Weetangera Primary School eNewsletter

From Julie

Dear Families

Friday is assembly day and each week either a senior or a junior year level are the presenters and co-ordinators of our assemblies. It is always a pleasure to attend the assembly, to hear about the current learning, to observe our students as they develop confidence in their public speaking skills and to read out the Inspired Learner Awards.

Another annual task are the rostrum speeches. I greatly admire the effort our students put into their speeches and the skills they develop each year. There are quite a few elements that make up the rostrum speech and they range through the following attributes:

Speech preparation that includes topic choice and an introduction, body of speech and conclusion
Vocabulary and composition
Eye contact and audience awareness
Voice – clarity, expressions and confidence and
Body language – confident stance and effective gestures used to enhance speech

Each of the year levels have worked alongside their students to support them as they have written speeches on a broad-ranging series of topics, 3 minutes in duration and covering a style that is either persuasive, entertaining, informative or a mix of all three. The topics for 2025 include:

An adventure
Going overboard
Imagine that
Insect
Making music
On the move
Shortcuts
Through the telescope

I look forward to the outcome for our well-spoken students.

The athletics carnival this year will be at Woden Park Athletics Track, Ainsworth St Phillip. You may be wondering why we have chosen to conduct the carnival on the southside and this is why: Using a facility that is designed for a specific purpose, in this case athletics, enables our students to participate in conditions and on surfaces designed to build their skills and enthusiasm for athletics. The Woden Track has all the facilities we require, a unique timing system and is in a great location.

Please come and join us on the day and cheer on our runners, jumpers, discus throwers and shot-putters. And return notes and money by next Friday, 23 May.

The installation of the ground pipes for the GEOTHERMAL heating system has begun. Of the 30 ground pipes to be put in place initial efforts have resulted in 5 of them being completed. I have been assured that once the teething problems have been overcome progress should see all pipes being installed and completed by the end of Term 2. After the pipes are installed the next phase begins. I will keep you posted as we work through the program of upgrading the heating and cooling system at our school.

The accessibility challenges presented by the 1970s design of Weetangera is steadily being rectified. Have you noticed the ramp at the front of the school, the improved access between the preschool and the year 5/6 classes and onto the synthetic oval? This is a relatively long-term plan that is designed to enhance the internal and external layout of our school so that all our students can enjoy and access the internal and external learning environments.

Staff are preparing semester one progress reports, and it is therefore appropriate that this week’s thought for the week from the staff update was this one:

Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is at,

but they don't tell you where a student could end up.

Carol S. Dweck

Have an excellent weekend and, as always, for questions and comments please make contact.

Regards,

Julie

Julie.cooper@ed.act.edu.au

Save the date - Year 6 Photo

The Year 6 photo will be taken on Friday 27 June 2025 between 10.00am and 10.45am.

Please note we will not be able to re-schedule the photo session if students miss the photo on the day.

What's Happening in the Frilled Neck Lizards

Hello from the Frilled Neck Lizards! We have been having a very productive Term 2 as our reading and writing skills have started to shine. This week we have completed 26 alphabet sounds and now we will tackle digraphs. This means decoding (reading) and encoding (writing) have suddenly become less mysterious because we have the tools to give it a go! Our morning literacy sessions consist of explicit phonics instruction and then we focus on a text that relates to our Global Concept or a new letter or sound.

Our Interconnectedness unit is focusing on the question “How do living things communicate?” so we have been exploring a variety of animals and writing about them. During a lesson about frogs we discovered that they are amphibians, they lay eggs and they are cold blooded. It’s been wonderful learning about living things. Did you know that wombat’s pouches open from the back or that scorpions glow in UV light? Kindy does! The students are getting very good at describing fuzzy ears and long tails as well as getting into scientific language like vertebrate and invertebrates and can even tell you who lays eggs (reptiles, insects, birds and fish) and who feeds their babies milk (mammals, marsupials and monotremes)!

In Maths we have just finished up patterns! The students all did a great job of copying and repeating patterns so for a Mother’s Day craft we challenged the to create their own. They strung beads onto wires in patterns and then we shaped the wires into love hearts or flowers- it was very sweet to see everyone beading earnestly for a loved one. We are also working on our number bonds as “friends of ten” and can confidently prove that 1 and 9 are friends of ten just like 4 and 6 are!

Jess Yeo

Year 1 Maths Magic!

