Welcome to our first curriculum newsletter of 2022. We send two curriculum newsletters out each term to help celebrate the learning that is happening throughout our school. It also helps our parent community to connect not only with their own child's classroom learning, but those across the school. In these updates you will hear from our children, witness their creativity and experience the amazing insights that happen each and every day at St Thomas More! Traditionally, we have always ended each term with a 'celebration of learning', where we welcome our parent community onsite to celebrate the achievements of our children. Covid has limited our ability to do this in person, but like all things, we will not be defeated and have pivoted to share this learning here. We hope to invite our parents back to school soon, but until then, we share these newsletters with you with pride and joy. We hope you enjoy!

Through line overview for this term - WELLBEING AND SAFETY

This term, our whole school Inquiry through-line is Wellbeing and Safety. As we start a new year, it is important that our children feel safe and supported, as well as be aware of the skills and strategies needed to manage their well being. Updates from the classroom will be shared in our first Curriculum newsletter in week 6.

St Thomas More is a Google reference school - one of a handful of schools in Australia who have been recognised as leaders and early adopters of Google Workspace for Education. This week, we were lucky enough to be invited to participate in a partnership with two schools in Japan and one in Canberra. Our year 5 students met online with the schools to share details about our daily school lives, and compared what is similar and what is different. The children gather, organised and presented their slides as well as asked questions of children in Japan to gain a better understanding of how are all connected. It was a wonderful experience and one we hope will continue as we work together over the coming year! Well done to our year 5 children!

Read more in the grade 5 report below!!

Last week we celebrated TWOSDAY! Today is 22/2/22. The date was both a palindrom and an ambigram. The date reads the same from left to right, right to left and upside down! Our children (especially our grade 2s!) completed activities to explore and celebrate this unique date!

Over the last few weeks, the Preps have spent their afternoons learning about the Australian Indigenous Culture. Each week we will be exploring a new word or topic.

Last week we learnt the word 'Wominjeka' which means welcome in the Woi Wurrung language. This language belongs to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation - the land that we reside on. We delved into the importance of acknowledging the land we are on and learning our own Acknowledgement of Country as well as using 'Wominjeka in our roll each morning to greet each other.

This weeks word is 'Bunjil'. Bunjil the Eagle is the Wurundjeri people’s creator. This learning began after the students were introduced to God earlier in the day. We made the connection together that Bunjil is the God they believe in. We explored the similarities between our and their cultures We then worked as a team to colour in different parts of Bunjil's creations which we now have on display in the classroom. Stay tuned for next weeks word

In Grade One this week we have been focusing on using adjectives in our writing to describe a person, place or thing.

To inspire our writing, we first used modelling clay to make objects of their choosing such as animals, creatures, food etc.

From here we brainstormed a list of adjectives to describe the colour, size, feel and look of our creations.

Once we had our adjectives brainstormed, it was then time to write!

In the lead up to Lent, our year 2 children thought about what they could do for the better of themselves and others. The children created their own Lenten prayers to help them develop an awareness of the importance of praying and almsgiving during this important time in our liturgical calendar.

In Grade 5, we had the exciting opportunity to be part of a Google Partnership with one school in Canberra and two schools in Japan. The Grade 5s worked together to identify what aspects of school life they would like to show to these schools. They also included some interesting information about where they live and some of the famous foods, landmarks and traditions they celebrate. On Tuesday 1st of March, these schools joined a Google Meet and shared their presentations. Our Grade 5s eagerly listened to these schools share their experiences and they found the foods and school very fascinating.

Some things we learned:

• In Japan, both schools are in charge of cleaning their own bathrooms. We are very fortunate at STM to have a cleaner - Ethan

• Japanese cities are famous for a local cartoon character, fruit and flower - Yvette

• School starts at 8:20am in Japan - Lachlan

• One of their special festivals in Japan is a Lantern Festival - Stavroula

• Schools in Canberra and Japan have interests just like us, including Roblox and video games - Suzanna

• In Canberra, they were lucky enough to see a group of kangaroos hop past their school - Samuel

• I learned a lot of people like Marvel around the world - Kai

• Schools can be very similar around the world - Mia E

• Japan is two hours behind us. We met online at 12pm but it was 10am there Mia F

• Schools can finish at different times and they don’t always wear a uniform - Cristian M

• Did you know that Japan is two hours behind us and that they have beautiful flowers, famous shrines and ginormous mall - Joshua

• In Japanese schools they have single desks and even a HUGE hall. The schools in Japan have so much more homework than our school. CRAZY!😱 - Maria

‘LEADING FROM THE FRONT’

On Monday 21st February, the grade 6 children participated in a leadership incursion run by the Aspire Higher team. This incursion taught the students valuable leadership qualities and about growth mindset, grit and ways to look after their wellbeing.

The focus was on students ‘leading without the badge’, they participated in a range of team building activities that focused on the following skills and concepts:

• the power of empathy

• peer relationships

• making idea into actions

• different leadership strengths

• active listening

• team work

The students were engaged in the activities and lessons. They were encouraged to work outside of their comfort zone and build on relationships outside of their immediate friendships.

Year 3M DRAMA - Robot making machine performance

Year 3's are exploring how when we make connections as performers we begin to create a mood and an engaging performance. Watch how rhythm was created with sound effects and movement, to perform this machine.

Music - Year 3s are working on writing and playing words using the Musical Alphabet (ABCDEFG). Students worked in small groups to see what words they could come up with and then we rehearsed them as a full class.