Hello Families.  What an awesome start to the year.  There is always a bit of trepidation at the beginning of the year as we prepare to welcome new students and previous students return mixed in with excitement.  We all have expectations about how things will go, what children will like and not like, how well will saying goodbye to mum and dad go and will children enjoy their day.   We are happy to say this year's start has been amazing.  A few tears here and there but the days have been full of fun and laughter.

Our Gumnuts are beginning to understand how to be a part of a group which involves turn taking and waiting.  These are very tricky skills to master.  Young children can be very impulsive and managing our expectations can be very overwhelming and frustrating.  To help Gumnuts build these very useful skills we have begun to teach them all about the Zones of Regulation.  The Zones help us understand emotions, how others might feel and ways we can manage our emotions.  To start with we are exploring what emotions look like as a first step in being able to identify emotions within ourselves.  During the next few weeks we will look at how we can manage emotions.

As for our Preps, they have been working with the Zones since last year.  This year we are introducing them to the Grow Your Mind program.  The program allows us to understand the components of our brain and how they work together and what can stop them from working together.  The aim is to understand when we have big emotions why we find it difficult to put in place strategies we already know, like breathing or keeping hands to ourselves.  Taking responsibility for our emotions gives children a sense of control in stressful or frustrating situations, which we all know happens.

Overall, our first couple of weeks have gone really well and it has been a pleasure to get back into the classroom.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to come grab us in the classroom at drop off or pick up. 

Bec O'Gorman | Gumnuts and Prep

Year Four is off and racing. The students have settled in so quickly it has surprised me. We have welcomed three new students who have blended into the classroom very well and have developed a friendship group already. This is so pleasing to see. 

We have started a new phonics based spelling program called SpellEx. It is a MultiLit program which has been designed by the team at Macquarie University. I am already very impressed with how the students are doing with their learning. We join together with Year 3 every morning to do our spelling. 

We are also using Maths U See (MUS)  in the classroom, which is a manipulatives based program. MUS is a program that caters from students from Kinder through to Year 12 and is well researched. Students work with concrete resources, use pictorial representations then move onto the abstract. This helps to cement their understanding of the learning they are doing. It is also fun!  I am struggling to get them to close their books. 

The children have started to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in English. Some have seen the movie and others are having their first meeting with the strange characters of Roald Dahl. We are also looking at the poetry of Simon Armitage, in particular his poem, It Ain’t What You Do, But What It Does To You. This week we will be writing our own poems in the same manner, highlighting the beauty of the normal and possibly mundane.

Year 4 has been getting to know Mrs Cattana who teaches them Science, Mr Speer who teaches them HSIE, and Mr James who is teaching Drama. They also have Miss Murphy for Music and Mr Pass for PE. This is a great opportunity for the students to learn from specialist teachers and start to get them familiar with what Middle School is like. 

We have already been involved in NRL on Monday and Wednesday for Weeks 3 & 4, and also Gymnastics on Thursday. The students all had a wonderful time at today's swimming carnival.

Jacinta Hohnke | Year Four 

Year 5 has transitioned smoothly into Middle School. They strode across that zebra crossing and didn’t look back! Two weeks in, we’ve settled into a routine and are getting to work. 

In Maths, we’ve practised our place value skills, recognising ones, tens, hundreds, thousands and ten thousands, then applying those skills to solve addition and subtraction sums. We’ve also practised our times tables, playing lots of games to sharpen our recall.

In English, we began by learning about persuasive texts; why we need to convince people and how to do it. We’ve revisited parts of speech like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs (including a little rap of mine that I hope will be an ear worm so they can’t forget the definitions of the parts of speech) and how to plan our compositions through brainstorming using a mind map.

In Science, we’ve studied the states of matter (solids, liquids and gases), changing the properties of matter, identifying their characteristics and how this is achieved by applying or removing energy; the types of which we remember with our MELTS acronym (Mechanical, Electrical, Light, Thermal and Sound). Year 5 has done well to get through the theory so far and is in for a treat in the coming weeks as it’s time to experiment and observe the theory materialise.

In PDHPE, we’ve had very productive and open discussions about showing care through our words and deeds, fair play and, of course, how Jesus shapes our personal development as we strive to live in His word. PDH has complemented PE nicely, as we can remember to support, inspire, motivate and encourage during sport as Jesus would do, being a Healer, not a Hurter and always playing by the rules, showing goodwill to our opponents and winning or losing with grace and humility.

Year 5 have responded well to Pastoral Care time, too, getting involved in discussions about truth, humility and integrity. We’ve read passages from Proverbs, Matthew, John and Romans to think about how Jesus preached honesty, submitting to God’s authority and being a principled follower of Him.

