Week 6, Term 2

A few sunny days this week, and it feels like we are starting to come out of the fog of illnesses… I hope this finds you and your family feeling healthy (or at least on the road to recovery).

We are looking forward to some activities for Reconciliation Week next week; the Grade 1 and 2 students have been to the Boorp Boorp Boondyil exhibition at the Market Building this week, and the Preps and Grade 4 students are visiting over the week or so. The exhibition description (from the Mt Alexander website); … (it is) “a range of stunning artworks and experiences, each designed to offer a unique and immersive insight into Djaara culture, Country, and community. The award-winning exhibition also includes important cultural lessons about living on Country and teaches us about bush foods, medicine, waterways and weaving.” We will have already enjoyed an assembly presentation from the Gr 1/2 students, with guidance from Steph Carson, when this newsletter is published, and the SRC students will have participated in the local Sorry Day for Schools event at the Western reserve. Please see your child’s class write-ups in this week and next week’s newsletters for more information on classroom learning.

NEURODIVERSITY at CNPS

I am often asked, by current and prospective parents, about how we cater for a range of student needs, including learning difficulties, social and emotional wellbeing, and neurodiversity, commonly through the lens of ADHD and Autism. Our staff are regularly engaging in professional learning (both inside and outside of school) about creating inclusive and supportive environments, we have regular discussions at staff meetings, and class teachers also have individual meetings with parents as required, to “check in” and to co-design learning goals for students. We also provide opportunities for Allied Health professionals to work with students at school as part of their NDIS therapy. Currently, we have a parent-led project in the works, which includes the creation of a resource for parents, to support their needs, and their childrens’ needs, in a range of contexts. More to come on that! In the meantime, I would like to share this link to a website with some helpful and specific tips and ideas on how to support students to be inclusive; thank you to the parent who shared this with me!

A note from an ADHD kid: How to be my friend (thefunctionalfamily.com)

INTERHOUSE ATHLETICS

Yesterday was a whole day of Athletics events for our Grades 3-6 students, as they participated in the interhouse sports. No official word on the final winning house yet… but there was plenty of team spirit on show yesterday – well done to all students who took part. Thank you to Carly for your organisation of this event.

PARENT-TEACHER MEETINGS

Next week, we will hold parent-teacher meetings (students are not required to attend); this is an opportunity to check on your child’s Semester 1 progress in the lead-up to our mid-year reports. Sam K has sent information via email about how you can choose a meeting time. Prep-2 meetings are on Wednesday 29th – from 11.30am until 6pm, and Gr 3-6 meetings are Thursday 30th – same times. If you are not able to make the designated day next week, please email your child’s teachers to book an alternate time.

BASKETBALL COURT

You may have noticed that our basketball/netball court is in a sad state; cracks and small areas that are sinking… the whole area needs reconstructing, according to the structural engineer report that we received earlier this year, so we can’t just resurface the area. The cost for a new court is in the hundreds of thousands, and we will need a few decades of Fetes and cake stalls to raise this money! We have applied for VSBA grants and are on the lookout for any opportunities to gain additional funding. We have invited State MP Maree Edwards to visit CNPS, and I am pleased to share that she has accepted the invitation and will be here next Friday May 31st. We look forward to welcoming Maree next week!

Have a great weekend,

Sam C

Fully Fund Public Schools

Dear CNPS community,

All teachers at our school have students in class who need more help, whether socially, emotionally, or academically. Why can’t we get them that help? It’s simple: we don’t have the $$ to employ more staff such as speech therapists, psychologists, social workers, more aides etc. There are students in our school who should have a full-time aide but receive only part-time support, throwing more pressure back on classroom teachers. We WOULD have that extra money (something like $500,000 per year more at CNPS) if our school was funded to the level we were promised by governments 10 years ago.

Instead, in Victoria the Schooling Resource Standard that was set in the wake of the Gonski report of 2012 is only funded to 90.4% of the level governments agreed schools needed, leaving public schools billions of dollars short over the years since. Well, it’s now time to put pressure on the governments as this year the states have to each sign a funding agreement with the Federal Government for the next 4 years. In the run-up to the last election, both the Andrews and Albanese governments agreed to fund schools to 100% of the SRS. Now it’s time for them to make good on the promises.

