Weetangera Primary School eNewsletter

From Julie

Dear Families

Welcome to Week 7 of Term 2; Friday 10 June.

A reminder that the second of our two, pupil free days will be held on Wednesday, 22 June 2022. These days were provided by the ACT Education Directorate to enable staff to complete planning, reporting and assessment requirements.

In amongst all of our work this term we recognise the challenges presented by staff and student absences and the impact of remote learning as experienced by Years 4-6. This is a trend that we have seen right across Canberra in our schools and many other businesses and industries. We have all done our very best to manage these difficult times and I thank our team who work on daily staffing needs as well as our teachers who have gone above and beyond in taking extra classes and duties to ensure that our school remains functioning as normal.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the way we do school. Our students have experienced a wide range of unfamiliar and uncomfortable changes to their routine, their social interactions and their learning, and many (particularly our younger students) have become more accustomed to people in masks than those without. We have had to abandon or change some of the things that we value most in schools: events, concerts, camps, assemblies and so many activities that bring parents, carers and the community into our school. I can assure you that this is just as uncomfortable for us as it is for you, our community.

As we emerge from the pandemic, coincidentally on our way to our school’s 50^th anniversary, we are faced with an opportunity to do things differently. Not so differently that we lose ourselves as a school community, but better. And better in a way that we all work towards together.

Over the coming weeks and months, we will connect with you in a number of different ways, to seek your input, your ideas, your feedback and your support. This will take the form of surveys, interviews, conversations and focus groups. We value, want and need your input.

We are starting the investigation process with an initial big picture survey, giving us an idea of what our community (staff, students, parents and the community) values in a primary school. From here, we will refine our thinking, share our ideas and progress our improvement. The survey was sent out this week, with most of you receiving a survey link via text message. If you have not had the opportunity to complete this survey, we would appreciate you completing it. You can find it via this link: https://forms.gle/PS9Y2rdw4iGU3z2WA.

Student reports for all students from preschool to year 6 will be sent on Friday, 24 June; via email. The following week all families will have the opportunity to meet with their child’s teacher and discuss the learning and progress and next steps goal setting with each of the classroom teachers. Invitations to book teacher meetings will be sent through SCHOOLZINE and I encourage all families to ensure that they book a meeting time.

The transportable is ‘getting there’ towards completion. The steps, side ramp and covered walkway are all in the process of being fixed and finished and there are many crossed fingers for students and staff to be relocated to the two classes within the transportable; ASAP.

I would encourage all families to investigate how their children are using various social media sites. We have been speaking with our senior students regarding various problems that have occurred regarding some students’ use of social media outside of school hours. If your child is using social media; Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Fortnite etc please remind them of these messages:

For most social media platforms users should be 13 years old
If younger they should only be accessing sites with parental consent
Users must respect others online
If your child reads or sees something online that upsets them or makes them feel unsafe, encourage them to report it to you and ‘block’ or ‘unfollow’ the person who wrote it
Parents (and schools) can report breaches of their guidelines to all social media platforms
Change passwords regularly
The eSafety Commissioner helps to deal with issues related to online abuse or illegal content; here is their website for more information and
You can find out more about a wide range of social media platforms via this link, including guidelines for use and age limits.

I am pretty sure you may have noticed… it is getting colder! And I am intrigued by the approach our students take to keeping warm; there are those who I chat with in their shorts and t-shirts who reassure me that they are ‘warm enough’, there are those who come to school with 5 layers, their teeth are chattering and their hands feel like ice and then there are those students who feel ‘just right’ in the level of warmth and comfort. And then there are the ever-building piles of lost clothing, property and school accoutrements that are left lying around for ‘someone else’ to sort out! How do you leave school minus one shoe?

The P&C have oversight of lost property and the second-hand uniform shop and spend considerable time and effort sorting, washing, folding and rehousing clothing. Please encourage/nag your children to bring their ‘stuff’ back home. And may we all applaud the team who endeavour to return lost items to those who have lost them. Our gratitude to our helpers.

