NEWSLETTER

No 15 September 6th, 2018

From the Principal’s Desk Unfortunately we had to postpone Sports Day due to the forecast of thunderstorms for Thursday. We hire a lot of equipment for the day and our lunch orders could not be cancelled last minute so we needed to make a decision by Monday. Hopefully our new date of Thursday 27th September will be a sunny day and a great way to finish the term. Thank you for your patience and hopefully you can reschedule your commitments.

Our STEM ambassadors and digital leaders have once again been busy. We had 30 leaders from schools in NSW and Victoria visit us for the day on Monday. The feedback continues to be positive about the structures we have in place to develop self-managed learners who are extremely articulate about how and why they learn. We are very proud of the work

every teacher has done to make our practices consistent across the school. We are being celebrated not only locally but interstate as well as an exceptional example of STEM practices for schools.

Our students benefit greatly from these visits with opportunities to present to authentic audiences and share their learning. On Tuesday our students ran a workshop at the conference for more schools and took part in the Tech Expo showcasing our use of technology to solve problems. As we head towards 4th term we enter a stage of review and planning. We are currently finalising our receptions for 2019 and will be sending enrolment packs early next week. This is always exciting as we transition new families into our community. You will have noticed some new bins in the yard. Vicki’s class are leading a challenge to reduce our waste and are asking everyone to sort their waste so that we send as little as possible to land fill. Each room has been challenged to reduce their waste to landfill to a Little bitty bin size. You can help your class achieve this challenge by sending nude food along to school with no plastic packaging. Remember tomorrow is a School Closure day and Monday is School Photos, please send your photo envelop to school with your child.

Term 3, 2018 23rd July – 28th September

September 7th School Closure Day 10th School Photo Day

20th Urrbrae Wetland Excursion Rooms 3 & 4 25th Planetarium Excursion Rooms 5, 6 & 7 24th Governing Council Meeting 6:30

27th Sports Day 28th Last day of Term 3, 2.15pm dismissal

October 15th First Day of Term 4

District Athletics Congratulations to all students who stepped outside of their comfort zone and challenged themselves at athletics day. We had students from year 4-7 compete in track and field events against other schools in our district. Some of our student won a ribbon for their placing with other students getting a personal best in their event. All students tried their best and represented our school and themselves well. Thanks for a great day. Here's what a few students had to say… I think it was fun doing lots of different activities. I enjoyed having friendly competition with other schools - Anh It was challenging and fun. We all tried our best. My favourite part was the team relay because we got to work together to race other schools. If we do athletics next year I will definitely want to go - Trinity It was a tough day because there were lots of events. Sprints was the hardest, I felt a bit nervous as it tested my speed, but I knew that I would feel great at the end knowing I tried my best. The best part of the day was the relay as we worked as a team and everyone supported each other. - Jeevan

Summer School Sport Netball registrations closed. We have a full Primary netball team registered with two parent coaches. Basketball registrations open for years 2/3, 4/5 and 6/7 and close Friday 14th September. Please collect a form from the front office. We are currently looking for parent volunteers to coach, if we don't have coaches we can’t submit teams. If you're interested please contact Miss Amber (PE teacher) ASAP.

Kids Teach STEM We are very proud to have hosted our 2018 Kids Teach STEM conference for our local partnership students. We had a great day looking at student voice in each of our schools and how we can all use STEM practices to amplify student voice. We are meeting up again in 10 weeks’ time to share each school’s action from the day. We can’t wait to see what everyone has inspired each other to achieve.

PAT testing During weeks 8, 9 and 10 of this term students from Grades 2 to 7 in all DECD schools will participate in Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT) in Mathematics and Reading Comprehension. PAT tests are designed to assess each student’s current capability against the appropriate standard for their age. Unlike NAPLAN, the PAT assessments do not have a student/parent report. However, student data is sent to our school and is a valuable source of information on each student’s development. Teachers also use the results to track each student’s development from year to year. This information is another useful tool for identifying students requiring extra support or extension in their studies. Students will be encouraged to view the tests as a way for teachers to learn more about their capabilities and then design learning programs that will help them improve. For further information please refer to the ACER website. https://www.acer.org/pat/tests/mathematics

Congratulations Congratulations to the winners of our Library book Week Competitions, and thank-you to everyone who entered. Hao, Mina, Stan, Quinn, Brittney, Oscar, Asghar, Katherine, Naksh, Patrick, Hateem, Parisa, Eadie, Eli, Marcus, Callum, Benjamin, Micah, Saira & Daksh.

Class Learning Rooms 5, 6 and 7 have continued our Science topic of simple machines and have completed the prototyping stage. We are currently writing persuasive arguments to convince Marg and the Governing Council that our designs deserve to be chosen for the new Nature Play. We have continued with our personal inquiries and some of us have presented our research, been teacher/peer assessed and have self-assessed. Over the last four weeks all three classes have participated in the Premier’s Be Active Challenge. We have been running, walking or jogging laps around the school yard and recording the kilometres we’ve run. During Book Week we participated in treasure hunts to fit with the theme of Find Your Treasure. Students enjoyed trying to solve all the clues and were rewarded with a prize. We also enjoyed dressing up as our favourite book character and participating in the parade

4 pieces of artwork by the very talented Clementine from Studio 12

Some of our latest work from the Art Hub

The above 3 pictures are in acrylics on canvas. We have some very talented painters

in our school.

Just two examples of the collaborative art activities from Rooms 0/1/2 this term. The

focus has been on reusing items from home to create artworks.

Year 5/6/7 students have almost completed our mosaic sign in Friday afternoon electives. You will soon see this hung on the wall as you enter our school to the office.

Students have had fun

with our Mythical and

Fantasy Creatures

unit of work. They’ve

produced some

amazing outcomes in

different forms of art.