Across Australia, the Australian Education Union is leading the push for the SRS to be funded to 100% and many respected businesses and organisations are supporting them in the “For Every Child” campaign. These businesses include OXFAM, The Brotherhood of St Laurence, Barnados, Primary and Secondary Principals’ associations from around Australia, the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia.

There is one very simple way each of us can support this campaign: simply click on the “For Every Child” link and register. It takes one or two minutes to enter your name and email address. If you are keen to do more, simply send the link to friends and have them sign on too. So far, more than 90,000 people have signed up across Australia.

Warm regards,

Owen Wood

Email the PM

Prep News

Hello from the Prep rooms,

This week in Literacy we met Uncle Upton (Milo’s uncle) and Kylie Koala and learned about the sound ‘u’ and ‘k.’ We are very excited as we only have two more of Milo’s friends to meet and then we have met Milo and his 25 friends. We are all looking forward to dressing up for Milo’s birthday later in the Term. This week in writing, we did our Term 2 Writing assessment Cold Write. Everyone had a go independently at writing their own sentence including capital letters, spaces between words, full stops and trying to spell each word. It is impressive to see what everyone can do! In Maths, we have been exploring patterns. We have been singing pattern songs and making patterns out of different objects such as blocks, shapes and pom poms. We even made our own ‘patternpillars’. In our BQT session, we learnt about what we see at night, including the moon and stars. We looked at different constellations and designed our own constellation that we will make using glow in the dark stars. We are also taking in turns, dressing up and presenting the weather!

On Thursday, the preps had a special visit from Paula at MaK Radio. We shared our favourite dinners, nursery rhymes, jokes, songs, funny laughs and funny sounds. We will let everyone know when the show is airing on the radio, so you can tune in and listen.

Next week we will meet the last two of Milo’s friends and continue to practise blending sounds when reading. We will continue working on our handwriting and writing words and sentences. In Maths, we will learn all about three- dimensional shapes. In our BQT session and STEAM we will explore our world by looking at some extreme weather.

Just a reminder that next week we will be having Parent/Teacher interviews on Wednesday. Please book a time if you haven’t already to meet with your child’s teacher. We look forward to seeing you there.

Enjoy your weekend,

Lauren and Nicole

1/2 News

This week we have been looking at the differences between night and day, and in our literacy studies have read the books, owl babies and owl moon. We have been studying openers when writing narratives and using the four sentence types, statements, exclamations, questions, and commands, to start a story. We have also been adding different adjectives and adverbs to change the style and feeling of our stories, which has been a lot of fun.

In maths we have been looking at fractions and during Wellness lessons we have been problem solving – how would you galvanise your team to move a bucket of water from location to location?!

We were also lucky enough to walk down to the Boorp Boorp Bunyil exhibit at The Market Building – a big thank you to those parents who made it possible by accompanying us. We followed this up by talking about Sorry day and up-coming reconciliation week by reading the beautiful book, finding our heart, and creating crumpled hearts. I hope you also enjoyed our beautiful reflections and singing of Lingmarra at our assembly today.

Next week we will be looking at money in maths and fragments in literacy, as well as focusing on activities and learning around Reconciliation week.

Wendy, Sally, Sarah and Bec

3.4 News

What a BIG week this week has been! Students came back from camp last Friday and participated in the House Athletics on Monday. We are so proud of them – we understand that some of them were still exhausted from camp and yet they still tried their hardest and participated throughout the many events.

We would like to thank our parent helpers that came to Pioneer Settlement camp with us. It was lovely to get to know you all better and we appreciate the fun times and laughs! Thank you, Claire, Jaime and Ash. Without your help, this camp wouldn’t have been possible. We really appreciate it!

In Literacy this week we have started our science unit on exploring Forces. We’ve begun by looking at the different type of forces and how things move. Our writing focus has been on the different types of adverbs and creating quality sentences.

In Maths, we have been exploring chance and data; in particular Independent and dependent events.

This game was a hit, and many students were asking to play this again and again.

Next week, in literacy we will continue exploring forces by reading and doing experiments. During mathematics we will continue learning about statistics and probability and looking at fractions.

5.6 News

What a week! Hopefully everyone is feeling better and over the sickness that’s been going around.

We’ve started looking at elapsed time in Maths, learning to read different train/bus timetables! We used the new skill to plan a Big Day Out in Melbourne. Students selected 3 destinations in the city and planned what public transport to catch and the time they’ll take exploring each area. Some have made the most of the day and catching the 5:38am Vline into the city… not sure the early start is for everyone!

We’ve continued working on our Narrative writing, students are getting ready to publish and start illustrating. It’s been great to see their ideas come to life. Students have also been learning about the base word, EQU, and creating a word bank using prefixes and suffixes. Classes are still reading War Horse, learning the fate of the beloved character Topthorn showed just how authors can use big emotions to engage the reader.

Have a great weekend!

Hannah, Jay, Sam, Liz, Mr Higgins and Giovanna

Visual Arts

We were lucky to have artist and parent Rob McHaffie visit the art room last week. Rob brought in some of his sculptures and tools to share with us and demonstrated how to create a bust using clay. I am impressed with the student’s ability to create a three-dimensional head, quite a different experience and skill set to drawing. Each sculpture is of a famous person, can you guess who they are?

Performing Arts

Today students who are participating in the Boite Schools Chorus had their first rehearsal with all the other participating schools across Victoria. This year’s theme is Climate Change. Choir students will spend the next couple of months learning 10 songs across 8 languages with that theme! They will be performing at The Melbourne Town Hall on Thursday the 8th of August with other participating schools.

Three students this week successfully gained their stilt license. Well done to Frieda, Quinlyn and Beatrix N for your persistence and achievement!

P.E.

Grade 3-6 House Athletics

Our students enjoyed themselves in the sunshine in numerous track, field and novelty events on Wednesday this week. Thank you to parents, Lindy and Mae, who jumped in to help with placegetters on the straight track. The track events took longer than anticipated, so we couldn’t share the house team points at the end of the day. Find out the winning house next week!

Region Cross Country

Based on their top 12 finish last week at the Goldfields Division Cross Country, we are wishing our student representatives all the best as they progress to the Loddon Mallee Region at St. Arnaud next Tuesday 28th May.

Congratulations to Grace, Heidi, Arlo, Jomal, Remy, Ted and Mary C on qualifying.

Division Cross Country Gallery

Thank you to parent helpers Simone for assisting all day at the finish line and Bec for a shift as a course marshal. Your help is much appreciated.

Values Awards

Prep E

Elliot Dunstan – For your concentration, focus and persistence when practicing your handwriting each day.

Nala Larkins – For the impressive way you are having a go at writing your own sentences by sounding out each word. Well done!

Prep N

Hazel Stanford – For your passion and enthusiasm when singing or dancing in the classroom.

Ari Roia – For the confident and creative way you created patterns in Maths.

1/2S

Zoe Say – For the bravery, persistence, and resilience you have shown when working with an injured hand.

Eloise Carson – For bravely stepping out of your comfort zone by speaking at our special assembly.

1/2SB

Ben Everett – For your wonderful use of adjectives in your writing.

Theo Agneskis - For the kind and thoughtful way you helped a friend in need.

3/4CN

Asther Brown – For the clear way you could explain your reasoning when conducting chance experiments.

Maxle Pye – For your thoughtful questions when learning about the stolen generation.

3/4H

Freddie Anderson – For having an enthusiastic and positive attitude on Athletics Day!

Chet Chaplin – For having a positive mindset when tackling something new!

3/4L

Elke Hart – For your accurate and detailed retell of stories.

Beatrix Vigo Hede – For taking the time to clarify questions in Maths.

3/4PS

Eddie Carson – For being attentive and enthusiastic during lessons.

Eliza Minster – The passionate way you play games and include others.

5/6HG

Abigail Foran – for the determination you showed on athletics day, especially when you led the 5 lap race for 3 ½ laps.

Atticus Hopkins – For your improved focus and kindness in the classroom.

5/6R

Larina McHaffie - For your awesome efforts in Triple Jump during house athletics!

Ava Turley – For standing up for what you believe in and being a role model for your peers!

5/6SL

Otto Ellis – For being so thoughtful and helping others during athletics events. You’re a superstar!

Quinten McClure – For the focussed way you have approached all learning tasks this semester.

Indonesian

Ava Turley – For your positive attitude and sense of joy in both your own and your classmates learning. Well done!

Performing Arts

Dot McGuinness – For the way you showed strength to be sensible during our listening tasks.

Stilt License – Level 1

Freida Beckley

Stilt License – Level 2

Quinlyn Nicholson

Beatrix Newcombe

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