Week 2, Term 1, 2025

The Student Representative Council (SRC) is made up of students from Grades 3-6, elected by their peers.  Our Grade 6 School Captains are part of the SRC, and they are elected at the end of the previous year.  The other SRC members are in the process of nominating and sharing their speeches in their own classes, and they will also be electing House Captains in the next week or two.  We will share more information about our new SRC in a future newsletter.  Stay tuned!

I am pleased to introduce a regular new spot in our newsletter, under the Wellbeing banner.  We are happy to be receiving funding to support student Mental Health in schools, which enables us to increase the time that Nicole Wagstaff, our wellbeing coordinator, will be at CNPS.  Nicole will be here on Tues-Fri this year, and her role will be varied; she will support staff with delivery of our Respectful Relationships and Play is the Way curriculum as well as continuing her counselling role for part of the week.  We look forward to seeing some sharing from the classroom activities, as well as parent articles and other support information, in future newsletters.

 Hello from the Prep rooms!  

What an amazing start the Preps have had to the school year.   

This week, we have been busy learning the routines and rules of school and working together to create our class agreement, helping to make our classroom a happy and safe place to learn and grow. We were introduced to ‘Milo Monkey, ‘Sally Snake’ and ‘Felix Frog, and had so much fun discovering the letters M, S and F, along with the sounds they make.  As part of our exploration of our question ‘What is the power of stories’, we have been looking at nursery rhymes and rhyming words.  In Maths, we explored patterns through singing pattern songs, creating patterns with body movements and designing patterns using objects like blocks, shapes, pasta and pom poms. We even made our own ‘patternpillars’. Our Grade 6 Buddies have been incredible in helping us during recess and lunch, and they have also worked with us to create a lovely display for our classroom door. 

Next week in Literacy, we will meet more characters that Milo invites to his surprise birthday party and will further explore rhyming words and nursery rhymes. In Maths, we will explore the concept of time by learning about the days of the week and sequencing daily events.  We will also enjoy getting to know each other further by sharing our “All About Me” bags. Please ensure your child brings back their bag on Monday, to share one day next week. 

A reminder that if you have not already booked a time for your child’s Prep Interview (either the 12th, 19th or 26th of February) to please do so.  Refer to the email sent out yesterday for details, or please see us if you need help booking a time.  

Have a lovely weekend,  

Nicole and Miss Else 

What a lovely return to school we’ve had! It has been wonderful to see everyone’s smiling and happy faces as they reunite with friends and adjust so well to the new school year. We have enjoyed getting to know each other through a range of games and activities, as well as our ‘All About Me Bags’. We love hearing about students’ special interests, families and memorable events. It’s also a great opportunity for students to demonstrate their speaking and listening skills. 

We’ve started looking at our first Big Question for the term, ‘What is the power of stories?’ This week the 1/2 classes have started reading the novel, The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. This is a fairytale about a small mouse with unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin! This week our focus has been on nouns (a person, place or thing) and ensuring our sentences include a noun, a verb (an action) and correct punctuation. 

In Spelling, we have revised previously taught codes and practised forming our letters correctly when writing. Next week we look forward to starting our spelling groups. 

In Maths we have been counting, recording and interpreting tally marks. We have collected data from the class to find out what our favourite pet would be, what our favourite sport is, and what our favourite lesson at school is. The results were sometimes surprising! 

We have also been focusing on the Golden Rule, ‘Treat others as you would like them to treat you’ and as a class we came up with our own Class Agreement to ensure our classroom is a happy and safe space for everyone to learn and have fun. 

Next week in Literacy we will continue exploring our Big Question and reading The Tale of Despereaux while also looking at other stories such as The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi which explores the concepts of diversity, inclusion, acceptance and friendship. In Maths we will build on our knowledge of tally marks to create picture graphs, while our wellbeing focus will be the Play Is The Way concept ‘Be Brave: Participate to Progress’. 

Please keep a look out for some important notes that went home on Friday regarding our reading program and Grade 2 camp, which is coming up in Week 8! 

We hope you have a great weekend, 

Wendy, Laura, Claire, Sarah and Andrew 

Welcome to the Silver Banksia Building! 

It has been a big week settling into our new classrooms and welcoming a few new faces into the school. The Grade 6 students have been getting to know their buddies and helping to show them around the school at recess and lunch times. We have witnessed our senior students demonstrate considerable maturity and kindness, and we are wondering if the buddy program is more beneficial to the senior students than the Preps!  

