Weetangera Primary School Newsletter | Week 3, Term 2 2022
From Mel
Dear Families
What a busy start to the term it has been! We are right in the middle of NAPLAN at the moment, so our students in years 3 and 5 are hard at work, but we have great things going on in other areas as well.
It was wonderful to welcome so many parents, carers and friends to the school for our Cross Country carnival held last week. Many people commented about how nice it was to have a little bit of normal back in our lives. Well done to all of our runners, what a great effort. And congratulations to those students who are now moving on to the Belconnen zone carnival.
On Tuesday night, I attended the first face-to-face P&C in a couple of years. Once again, it was really nice to see members of our school community back together again. There are some exciting things coming up for our school, so please keep an eye out for P&C updates. And don't forget, joining the P&C is a great way to get involved in your school and another way to stay connected to what is happening.
The first three weeks have been challenging for us, with comtinued staffing shortages due to illness and other leave. I'd like to thank our amazing teachers for their willingness to be flexible and responsive. They truly do have our students' best interests at heart, and regularly go above and beyond to make sure they get what they need. I know you'll join me in thanking them for their amazing work.
Semester 1 Student Reports
With the middle of the school year fast approaching our teachers will soon be preparing student reports for semester 1. This semester we will be providing students with an overall A-E grade, and an assessment of achievement standard statements on a 5-point scale.
While semester 1 reports won’t include teacher comments, parents are encouraged to speak directly with their child’s teacher(s) if they have any questions or concerns about their progress. Our teachers will also continue to communicate directly with you when there are any concerns about student learning or other classroom updates.
We will be holding parent-teacher meeting later this term. More information about this will be sent home soon.
What's Happening in the Piranhas
Yuma! As part of our inquiry into different celebrations and commemorations, Year 3 have been learning about National Sorry Day. Learning about the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children isn't an easy topic to discuss but it is important for all Australians to commit to playing a role in the healing process that National Sorry Day plays.
In one of our lessons, we looked at the story of Archie Roach and his incredible song Took The Children Away. We all agreed that the version by Indigenous student Sebastian Kelly-Toiava from the 2016 School Spectacular is incredibly special and recommend you watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H34Y00HrkUU
Year 3 have also looked at what life would have been like for Indigenous Australians before white settlement. We watched a story about a boy named Bunda and what his community would have been like, comparing his life to our own in 2022. While we can turn on a tap to get water, Bunda and his family knew where the best rock springs were and while we speak English at school (and lots of different languages at home), Bunda would have spoken one of the hundreds of Indigenous languages our first nation people spoke.
Year 3 have shown their learning in different ways during this inquiry unit. They have written letters, created timelines (pictured) using information from historical artefacts to match the information to the dates and they have reflected on the stories of the Stolen Generation in a learning journal.
What's happening in the Wombats
In the Wombats' classroom we have been exploring writing to inform in our Writer’s Workshops. We have been learning about and writing information reports on animals. We started our journey with completing a schema file. The purpose of a schema file is to collect information that we already know about the subject and add to it as we learn more. This is also a place where we explore vocabulary about that subject and place any wonderings we have. We then used our schema file to complete some interactive writing together. Students then have a chance to use their new knowledge to write their information report.
What's happening in the Gangster Grannies
This term in year 4MS we are focussing on number facts. The ability to recall multiplication facts is imperative when completing Year 4 level maths work. The Gangsters have certainly increased their knowledge of times tables and are excited when completing work that involves those facts! We have a daily routine that helps us memorise and learn the multiplication and related division facts.
Every morning we begin with a maths game. This game warms up our brains and is normally related to what we are learning in the week. When we finish the game, we eat our fruit break while we write out our specific multiplication tables for the week. We also include the related division facts as well, as they are part of the relationship. A Gangster is then selected to be the bingo caller, and the class plays a game of bingo based on the multiplication table for the day. Obviously, everyone wants to be the bingo caller! Sometimes we choose random multiples for bingo, other times we might go in order of the multiplication fact! It is very fun seeing who is first to shout BINGO!
Take a look at our workbooks to see how we practice our multiplication!
Madeleine Scott
What's Happening in the K9s
The students in the 5/6 K9’s have started the term by focusing on writing to inform. The focus for students in years 5 has been to work to create informative texts for different purposes and audiences and through this writing form they have been looking at their understanding of grammar using a variety of sentence types.
The focus for students in year 6 has been to create detailed texts elaborating on key ideas for a range of purposes and audiences. They have also been working to demonstrate an understanding of grammar and make considered vocabulary choices to enhance cohesion and structure in their writing.
To create their informative texts the students have been using the TEEL structure to create cohesive paragraphs. TEEL stands for:
- Topic sentence, (this sentence represents the main idea of the paragraph,
- Evidence/Example, this is where the evidence or examples can be used to present more information
- Explanation, you have raised an idea and provided evidence to support it, but now you need to explain it in more detail, and
- Link, how does this relate to the actual topic.
The students have been taking notes on a topic, the endangered Sumatran Rhinoceros, and using these notes to create information texts.
Cross Country
On Tuesday 3 May we held our Cross Country Carnival. The students did an amazing job running, and also cheering for the other students in their house. We had lots of parents and carers attend and it was a great community atmosphere. Congratulations to the following students, who will be attending the Belconnen zone carnival on Thursday 26 May.
P&C News
Community Notices