Thank you from Mel Bezear and I.

Have a great long weekend

Regards

Julie

Julie Cooper

Principal

Julie.cooper@ed.act.edu.au

What's Happening in the Possums

In KAN Possum Magic class, we have been using the writing process to develop and scaffold our writing. The writing process has five components: thinking (using prior knowledge), sharing ideas (talking), drawing/labelling, drafting, and then revising/editing. This week we have focused on the ‘thinking’ stage as it supports students to organise their ideas, helping them to form a clear purpose in their writing.

To incorporate this strategy into our writing, we have been writing about animals that share the same letter/sound that we are learning about. For example, the letter Dd and the sound it makes, we wrote about dolphins. We created a schema file to help organise our thoughts about dolphins (see photo below). We talk about how our schema is our prior knowledge and how this can change and grow over time, especially as we learn new skills and information.

When practicing this writing strategy, the ‘file’ is broken into two pages – ‘what we know’ and ‘our new learning’. At the start of the week, we record all known information about dolphins on one page under ‘what we know’. We then use information, books, videos and other resources to build our schema. We then record any new information and learnings under ‘our new learning’.

Throughout this process, students are sharing ideas and making connections to other animals or parts of their life. This process is great for building students’ vocabulary and understanding through identifying animal specific words e.g. mammals, that can help form links or distinctions between animals, such as dolphins and dogs are both mammals.

Students then draw a labelled diagram of a dolphin in their writing books. Our interactive writing is based on our new learning about dolphins. Students who require more extension have the opportunity to write more facts about the animal and challenge themselves to remember more unique facts and topic specific vocabulary, such as habitats and diet.

Please see below our dolphin schema file, the writing process poster, and some student work examples.

Alex Nicholls

What's happening in the Mopokes

This term, students in year one have been immersed in all things drama, learning about voice, facial expression, movement and space to imagine and establish role and situation.

Last Friday, 3rd June, the year one cohort had the exciting opportunity to attend their very first excursion for the year to the Canberra Theatre. All of the students were very excited and really enjoyed the bus ride and experience watching the live play Guess how Much I Love you.

A big congratulations to all students who attended, you represented the school proudly. Well done!

Check out some of the Mopokes reflections on what they thought of the play:

Dhyan - “I enjoyed how the actors used facial expressions, moved their body and talked for the characters which were puppets.”
Jeff - “I thought when Little Nutbrown Hare slid down the snow slide was really funny and also how the caterpillar moved.”
Alfie - “I liked when Little Nutbrown Hare fell off the slide and did a somersault in the air.”
Malcolm - “The background scenery was a little magical at times. I thought it was so funny when Little Nutbrown Hare went for a slide on the snow too!”
Ava - “My favourite part was when Spring arrived and the audience reacted happily.”
Jacob L. - “I liked how the actors used different props.”
Pippa - “You could tell the actors had practised their lines and knew them because they didn’t need to read anything.”
Milan - ”I liked when Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare played Hide and Seek.”
Harvey - ”I really liked the scene when Little Nutbrown Hare was being a box monster.”
Jacob H. - “It was cool how the actors changed their voices and did the talking for the characters.”
Marco - “I liked the body movements the actors made.”
Mary - “I thought it was funny when the box was blowing away.”
Jhanvi - “The Spring scene when all the props turned into colourful flowers was my favourite.”
Marley - “I thought Little Nutbrown Hare's costume was cute but the big rabbit’s costume was a little strange with a weird long neck.”
Chloe - “It was interesting how the actors used string sometimes to make the characters move.”
Patrick - “It was exciting going to the theatre and my favourite character was Little Nutbrown Hare.”
Hayley Dix

Week_7_Term_2.pdf

Lauren Heeney and Lauren Domio

What's happening in the Porcupines

Year 3 have been busy writers. We have been working on developing our author skills by using our five senses to show our emotions rather than directly state them.