Our last activity is what we’ve called ‘Teaching Spice’ because I have a book called…yep, you guessed it: Teaching Spice. It has an ‘On This Day…’ fun fact for every day of the year, a ‘Word of the Day’, which we define and use in a sentence and a writing activity. I hope you’re somewhat familiar with this because explaining one of our (so far) four WOTDs to their family was homework for Year 5 last weekend!

Year 5 has much to look forward to, including the Swimming Carnival, camp and Gala Days. I have very much enjoyed getting to know them. They are willing learners with good attitudes and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the year will bring.

Malcolm Roberts & Samson James | Year Five 

Year 6 has worked hard settling in with a new teacher and new routines. It has been lovely to welcome some new friendly faces into our class. We have been doing an amazing job concentrating on getting the little things right and have worked hard towards improving and meeting our weekly goals. We have been looking at the Fruits of the Spirit to help us to work together and strengthen as a class. 

We have started our journey into the world of Narnia through C.S Lewis’ book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and are deepening our comprehension skills by looking at questions that focus on developing our inference skills. Year 6 are relating to the different predicaments the characters Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter face, making connections with their own personal experiences. We have also enjoyed extending our vocabulary, looking at complex words from the text and then using them to compose creative sentences.  

With the different creatures we meet in Narnia, our writing unit is focusing on writing narratives. We are developing our skill in writing a narrative about overcoming a monster.  We had the challenge of writing a Cold Task on the topic and we are now analysing what a good narrative looks like, taking the time to understand fronted adverbials and the use of short sentences to create suspense and tension. 

Whole number has been the focus in Mathematics as we cement our understanding of prime and composite numbers. We have recognised the importance of learning our multiplication facts to aid in distinguishing between prime and composite numbers.  To deepen our understanding of the place value of numbers, we have liked looking at rounding and ordering numbers.  This week we have been looking at triangular and square numbers, identifying the different properties of the numbers.

In History we have stepped back in time, understanding colonial life in the 1800s in Australia and identifying that Australia was not a nation until the 1900s. We developed our group skills as we were given the challenge of making railway tracks using just two materials. The wind was a challenge for us, but back in the 1800s the Governors of the colonies were faced with the challenge that different colonies had different size railway tracks! This added to the difficulties of moving goods across colony borders.

We are getting used to the new timetable and enjoy having a variety of teachers to extend our knowledge of specialised subjects such as Art, Music and Drama.  The term has started with lots of activities scheduled - NRL clinics, gymnastics and the Swimming Carnival.  We apologise for the inconvenience caused in having to be in our Sports uniform for the week and thank all the parents for their patience.

William Filson & Janine Rumbel | Year Six  

Year 7 has been starting to investigate who Jesus is through reading Luke’s gospel in Pastoral Care. We also enjoy learning more about each other and being challenged to think more deeply about Jesus and the world he made. We have discussed a range of questions in pairs or small groups before reporting back to the whole class.

In Health, our topic is Me and My World and students are researching their culture or a culture they are interested in. For Mathematics, we are studying place value, expanded notation and multiplying by two digit numbers. 

In Mandatory Technology, the class has been split into two groups this term. One group is with Mr Filson, learning about safety in the workshop, while the other group is with Mrs Harwood doing Textiles. Next term they will do Food Tech. Students in Textiles have been learning about natural and man-made fibres and materials in their theory lessons and are making an embroidered pin cushion as their first practical task. It is wonderful to see some very neat work!

Daniel Pass & Beverley Harwood | Year Seven  

Year 9 has started 2024 in great form, and we have welcomed a couple of new students.

In Pastoral Care, we began by outlining the Two Ways to Live program, which is a concise, easy to understand summary of the Christian gospel. In six simple points, it conveys the key information that a person needs to understand in order to become a Christian. Mr Walker and Mrs Wilson will revisit this program over the term. Year 9 is also starting to study the Gospel of Mark.

Academically, the year has started quickly and very positively. In Mathematics, Year 9 is revising algebraic techniques. In Science, we are beginning a topic on waves, which will include light and sound waves. They are having fun playing with slinkies, making transverse and longitudinal waves.

The class is studying Indigenous representation in English, and has started by talking about how the dreamtime story represents the indigenous people. In Industrial Technology, students have begun preparing for practicals by doing the necessary safety courses. Agriculture students took a quick trip to Aldi to review products. All other subjects have started well and Year 9 seems to be back in the swing of things. There is a lot of anticipation about camp!

Luke Walker & Melinda Wilson | Year Nine