Outstanding ACT State Little Athletics results by Calwell Primary Athletes
Calwell Little Athletics Club season was wrapped up last weekend with the Under 9’s- U13’s ACT state Championships, held at Woden Athletics Track. The State championships gives athletes the opportunity to participate at the Territory’s highest level. Medals are awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd placings for each event. The weather was extremely variable being hot one moment and raining the next, but all 19 of the Calwell athletes had a rewarding day with most recording personal best performances and some even winning medals. Some amazing performances were achieved in trying conditions especially on Sunday in the rain, by Calwell primary school students. We would like to give a big congratulations to Grace Gardner (Shot put, Discus) and Ashleen Khehra (70m (Pb), 100m (Pb) 60mH (Pb) Discus & Shot Put) who really displayed the core values of the school while they were representing the club. All athletes showed outstanding levels of resilience over the weekend while competing in 30 degree heat one day, and rain the next. We would also like to extend a big thankyou to Miss Lizzie (Front Office) who was also at the carnival and was there demonstrating true sportsmanship and cheering on the Calwell athletes all weekend.
The club would like to extend a very deserving congratulations to all the Calwell Athletes who represented the club not only at the State Championship, but throughout the season. Reminder to all athletes that our presentation day is being held Saturday 6th April, at Calwell playing fields, 9am with BBQ, disco dome and games.
Camp Australia
Tuggeranong Vikings Water Polo
Monster Raffle - Mt Taylor Scout Group
Calwell Primary Community Association
The Calwell Primary Community Association (CPCA) is pleased to announce our 2024 Committee, elected at the AGM on Wednesday 20 March.
President: Daniel Hoffman
Secretary: Rheannon Jasprizza-Quinn
Treasurer: Megan Fox
Committee Members: Tanya Goodman and Brenton Myers
We are looking forward to working with you and the school team during 2024 to ensure school activities are well supported. Our first activity will be supporting the Mothers' Day Stall with pre-wrapping of gifts this month and helping on the stall in early May. Keep an eye out for a link to our online volunteer sign up sheet later this week.
If you have any suggestions or questions about CPCA, please email CalwellPCA@gmail.com.
Technologies
This year I am teaching library and digital literacy across the school. Digital literacy is one of the general capabilities in the Australian curriculum. It encompasses the knowledge and skills students need to communicate and solve problems, as well as work collaboratively. It involves students critically identifying and appropriately selecting digital devices or systems and learning to make the most of technologies available to them. Students learn to protect the safety of themselves and others in digital environments.
In Kinder students have been learning how to use the library and about the parts of a book. They are also starting to identify how they can stay safe online. I look forward to seeing you are around the school. Mrs Lockett
Kindergarten
Kindergarten has been off to a great start this year!
We have introduced InitiaLit and the students have been engaging with all of the activities that go along with the program. Students began by learning about rhyme and syllables in words. The students have been practising thinking of their own rhyming words, and clapping, stomping and jumping syllables. We have now started learning our first two sounds, /m/ and /s/. As part of the program, we did picture sorts to practise identifying what starts with /m/ and what starts with /s/, before learning about the letter name and formation. We focus on forming the letters correctly.
Within InitiaLit there are Storybook lessons. As part of this, the students engage with quality literature and have in-depth discussions about each book that we use. We explore new words that support our vocabulary and even act out the meaning of these words. Each book requires the students to participate in high level thinking and create reflect art pieces.
In Maths we have started learning the numbers to 10. So far we have done the numbers from 0 to 8. Each week we explore the different representations of numbers, such as how we can show a number through a numeral, word, ten frame, and with tally marks and through a picture. Students enjoy practising different ways to show the number such as creating and counting the quantity with unifex cubes, counters and through a variety of games. In Strand we copied, finished and created shape, movement and material patterns. Student even got to use the arrows on Beebots to make their own movement patterns.
Preschool
The preschoolers have been very productive this term making new friends, exploring the play space and learning about how plants grow. Using our investigative and inquiring minds, as the seasons have changed, we have observed changes in our playground environment including the insects we find and the leaves falling from the trees.
The Bandalugs and Garawang classes have been nurturing seeds and watching the changes that have occurred daily. Some of the children have been that intrigued, they have recorded their observations through art.
Our big project this term has been the creation of our shared garden. The children are developing green thumbs as they care for their plants, helping with the weeding and watering of the seedlings. Next week, Tuesday 9th of April, we will be celebrating our shared garden and a successful term with a Teddy Bear’s picnic, commencing at 2:15 at preschool. We would like to extend an invitation to our preschool families to join us for afternoon tea. You may like to bring a picnic rug and of course your favourite teddy.
Thank you to our families for all your support this term and guiding your child/ren in their introduction to the preschool environment.
The Preschool Team
Cool Kids Program
Southside Initiative
CARES
Notes Home/Due & Dates to Remember
A reminder for parent's to please download the SZapp to view our Newsletters and upcoming events. If you access the calendar and click on the date on an excursion/incursion permission notes are attached to re-print if needed.
- Stay n Play Wednesday 3rd April 8:45am-10:00am
- Crazy Hair Day Wednesday 3rd April
- Principals Afternoon Tea (selected students only) Thursday 4th April
- Years 1/2 Assembly Friday 5th April 9:15am
- Years 5/6 Parliament House excursion Friday 5th April
- Athletics Carnival Permission notes due back Monday 8th April
- K-6 Athletics Carnival Thursday 11th April
- Last Day of Term 1 Friday 12th April
- Pupil free day Monday 29th April
- First Day of Term 2 Tuesday 30th April
- Cross Country notes due back Tuesday 30th April
- Cross Country Carnival Thursday 2nd May
- Mothers Day notes due back Friday 3rd May
From the Principal
Dear Families,
Happy Easter!