We have also been learning how to write to persuade a person with our ideas. One of the topics we explored was ‘All families should have a pet’. The responses were mixed but students came up with some interesting reasons to support their side of the argument.

When exploring non-fiction texts, students were given a bag of puzzle pieces with the various elements on them which they had to put together. We spent time identifying the ones we already knew and the ones which were unfamiliar to us. It was great listening to the discussions and the many examples that were given. A very fun activity!

During maths lessons, we have been learning different strategies to solve multiplication questions, such as repeated addition, using a number line, as well as using a triangle image to explore the inverse operation of each multiplication fact. We have also explored fractions, with a particular emphasis on equivalent fractions. This was a tricky concept for some of us but together with our friends and teachers we worked hard. This showed us that with help from our teachers and each other, and with a growth mindset, we can learn new skills.

Recently we have started our Scratch program, where we have excitedly been learning how to code. We have been using our programming literacy to create a simple computer game using block coding. We are realising that the code has to be perfect for the game to work which has required some persistence and focused thinking..

All Year 3 students have continued to learn about zones of regulation and the different strategies we can use if we find ourselves feeling not ready to learn. You may have even heard your child talking about being in the blue, red, green or yellow zone. We promote that all the zones are ok and we need to be able to recognise which zone we are in, in order to work out which is the best strategy for us to use at that moment.

Bec Spoors

So far, it has been a fun and dynamic term 2!

We have worked on rostrum speech where we got to focus on a topic of our choice. Presenting rostrum in front of the camera, class and the unit was a very scary thing, but we all have managed it well. Some of us even made it to the school final and got to present the rostrum in front of the whole school!

During writing sessions, our focus has been on persuasive writing. We’ve looked at how we form an opinion that is strong enough to persuade someone by seeing both sides of the argument, choosing and deliberately using stronger words (impeccable rather than good) and using language such as emotive language to influence a reader's emotion.

In Maths, we have been looking at a variety of topics such as mapping, multiplication and division facts to 12, and using vertical strategy to solve addition, subtraction and multiplication problems. Using vertical strategy to solve problems has been quite a challenge but we are all resilient members of Weetangera School and will be revisiting the concept often to strengthen our understanding.

In Science, we have been looking at magnetism and doing lots of experiments to find out more about how they work. Some of the questions we have been inquiring about are:

What are magnets?
How do magnets work?
What does it mean for a magnet to attract and repel?
What can and can’t magnets do?

We especially enjoyed our experiments with different magnets where we could see magnetic force pushing the same pole and pulling the opposite pole. It was also interesting to see which objects magnets attract - and from this, we learnt that not all metals are attracted to magnets. Furthermore, we have been looking at different forces around us: push and pull, gravity and magnetic force. We will continue to look at magnetism and experiment with magnets to see if we can make different objects ‘float’ in the air.

Youn You

What's Happening in The Busy Bugs

At the end of last term, the senior students were given a challenge. To write a short, entertaining story. The catch? We must use exactly 100 words and our stories need to all start with the word ‘suddenly’.

Our class started this challenge with a brainstorm! We thought about what interests us and what story would grab an audience's attention in such little words.

Next we read some past entries. They were very entertaining! This gave us even more ideas on how to start our own stories. We went back to our writing books to put together a plan and had an explore of the website where we would be adding our entries.

The next stage was to start our draft stories. We wrote our entries onto the website and were shocked to find that the site did not correct our spelling or punctuation. We had to take care and really concentrate on what we were writing. When we finished our draft we looked over it and fixed up those simple mistakes that can be made when you are quickly writing. We helped each other by looking over our friends' work to give feedback on what to change or improve.

Here are a few of our entries! We hope you enjoy them.

Daniel Round

Belconnen Cross Country

The Belconnen Cross Country Championships were held on Thursday May 26. In each race there were over one hundred competitors, and we had a number of students who performed well to make the top twenty: