Dear Parents and Guardians

Happy New Year! Welcome to Term 3 and the start of Semester 2. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the learners back in school and engaged in their learning.  A heartfelt welcome to our new students and their families. We trust that you've felt a positive sense of community since joining us. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to get in touch.

We continue to grow and have welcomed new members of staff across the primary school. Ms Sarah-Jane Whyte and Ms Vanjitha Chantherakumar, have joined our Inclusion team, Ms Yin May Yap and Ms Serene Chen our Nursery team, Ms Ann El-Ansary our Year 4 team and Ms Giuseppina Nicosia our Year 1 team. It is a pleasure to  have them all on board. 

Later this term we will farewell Ms Bhavana from Year 1 as she starts her maternity leave. We wish her all the best with her growing family. Ms Sabrina will join 1G as their homeroom teacher on Tuesday, 13 February, after Lunar New Year. Ms Sabrina has been working with our Primary team since August 2022, she is a fully qualified teacher with a passion for developing the inquiring minds of younger learners. Ms Sabrina is familiar with the school, primary daily routines and the learners. She will work closely with Ms Bhavana for two weeks before her maternity leave starts to allow for a smooth and successful transition.

As we start a new semester may I take the opportunity to outline the ways we communicate. If you need to speak to someone about your child’s progress or wellbeing in school, the initial point of contact for parents should be the child’s homeroom/specialist subject teacher. If this does not solve the issue, parents are invited to contact the Year Leader or Learning Area Leader, and from there enquiries may be progressed to the Primary Senior Leadership Team. As a school we have a variety of ways we communicate with you, please see the School Communication Important Notice on the front page of this Newsletter for more information.

This week has seen us celebrate Book Week, we have enjoyed many book and author related activities and of course our Book Character Day dress up, there are some photos to enjoy under the Recent Events tab. Please also take a look at the News from the Year Groups below for more information about reading across our curriculum.

Term 3 promises to be a busy and exciting one with residential camps, Lunar New Year and Primary Art Exhibition, to name just a few things we are looking forward to. Please continue to use Seesaw as your 'window into the classroom', we always update it regularly.

Have a lovely weekend

Warm regards,

Fiona Lewis
Head of Primary School

Welcome to Term 3 and a warm welcome to all of our new learners and their families! As the Nursery continues to grow, we have also welcomed two new Classroom Assistants, Ms May and Ms Serene. 

In Nursery, we enthusiastically share our love of reading and our goal is to instill a love of reading in our learners. The act of reading and storytelling not only fosters brain development and imagination but also nurtures language and emotional growth while building strong interpersonal connections. We integrate reading and storytelling seamlessly into every aspect of our curriculum, establishing the groundwork for a lifelong affinity for reading. Our phonics program focuses on pre-reading skills including tuning in, listening, creating sounds, pronunciation of phonemes and oral blending. 

Books can be found in many places in our learning environment. Throughout the space, a diverse collection of fiction and non-fiction books is readily accessible to the children. We delight in observing them engrossed in reading, whether sharing stories with friends, entertaining dolls and puppets, or enjoying a quiet moment alone. The children particularly relish sharing familiar books. Their active engagement in stories involves participating in repeated refrains, recognising rhyming words, and making predictions about the unfolding narrative. In Nursery, budding authors are emerging, proudly contributing to the creation of a community book. In their independent play, we are beginning to observe the children develop their confidence and skills to retell, reenact, sing, and engage in role-play using puppets, small-world play, and self-made props. As part of our current unit of inquiry ‘How we express ourselves’ we are soon to add the Nursery Puppet Theatre to our learning environment and we are looking forward to being treated to many performances.

As part of our celebration during Book Week, we welcomed author Neil Humphreys, who shared one of his delightful stories ‘Abbie Rose and the Magic Suitcase: Feeding the Monkeys really makes a mess.’  The children enjoyed listening to and participating in the engaging, interactive, and often very funny storytelling session. 

Our Kindergarten learners love a good story,  woven into everything we do at school.  Through role-play, we see and hear stories coming to life in the classroom and playground too.  There are princesses, dragons, sea creatures, and other well-known characters featured in these creative and imaginative tales.  The teachers engage in reading with the learners during play, inquiry, and as more specific interests arise too.  Our phonics programme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds is instrumental in growing young and eager readers.  Kindergarten have been learning letter sounds, and how to blend and read words as they embark upon a journey of, what we hope, is a lifelong love of reading.  

This week has been a wonderful celebration of reading with Book Week events happening.  We had the pleasure of meeting a real author,  Neil Humphreys, he shared his book ‘Abby Rose and the Magic Suitcase - Feeding the Monkeys Makes a Real Mess’.  We visited the book fair, with a few favourite authors in mind and made some purchases too.  On Friday we enjoyed the book character dress up day, what would you wear for book character day, what’s your favourite book?  

A quote from Dr. Suess - “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Welcome to 2024 and welcome to all the new families who have joined this term. We hope you all had a restful break and those who have recently moved to Singapore we hope you are settling into this wonderful city. There has been a buzz to the new school term and the first week back was lovely to hear about all their activities and adventures, whether these were overseas or here in Singapore. 

We have embraced book week and enjoyed stories, storytelling, poems and drama. Language Arts has been all about making connections with books and the joys of reading. All teachers read their favourite books to the classes. We enjoyed a rotation of activities linked to their favourite book. We loved having our visiting author Neil Humphreys join us, and the learners were transported to the world within with the story of 'Telling the otters to leave home was a really big mistake'. The book fair visit gave our learners the opportunity to choose their own books and having a Drop Everything And Read session really made use of the time to explore their interests. 

A few highlights to the end of the week were our book week parade with Year 2, everyone showing off their character costumes, and when the ‘big kids came down’ (secondary learners) came to read stories with each class, there were lots of questions and smiling faces to end what has been a wonderful week and great start to the term. With all the excitement attached to book week, please look out for mystery reader information in the coming weeks, as we would love to have parents/family members come to read with us at the end of day.

Books, books, books! Read, read, read! Write, write, write! This week we celebrated our annual "Book Week" event, which promotes reading and the joy of books. The theme, "Journey between Worlds," encourages readers to delve into diverse genres, cultures, or perspectives found in books. Book Week is more than a celebration of stories; it's an acknowledgment of the widespread influence of reading and writing across our curriculum. Whether in Language Arts, Unit of Inquiry, Visual Art or Mathematics, books are the catalysts for knowledge, creativity and critical thinking.

Our How we express ourselves unit of inquiry is in its final weeks and there was a strong connection with Book Week. Year 2 started the week rotating around the different spaces and learning about “Author’s Voice” or how author’s write stories in a particular way using similar features across their stories. Year 2 learned about Eric Carle’s repeating phrases, Dr. Seuss’ and Julia Donaldson’s use of rhyme, Mo Willems' use of speech bubbles and how Peter H. Reynolds promotes positivity and self-care through relatable characters. The learners were reminded that they are authors themselves as they have been working on their twisted tales. Learners also wrote Boomerang Stories using traditional Australian Aboriginal symbols. During our guided reading sessions we have continued retelling stories using the SCOOP technique (Setting, Characters, Order of events, Oh no the problem, Problem solved), which helps learners concisely recall the elements of a story and is an essential component of comprehending a story.

We were fortunate to welcome a visiting author, Neil Humphreys, into our learning hub. His enthusiasm and passion for sharing stories based on his daughter was engaging and the learners thoroughly enjoyed making puppets with him. 

What a fantastic way to end the week with the Book Character Dress Up. The costumes promoted learners’ (and teachers’) imaginations to run wild as we transformed into our favourite characters, adding a touch of magic to our hubs. Year 1 and Year 2 showcased this in our first event together, a Phase 2 Book Character Parade. 

At the end of the day all Primary and Secondary learners participated in the Sharing Stories session which promoted bridging the generational gap, as our older learners shared the joy of reading with their younger counterparts, fostering a sense of community through storytelling.

“I believe in the power of imagination. It is through imagination that we can visualize new possibilities and make dreams come true.”

Eric Carle

In Year 3, we love reading! We prioritise the importance of reading by dedicating daily silent-reading time after lunch every day. We believe that 15-20 minutes of reading every day adds up significantly over the course of a year. Additionally, we have created Year 3 reading groups consisting of learners who are at the same reading level from across Year. This means they have the opportunity to work with different teachers and learners which helps build a Year 3 community. This approach not only fosters a fun and collaborative learning environment, but also ensures that each learner receives the appropriate level of challenge tailored to their needs. We have attached some photos that showcase the diversity and engagement within these reading groups.