This week in Year 1, our clever little mathematicians have been diving into some exciting addition strategies: Friends of Ten and Doubles/Near Doubles!

Friends of Ten
We've been exploring all the number pairs that make ten — like 7 and 3, 6 and 4, and 9 and 1. These "friendly numbers" help children quickly solve addition problems and build strong number sense. We've used counters, ten frames, and even played matching games to spot these pairs in a flash!

Doubles and Near Doubles
Doubling numbers has been another big focus, with children confidently working out facts like 6 + 6 and 8 + 8. We’ve also introduced near doubles — handy when solving sums like 6 + 7 (which is just one more than 6 + 6!). These strategies are helping us become faster, more flexible thinkers when solving problems.

Why These Strategies Matter
Understanding and using these strategies gives our students powerful tools for mental maths. They're beginning to solve problems more independently, and it's wonderful to see their confidence growing every day!

Try It at Home
Ask your child:
"Can you tell me two numbers that make ten?"
"What’s double 5? What about double 4 plus 1 more?"
You’ll be amazed at what they can do!

Keep up the great work, Year 1 – you’re maths superstars!

Tarnii Boland

What's Happening in the Tigers

The Tigers have commenced Term 2 splendidly and have made great progress settling into the routines and expectations our classroom. As we move into a new term our focus is around the global concept ‘Interconnectedness’. The Tigers have been exploring sounds and poetry that provoke expression and are practising experimenting with instruments, natural materials and poetic techniques such as onomatopoeia.

The Tigers were posed this question, ‘What is Sound?’ and here are their responses.

Music
Instruments
Clapping (applause)
Talking
In film and animation (sound effects)
Feelings
Laughing

We are looking forward to creating soundscapes and incorporating technologies to create work samples, demonstrating our understanding of how we experience sound.

This fortnight we’ve loved learning about onomatopoeia and using these words to describe sounds we hear in a place and sounds we hear when cooking. Here’s our poetry!

Maths Strategies

Year 2 have been learning about what makes an efficient mathematician. We continue to practise daily reviews of maths concepts at the beginning of each lesson to consolidate our understanding. This term we will begin to look at different strategies to solve additive problems.

The Jump Strategy

The jump strategy involves starting with one number and then making "jumps" in tens and ones along a number line to reach the total. For example, to solve 47 + 25, a student might start at 47, jump 20 to get to 67, then jump 5 more to land on 72.

This strategy helps children build a strong understanding of how numbers work and supports their confidence when solving more complex problems. You might hear your child talking about “jumping in tens and ones” – it’s a great sign they are developing strong number sense!

We have practised this strategy using hundreds charts (open hundreds charts as a challenger) and open number lines.

The Split Strategy

With the split strategy, children separate each number into tens and ones, then add those parts separately before combining the totals. For example, to solve 47 + 25, a student would split the numbers like this:

47 becomes 40 and 7
25 becomes 20 and 5

Then they add:
40 + 20 = 60
7 + 5 = 12
Finally, 60 + 12 = 72

This method supports a strong understanding of place value and encourages flexible thinking when working with numbers

The Tigers are ready to take the next challenge to apply this to word problems including money transactions and open-ended questions.

Rosie Kingelty

What's Happening in the Dolphins

The Dolphins dived right back into exciting learning this term. In Visual Art we have been exploring Eric Carle’s unique art style, created by hand-painting tissue paper in bright colours then carefully cutting and layering the paper to make images. This inspired us to make our own colourful artworks by painting, cutting and layering pieces of paper to make landscapes. Here are some examples of our amazing artworks.

In our ‘Interconnectedness’ unit, we have been learning all about the properties and uses of rocks, soil and minerals as a resource. We have used reading and writing skills, such as scanning, determining and notetaking to help us as we research. We have been recording our findings in tables and creating labelled diagrams and short paragraphs to share our findings. We have also collected data about jewels and created graphs to present this information.

Gabe Kearins

What's Happening in the Otters

4TB ‘The Otters’ have had a busy start to Term 2 and have all come back from the holidays ready to learn.

Our ‘Interconnectedness’ unit has started and we will be investigating the connection between environments, people and animals. We will be further exploring countries from South America and Africa. Last week we began the unit by plotting countries on Google My Maps and researching fun facts about them.

We tied our Art lesson in Week 2 to Geography by exploring the varied landscapes in Africa and South America. We found out that both the continents have deserts, rainforests and mountain ranges. Did you know that they both also get snow! We then used the collage technique to create a landscape artwork inspired by Africa and South America.

