cut up a real sheep heart! This unit of work has been integrated into various area of the curriculum. We set up a Teddy Bear Hospital in the dramatic play area, and incorporated the topic into music, art and craft literacy and maths.
We have learnt that:
- “The brain is the boss of the body” (Max)
- “There is blue blood and red blood inside us. It goes to the heart and lungs to get oxygen in it.” (Ralph)
- “There are juices in our tummy that mix with food.” (Sebastian)
- “The heart is a muscle.” (Blaise)
- “If we didn’t have bones we would fall down like jelly.” (Megan)
Virginia Hambly
What's happening in the Investigators and Adventurers
Throughout term 2, the students in both groups have been taking turns for ‘Show and Tell’. This is our first introduction into public speaking and presenting. Every week two students stand up in front of the class and present something they have bought in from home. We had many different items bought in such as; a turtle, a few dogs, music box, bee keeping suit, firefighter’s outfit, leaf insects, special teddies, family recipes, baby photos and many more!
These presentations have sparked many inquiries within the classroom and build upon our skills in listening and asking questions.
We have asked many questions:
- How do you think that was made?
- Where do babies come from?
- What makes some teddies special?
- Why do bees sting people?
This term we will be taking turns in… MYSTERY BOX! What’s inside?
Sofia Ritman
What's happening in the Peanuts
In Year 5/6 we have started reading our new class novel, Hatchet by Gary Paulson. Brian is a city boy who finds himself in a surreal situation in the wild. After Brian’s plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness, he must work out a way to survive.
Our class enjoyed predicting what we think will happen in this adventurous novel.
After reading chapter one we predicted what would happen next in the story and justified our predictions with what we had read already. This meant we thought carefully about the inferences we were making.
Reading helps us become better writers. We have used excerpts from Hatchet to focus on the author’s word choices. We highlighted interesting or tricky vocabulary and wrote down our thoughts about particular word choices. This activity is called code breaking. These activities are helping to widen our vocabulary knowledge to bump up our word choices in our own writing pieces. Check out some examples below of our code breaking.
The more we are reading, the better writers we are becoming. We can’t wait to find out what happens next!
Emily Dziubinski
What's happening in the Busy Bugs
At the end of last term, we packed up our classroom and prepared for the big move to the new space we like to refer to as ‘the outback’ but better known as unit 8! It has been a long time coming and quite a process to have it all set up, but the day has finally come for the Busy Bugs and the Shooting Stars to move. We are loving the new space with lots of extra room for us all to spread out and a balcony to enjoy. It even has a new classroom smell to it! Have a read of some of our thoughts on the new space.
This term we are focusing on figurative language in our writing. We are enjoying similes, metaphors, coming up with punny puns and composing captivating and creative alliteration. Currently we are looking into each type of figurative language individually but later this term we will be using these devices in our writing when we create a ‘choose your own adventure’ story. Exciting, huh? (Rhetorical question).
Zones of Regulation
Category- DO IT
Colour!
Find a sketchbook, piece of paper or a colouring book. Get markers, crayons, pens or pencils to colour with. Colour in a picture or make your own piece of art.
How do you feel? What Zone could this be helpful in?
Here is a colouring sheet you can use to try this strategy at home!