This week, we were also excited to celebrate Book Week in Year 3. Our learners have been immersed in a range of activities and experiences to commemorate this fun occasion. In addition to the highly anticipated dress-up day and buddy reading sessions with Secondary on Friday, our learners had the privilege of listening to the author of InvestiGators. This author visit sparked a tremendous amount of inspiration and enthusiasm among our learners, prompting many to create their own stories both in class and at home.

During our Year 3 Assembly, our learners participated in a thrilling Book-themed quiz, competing against none other than Mr. Ryan himself. The learners emerged victorious, showcasing their impressive knowledge and passion for books. Furthermore, in the middle of the week, our learners had the wonderful opportunity to purchase new books at the Book Fair, expanding their personal libraries and fostering a love for reading.

We are thrilled to see our Year 3 learners embrace the joys of reading and actively engage in Book Week activities. Their enthusiasm and eagerness to explore the world of literature is truly inspiring.

Firstly, Happy New Year Everyone. It has been such a pleasure to welcome everyone back to school and hear about our learners' holiday adventures. Across Year 4 we had learners visiting 6 continents during the break and brought such a wealth of experiences to their peers. From skiing in Japan to visiting temples in Bali, and from attending family weddings in India to exploring Singapore, it is wonderful to hear learners communicate their experiences with such clarity and expression. 

A big Welcome to our 5 new learners and their families. We hope you all quickly settle into school. We appreciate the support given to learners new to Nexus by their peers. We also welcome Ms Ann and Ms Sook to our Year 4 staff team. 

Learners have dived back into our 'Sharing the Planet' Unit of Inquiry, 'Water is our essential resource' and learners are currently looking at the form and function of different bodies of water in Singapore such as lakes, reservoirs, rivers, canals, springs and oceans. Armed with this background knowledge we will explore the ways Singapore manages its water supplies. 

This week we have enjoyed a wide range of activities during 'Book Week'. Year 4 learners are reviewing the features of a story with the view of writing our books in the coming weeks and we are excited to read your creations.

Another important bit of Year 4 news is that our residential trip to Pasir Ris is less than 2 weeks away!  A mixture of excitement, nerves and anticipation fills the air as we look forward to trying new activities and spending time with our friends.

It has been wonderful to welcome our learners back into our learning spaces. 2024 has started with a bang, as we continued with our scientific inquiries, in preparation for our mini-exhibition. Please refer to Recent Events for this celebration. 

Book Week at Nexus is always a highlight. It fills everyone with joy and reminds us that books can take us on adventures that are exciting and memorable. Our visiting author John Greene shared how much he loved to draw characters and bring them to life through his stories. He showed us the process he goes through from rough draft ideas, through to publishing and selling his books. We found out that his success began from him selling his pencil comics to friends at school. 

We teach reading through a variety of approaches, including a the development of comprehension and understanding meaning of the text. This is taught explicitly by teachers, and learners complete a variety of activities to allow practice, reflection and improvement. In our units of inquiry, learners apply their reading skills when they research and inquire. This skill supports increased vocabulary, reading mileage and an ability to make connections to their prior knowledge, other books they've read and the world around them. 

Children love listening to stories being read to them. Shared stories take many forms in our homerooms. This might be a novel where learners connect with the characters and experience their journey or a picture book that highlights an author's style or a particular theme. 

We encourage our families to be role models for our learners and share a love of reading. This helps children to value reading and see it as something that can be fun and enjoyable, while learning at the same time. 

The first two weeks of school have been nothing short of exciting, filled with exploration and collaboration.

This week marks Book Week, and we have some fantastic activities lined up. We'll be hosting visiting authors including John Patrick Green, connecting with scientists both upstairs in the mega lab and online , and collaborating with the Year 7s on Friday. It has been a truly epic week of literary exploration and collaboration.

In our current unit of inquiry, 'How the World Works,' students are actively developing their analysis skills. We're delving into the intricacies of this unit, exploring various aspects of the world around us.

Simultaneously, our students are continuing to deepen their understanding of multiplication and division. This knowledge will be foundational for the upcoming mathematics unit on Fractions.

Looking ahead, please be aware that our puberty education sessions will commence in a few weeks and contact your homeroom teachers if you have any questions or queries.

We encourage you to engage in conversations with your child about their experiences during these activities as well as brainstorm with them ways to potentially take action at home. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to more exciting learning experiences in the weeks to come.