This week, our students have been exploring shapes and symmetry in Mathematics. We explored translating and reflecting shapes and created beautiful mandalas where the students demonstrated their understanding of orders of rotational symmetry. We also began our ‘symmetrical faces’ pictures which you may see up around the school when we are finished.  

In Literacy, we have begun reading The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, our major novel study for the term. This captivating story follows an 11-year-old girl who moves to the Arctic Circle, giving us plenty to think about as we imagine life in such a cold and remote place. Given the hot weather this week, diving into the icy landscapes of the novel has been a refreshing escape! We look forward to exploring its themes of adventure, resilience, and the environment in the coming weeks. 

For Grade 6 students, they will have the option to run for House Captain and we also encourage all Grade 5 students to create a speech to run for their class SRC members. The experience of writing and performing a speech is invaluable and the students get a lot out of it, despite the result. Speeches and elections will be held next week. 

We have continued our swimming program in preparation for the Swimming Carnival on Monday 17th of February. Thank you to the parents who have been helping with swimming on Fridays.   

 Bec, Nicci, Jay, Ben, Carly, Mr Higgins

 We have transitioned into the school year with some drawing tasks that exercise creativity whilst having fun. 

Prep N listened to the story ‘Beautiful Oops’, which is all about turning a mistake into something wonderful. Each student pulled a mystery piece of paper from a box which prompts them to imagine what their piece of paper could become in an artwork. This is always a fun activity that allows students to explore their imaginations.  

The 1/2’s learnt about the Elements of Art, line, colour, texture, space and value, which are the building blocks for creating an artwork. They demonstrated their knowledge and then incorporated these elements into an artwork about their holidays. 

Grade’s 3/4 took part in a bilateral drawing exercise. Working with a partner they connected their paper at one end to work opposite each other. Using pastels, one student led with both hands while the other followed, creating a unique collaborative drawing. We will develop these drawings further next week with collage.  

I have also included some cute drawings the 3/4’s did of their new class members last week. 

Grade 5/6’s started with an interesting debate about whether graffiti is art or vandalism in response to current issues in the media. Exploring graffiti style, they are working on letterforms and making name labels for their folio’s before we get started our self-portrait project in the coming weeks.  

Hannah V

 Swimming Lessons Grade 3-6 Outdoor Pool 

We’ve had great weather to start our swimming and water safety lessons in the outdoor pool. Students are developing their stroke technique over the first few weeks with our water safety rotations on our final day. 

Dates: 31/1, 7/2, 14/2, 21/2. 

Thanks to our team of parent helpers for supporting this valuable program. 

House Swimming Carnival Gr3-6 Outdoor Pool 

Our House Swimming Carnival will be held for all students in Grades 3, 4, 5 and 6 on MOnday 17th February. Events will allow everyone to participate and include; 50m competitive strokes (for the 10/11/12/13yo age-groups only which will be the pathway to the Division Swimming Event in Bendigo on Friday 28th February), width distance strokes and novelty team events for all age groups. Students can wear their house colours on the day. New students have been allocated a house (check with your class teacher or Carly PE if you’re unsure). Permission for this event has been completed with the swimming lesson permission. Thank you to the parents and carers who have offered to help. Your class teacher will confirm this with you. If there are parents willing to assist Carly at the pool at 9:00 or be our photographer on the day, please contact Carly at carly.mcginniskin@education.vic.gov.au 

 Date: Monday17th February 

Time: 9:00-1:30 

Grades: 3, 4, 5, 6 

Venue: Castlemaine Outdoor Pool 

Transport: Walking 

Castlemaine Gift at Camp Reserve 

This event will take place on Sunday 23rd February. Juniors aged 5 – 13 can participate by turning up before 10:00 on the day. See attached flyers on the Community Noticeboard. I will put some flyer ‘tickets’ on the table outside the office which admit one adult free with one child (also free) participating in the Junior Section. 