We hope our community enjoyed a relaxing 4 day Easter weekend. It was great to enjoy the warmer weather this year over Easter. A reminder to our community that this term is 11 weeks and ends on Friday 12th April. The first day of Term 2 for students is Tuesday 30th April.
Jack Beattie (Year 1/2 teacher) is running in the Canberra Half Marathon this coming Saturday. Jack is running to raise money for a local charity called Rise Above. Rise Above help families of those affected by cancer. He has already raised over $1500 for the charity. We are all very proud of Jack and wish him well for Saturday. Jack picked Rise Above as the charity to support as they are helping one of our families in the community at the moment. Tomorrow some of our teachers will be shaving their heads for Shave For A Cure as well. We are looking forward to celebrating Crazy Hair Day tomorrow as well. If parent's wish to donate in the morning there will be QR codes up around the school or donation buckets at the front office.
Please find the link to Jack’s fundraising page here. Rise Above - Capital Region Cancer Relief - Running for Zach (riseabovecbr.org.au)
School Arrival
I would like to remind parents and students that the time for arriving to school is 8.30am and supervision starts at 8:45am. We have noticed an increasing number of students arriving earlier than this. Teachers are not on duty before this time so students are unsupervised. Some of these students are having problems at this time which has affects for their learning throughout the rest of the day. Please access before school care if you need care for your child/children before 8.30am. https://campaustralia.com.au/schools/3903
Kindergarten Learning
Last Wednesday our Kindergarten teachers presented their reading and literacy program to parents. It was great to see some of our parents link in to this meeting online to learn about how InitiaLit is being implemented in the classroom. The presentation was also recorded and sent home via Seesaw. Thanks so much to Alyssa, Emma and Carmel for putting this valuable presentation together. Please contact Alyssa or myself if you have any questions about this literacy program or if you would like to see the presentation.
3/4 Day Camp
Today our 3/4 students headed off to Birrigai for their day camp. They will be participating in team building activities run by the amazing staff at Birrigai. Students will have the opportunity to complete low ropes courses and do team initiative games. They will also complete a scavenger hunt and learn how to safely participate in a camp fire. Thanks very much to Emma Vince for organising the day for our students along with their classroom teachers and support staff who are attending today. We expect the students to return at around 5pm. This is another example of the amazing learning opportunities our students at Calwell Primary School participate in.
Kind Regards
Ben Roberts
Principal
Family Fun Screenings at Dendy
YWCA Canberra Youth Holiday Program
Bendora
This term, 5/6 have been learning about how Australia became a nation. We looked at primary and secondary sources to uncover what life was like in the colonies before the turn of the century. The students used primary and secondary sources to research the arguments for and against Federation and then created skits or presentations to share their knowledge. Students then took on roles from early British society, with a king, prison guards, workers, etc to explore how a traditional monarchy worked in the early 13th century in Britain. The ‘king’ made the students bow down at will, taxed them, sent them to ‘prison’, gave push ups as fines, changed their jobs at will and asked his servants to carry his cape. The ‘citizens’ had enough of this quite quickly and then secretly created their own magna carta, with fair rules for all. They came together as one and convinced the king that it was in his best interests to sign the magna carta. The students then reflected on this scenario and how this moment in history led to the constitution and a constitutional monarchy as we know it.
Swimming Trial Placements 2024
Principals Afternoon Tea
Science
Hello my name is Rachael Lee. I am the new Science teacher at Calwell Primary School. I teach Year 1 through to Year 6. The science room is located opposite the library, next to the Indonesian room.
We began Term One with a cooperative newspaper activity. The students had to create the longest piece of newspaper using only one sheet of newspaper and 50 centimetres of masking tape. The students got quite creative; many strips went across and out of the science room and continued into the library.
Our topic this term is Chemical Science. The students will develop an understanding of composition and behaviour of substances.
Year 1/2
This term the students have been using their senses to observe and explore changes to everyday materials. We spent time squishing and stretching cooked spaghetti. We then created spaghetti towers with marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti. We discussed how heating and cooling changes the characteristics of food. Next we will move on to other ways materials can be physically changed.
An activity you can do at home is to discuss the materials found within your house and how they can be changed to fit a particular purpose.
Year 3/4
Students this term are investigating solids and liquids by adding heat or cooling to a variety of different materials. We have been making predictions and discussing why or why not our predictions were correct. We will be conducting investigations of how shape and temperature affects the melting rate of a delicious material, just in time for Easter.
A task that you can do with your child is to look for melting that is commonly seen at home and discuss reasons why it melted.
Year 5/6
We have been discussing matters – liquid, solid and gas. What makes each material a solid, liquid or gas? What are the observable characteristics that make up a solid, liquid or gas? The students have been exploring a variety of materials, how they behave in different ways and trying to classify them. Next we will investigate if the characteristics will change when temperature changes.
An activity that you could do at home is a viscosity running race. Select a variety of liquids such as oil, honey, dishwashing liquid or water. Put a hole in the container and time how long it takes the liquid to run out or flow down on an incline. You could also complete the experiment again but change a variable such as temperature, the incline or size of the hole.
