Term 3 Week 8 Newsletter
From the Principal
Dear Families,
Welcome to Week 8. Thank you to all those Dads, Mums, Grandparents and carers who attended our Father’s Day Breakfast last Friday. We hope you enjoyed the opportunity to come along to school. I know that our students were very proud to have you here. It was certainly well attended, and it was great to meet lots of our community members.
Last week our Year 2 students attended Aqua safe at Tuggeranong Pool. I would like to congratulate all of those students who completed the program. It is a beneficial opportunity for our students and is also a lesson in being organised and efficient everyday to get ready for swimming and to then get ready for school. Thank you to the teachers who attended and supported our students.
This morning I attended Birrigai with the junior school. This was the first of 2 groups attending. What an amazing learning opportunity for our kids. Birrigai is a fantastic facility and offers a rich outdoor learning environment focussed on sustainability and cultural awareness. Our students participated in Nature Play activities which included natural material art activities, scavenger hunts, cubby building, cooking at a fire and a bush walk. Congratulations Calwell Primary School students on the way you listened, focussed, and got engaged in the learning at Birrigai. We are so lucky to have a facility like Birrigai just down the road for us to utilise.
This week our school leadership team are coming together for a planning day to begin the development of our 5 Year Strategic Plan. The plan identifies the priorities that we will be working towards to improve student learning outcomes. We begin the process by looking at our learning data along with School Satisfaction data to identify areas where we are performing well and areas where we can look for ways to improve. We work alongside the School Improvement team from the Directorate to develop, implement and reflect on our school improvement journey.
A Book Week highlight was the buddy reading sessions that our kids got involved in last week. Preschool joined us on the junior playground to share some books and to eat lunch together. The older students did a great job at being leaders and reading with or alongside the younger students.
Kind Regards
Ben Roberts
Principal
Principals Afternoon Tea
Calwell CARES
Gold Awards
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.
- Friday 8th September Markey Day K-6
- Community Movie Night Wednesday 13th September
- Friday 15th September Kindergarten Assembly
- Year 3 Camp 21st-22nd September
- Friday 22nd September Last Day of Term 3
- Monday 9th October First Day of Term 4
Donations for Breakfast Club can be left at the front office.
Preschool
Preschool have been busy planning, nurturing and observing seedlings. We are looking forward to transferring them into our preschool garden and establishing a veggie garden very soon. Our ongoing investigation into plants has led to many fascinating lines of inquiry including; What do roots do? What is sap? What’s inside a stem?
In anticipation of our excursion to Birragai, preschool created a story map to plan our day. Many children opted to create their own map, sharing their knowledge of the native flora and fauna of Ngunnawal Country. Thanks again to the family volunteers for their time and support on our excursion.
Scrivener
This fortnight kindergarten students have continued their learning about measurement. Our new focus has been on measuring mass. The students have been leaning and experimenting with strategies to help them compare lighter and heavier. In English students have been working hard on understanding how retelling a story helps us understand what we have read. To help develop this skill children have been reading a range of texts and discussing what they like and dislike about the story. In PE both kindergarten classes are coming together every Wednesday for our tennis clinic. They are enjoying learning how to hold and move the racket.
Corin
1/2 began our new science unit this week called Push and Pull. We explored different toys and answered questions; How does it move? Does it move the same way each time? Does it change shape when it moves? What causes it to move?
Googong
In English 3/4 students have crafted an engaging ‘Who Am I’ animal fact display as part of our information text unit. Each student carefully selected an animal, conducted research using the determining importance comprehension strategy, to summarise their facts. Students then presented their information to their peers so others could identify their chosen animal. Students loved the opportunity to work as a class to guess each other’s animals.
Bendora
Year 6 students are busy getting ready for Market Day! To prepare students had to brainstorm ideas, plan their stall, make a budget and write a shopping list with prices to prepare. We have a range of exciting stalls for students to participate in. There is no shortage of stalls to spend tokens on!
Book Fair
Thank you to the Calwell School community for once again showing strong support at our recent Book Fair. Your support for this event is always appreciated and allows us to continually improve our library collection with books that the children want to read. The total raised was $3,203.00. This resulted in the school gaining over $500.00 in new books and over $300.00 in credit for future resource purchases.
Mobile Phones in ACT Public Schools