Bendigo Braves Basketball Home Game Experience for Grade 5/6 

We have an opportunity to participate in the Bendigo Braves Basketball Schools Cup at the Bendigo Braves NBL1 match on Sunday 4th April (please note that this is the first weekend of the school holidays). Our school selects 10 students from Grade 5/6 to compete against other schools using the fundamental skills of basketball, rather than a match. Selected students would need their families to arrange their own transport to and supervision at this event. You will also receive a ticket for you and your student to the game. If you are interested in this opportunity (and not committed to school holiday plans), please contact carly.mcginniskin@education.vic.gov.au 

Hockey Clinics in PE 

Hockey Victoria are visiting Castlemaine this term for their annual roadshows. Our school was successful in securing hockey clinics for our PE classes on Thursday 20th February. Please note that this day was allocated to us and these clinics will be run during the PE class program and that only five classes can participate on this day. However, if you’re interested in your child having an opportunity to experience hockey, Hockey Victoria are also supporting a Hookin2Hockey program for 5-12 year olds, commencing on Saturday 22nd February 9:00-10:00 at the Wesley Hill courts for six weeks during Term 1. Please see the flyer on the Community Noticeboard below for more information and how to register. 

Carly

 Welcome or welcome back from the Performing Arts room! It has been such a great start to the year. I’ve seen all the grades and it’s such a pleasure to work with students who are really engaged and ready to learn. 

With the Preps we have started with a simple treasure hunt to explore what sorts of props and equipment we have in the Performing Arts room and talked about how we might use them creatively. The Grade 1/2s have been singing and playing instruments with a focus on the notes G and D and tuning into how it sounds a little bit different on a xylophone made form wood, a bells made from metal and a boomwhacker made from a plastic tube.  

The Grade 3/4s have been experimenting with different characters with attention to detail and making them believable. We have been using Matilda the Musical as inspiration for our characters. The 5/6s have started a unit of work on unusual sounds. We were taken to Norway this week to listen to a piece of music played on ice instruments (which was not an attempt to try and stay cool!) Then students enjoyed experimenting with unusual sounds, thinking about how they could play with sounds from water, metal, wood, paper and plastic. 

Nicci

 A big thank you to the parents who did the watering over the summer!  We (and our plants) appreciate you!  

Lara and Rob

Chris and Amy 

Stephanie and Leighton 

Nicole and Damien 

Heather 

Lisa Vettori 

Megan O’Donnell 

Christine Barker

and of course, our Queen... Nico

PREP N

Oliver Greene - for the brave and confident way you are trying your best at all classroom tasks

Amelie Egan - for your kindness, confidence and lovely manners that you bring to our classroom each day

PREP E

Whole class - for the brave way you have all started school, having a go at all the new things we do!  Well done!

1/2 CS

Albertine Challender - for your enthusiasm for learning and the way you always extend yourself

Hugo Cushing - for your thoughtful contributions to class discussions

1/2 L

Nina Powney - I loved your courage when you had a go at being the leader in "pattern detective"

Grace Johnson-Black - It was so thoughtful of you to suggest writing kindness letters to each other

1/2 W

Isla Pratt - for the passion you show in the beautiful presentation of your written work

Scout Vigo-Hede - for your bravery and thoughtfulness, working through our Maths activity

3/4 S

Whole class - for beginning the year with courage, kindness and joy!

Takisha Cusack - for being such a kind, calm and focused addition to our class.  Welcome to the North School.

3/4 L

James Crawshaw - for the way you upheld your value of being honest, despite the pressure not to.

Piper Douglass - for the initiative you used to be kind and thoughtful

Zoe Say - for the initiative you used to be kind and thoughtful to a classmate

3/4 PS
Hugo Howard - for the passionate way you have engaged in learning activities.  Welcome to CNPS

Delaney Douglass - for the way you engage with new learning by sharing your thinking with the group

5/6 J

Adelaide Turner-Bessant - for thinking deeply and asking great questions during our class discussions

Alba Rose - for bravely taking on the challenges of starting at a new school

5/6 BN

Evie Rimmer & Agnes Jennings - for making a positive start at our school... we love having you both here!

5/6 H

Charlie Stanford - for being brave enough to be vulnerable

Emilia Everett - for clarifying your understanding and then "nailing it"

5/6 BC

Banjo Cuthbertson-Brennan - for the way you have entered the new year, willing to do your best in every single lesson

Tom Dorian - for adapting quickly to our new classroom routines

INDONESIAN

Hugo Aikins - for the focused way you worked on your mapping task.  Well done on a great start to the year!  Bagus!

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