In Maths, we have been looking at mental computation strategies for the 10 times tables. We have practiced our skills on our whiteboards and playing games. Some of the strategies that we have looked are:

X 2- double the group
X 4- double, double
X 8- double, double, double

In PE, we have started a focus on Frisbee. We have been practising our throwing and catching skills. We have also had to show resilience when we are doing PE on a windy day! We will eventually use these to play a game of Frisbee Golf.

Tricia Butters

What's Happening in Category 5/6

As part of our gloc=bal concept of Harmony, and Interconnectedness we have been comparing the climate and characteristics of Canberra VS Darwin. We recorded a range of the statistics about the differing climate and used these to create graphs that we then interpreted. Here are some of our ideas:

Emma Cottam

Library News

Scholastic Book Club Issue 3 is out now with all online orders due by 19 May.

Issue 3: ISSUE PREVIEW | Scholastic Australia

The_Book_Cow_Book_Club_Term_2_2025.pdf

2025 Uniform Price List

Weetangera_2025_Price_list_new_uniforms.pdf

Workin' Gear Schools is the new uniform supplier for Weetangera Primary School. New uniforms with the new SPW logo can be ordered using the link. Students are still able to wear uniforms with the old WPS logo. There are still limited sizes available for sale at the front office. Please contact the school after 22 January to organise a time to purchase these.

Parent Portal at Weetangera

News Flash! Our school calendar is now available through the parent portal. Please keep an eye out for upcoming events.

Parent Portal is a secure online platform to share information between parents and carers and their student’s teachers. It’s available via a web browser and a mobile app.

Parent Portal has been rolled out across all ACT public schools and allows parents to:

notify the school when their child is sick or to explain an absence
book parent-teacher interviews (coming soon to WPS)
receive academic reports
receive the school newsletter
make payments
access the school calendar and their child’s student timetable (coming soon to WPS)
update their contact details.

One of the many benefits of the Parent Portal is that it is used by all ACT public schools from preschool through to year 12, so there will be no need to use a different system as children change schools during their public-school journey.

If you have children attending other public schools, you don’t need to sign up to the system twice.

Parent Portal is linked to the Student Administration System (SAS) used by the ACT Education Directorate for administering student data at ACT public schools.

How to register for Parent Portal

Sign up for an ACT Digital Account if you do not already have one. This is an important step in securely verifying the identity of parents and carers. It will not be possible to set up an account without undertaking this step. Detailed instructions including identification documents required to verify your account are listed on the Education Directorate's website in the Frequently Asked Questions.
You will be sent an access key (code) and a Parent Portal registration link specific to Weetangera Primary School via email to enable you to link your ACT Digital Account to your child’s records.

Sentral for Parents app

The Sentral for Parents app is the mobile app version of Parent Portal. You can access Parent Portal through the Sentral for Parents app, or using a web browser on your computer, mobile phone or tablet.

You can download the Sentral for Parents app for free from the App Store or Google Play Store.

Parent Portal – Changes to ACT Digital Account ID requirements

The ID requirements for accessing Parent Portal have changed to make it easier to register your account.

If you have had trouble signing up to Parent Portal because of the ID requirements, we invite you to try again.

To access Parent Portal, you need to verify your identity via the ACT Digital Account. Previously you needed two forms of accepted ID and now you only need one. To register, use the Parent Portal access link and create or log in to your ACT Digital Account.

Please contact the front office via Email: info@weetangeraps.act.edu.au if you haven’t received an access key.

Communication at Weetangera

Communication_at_WPS_QRG.pdf

P&C Update

Fundraising Events

A huge thank you to all the volunteers who were involved in the P&C Democracy Sausage BBQ and the Mother's Day stall!

- The BBQ raised almost $4000, providing the democracy sausages sandwiches essential to our Saturday elections!

- The Mother's Day stall raised $855, with many parents commenting this year on the high quality of gifts and trinkets.

Second Hand Uniforms

Looking for warm winter uniforms or have clothes to donate?

- Second hand uniforms can be purchased by emailing your list of items to Lucy & Naomi at weetangera.uniforms@gmail.com. Prices are kept low so that this is a resource for all.

- The uniform shop is stocked with donations from Weetangera families. Donations can be left at the front desk and should be unstained, without rips and freshly washed.