Term 4 Week 2 Newsletter
From the Principal
Dear Families,
Welcome back to Term 4. We have had a very positive and productive first week back at school. I was impressed to be able to walk around the school and see all of our students engaged and excited about learning from the first day back.
At the end of Term 3 our Year Three students attended camp out at Greenhills at the Cotter. A big thanks needs to go to the staff who attended this camp and their organisation. Going away to camp on the last couple of days of the term is a big ask and we are very thankful for everyone who was able to attend. Our students had a great time and were extremely well behaved, demonstrating our Calwell values at all times.
This Friday afternoon our students will be participating in Passion Projects. Our teachers will be running a variety of projects on Friday afternoons from Week 2 to Week 7. Each student has opted into an activity and will be working with their peers from all grade levels. These sessions are designed to help our students build relationships with students from across the school and to work with a variety of teachers to develop their skills in an area of interest for them. There is a wide range of Passion Projects for students to pick from including Gardening, Rock Painting, Percussion and Yoga.
This Thursday we are holding our open classroom sessions followed by Stay and Play. Classrooms will be open to parents and carers from 2.30pm. This is an opportunity for you to come visit the classroom and to have a look at some of the learning that your child has been participating in. Following this we will have our playground open with several different games and activities for students and parents to participate in. We are looking forward to welcoming our families in for this afternoon. If you cannot make this time for any reason and you would still like to visit the classroom then please contact your child’s teacher to organise a time.
Each term I would like to invite parents and families in for a coffee and a chat (tea is also available!!). Please come along this Friday morning at 8.30am if you would like to talk generally about the school and our direction over the next couple of years. If you have more specific questions about your child’s learning then please contact the front office to organise a time to meet with me personally.
Kind Regards
Ben Roberts
Principal
CARES Awards
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.
- 2:30 - 3:00pm Open Classrooms Cockatoos and K-6 Thursday 19th October
-3:00 -4:00pm Stay and Play Thursday 19th October
- 8:30am Coffee/tea with Principal Ben Roberts Friday 20th October
- Book Club due Wednesday 25th October
- Kinder National Zoo and Aquarium excursion Thursday 26th October
- 9:15 Years 1/2 Assembly Friday 27th October
Scrivener
Kindergarten have come back to school eager to get going. We can tell they have been practicing their reading during the holidays. This term the students have been working on their dance that they started learning last term. They are showing a huge improvement in their rhythm and coordination. In Literacy the students are focusing on developing their writing skills. They have been learning how to plan out their sentence and sound out tricky words.
Corin
Year One and Two have taken on the challenge to ‘rescue’ someone from the other side of the ‘river’ by building a boat! The students are very excited about this challenge and this week they have been exploring the way different materials behave in water. They have discovered which materials stay the same in water, how the weight and size of an object affects its ability to float and how to best push or pull something across the water. The students have been following procedures to make origami boats and using 2D shapes to make boat collages! Thank you to those families that have sent in recyclables – please continue to send us cardboard and plastic recyclables, ensuring that they are clean and dry.
Googong
At the end of late term Year 3 enjoyed 2 days at Green Hills. It was a great opportunity to have a night away from home and try some different and challenging activities. A highlight was crate tower building, children had a great time trying to build the tallest tower before it fell! Other activities included making damper, orienteering and team initiatives. We returned to school happy and tired. Thank you to the staff and parents who made this a great opportunity.
Bendora
In Bendora students start each morning with a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Circle Time. Students have a weekly focus on a range of topics that are pertinent to them and their social interactions with peers and staff. Some of the topics that students have shared their thoughts and opinions about so far are are and compassion, kindness, giving our best, thinking like winners and positive attitudes. This has led to the development of a set of unit expectations:
- We are kind and courteous to staff
- We have a positive attitude toward school
- We give our best
- We manage disagreements respectfully
- We take responsibility for our actions
- We think like winners
- We show empathy, support, kindness and compassion
The writing focus for the first half of Term 4 is narrative writing. Students have been recapping the elements of story writing, including structure and language features. A particular focus this fortnight has been descriptive scene writing and correct punctuation for speech marks. We are very much looking forward to reading 5/6 students final narrative for the year!
In Mathematics students are exploring chance and data. They have been participating in a range of games and learning experiences that enable students to collect, analyse and represent data and assign a fraction, percentage or the language of chance to a chance outcome. Students are being encouraged to recognise:
An event can be one outcome:
- Getting a tail when tossing a coin is an event
- Rolling a 5 is an event.
An event can include several outcomes:
- Choosing a 'king' from a deck of cards (any of the 4 kings) is also an event
- Rolling an even number (2, 4 or 6) is an event
Events can be:
- Independent (each event is not affected by other events),
- Dependent (also called conditional, where an event is affected by other events)
- Mutually exclusive (events can't happen at the same time)
At the culmination of this work students will develop a game based on chance. We look forward to seeing students apply their knowledge of chance and play their game.
Ride Safely to School Week
This term we will be celebrating the Ride Safely to School Week as part of the Ride or Walk to School Safely program in week 3 – 23 – 27 October 2023. We will be encouraging our students to ride, walk, skate or scoot to school. It is the perfect opportunity for students and school communities across Australia to embrace active travel and healthier habits. Ride or Walk to School program reminds us to consider our transport habits and try to incorporate more riding or walking as part of a healthy, active way to get around.
We will be running a ‘walking school bus’ to Calwell Primary School again. This will be held on Friday 27 October 2023. We are hoping to get lots of students and parents involved this term as the weather is getting warmer. We know that walking all the way to school isn’t realistic for many of us, therefore we will meet in the car park at the bottom of Casey Cres at the start of Calwell District Playing fields next to the netball courts where it’s easy to park. Staff members will meet students from 8am and will walk together to school from there. Parents/carers are more than welcome to join us on the walk. We will start the walk at 8.15am.
We hope to see as many students, teachers and parents/carers walking to school as possible.
Camp Australia
Calwell Flames
Its time to Run, Jump and Throw!
Calwell Little Athletics Club registrations are now open. Children 3yrs – 17yrs old are invited to come run, jump, & throw with us.
The season starts with registration pack collection on Saturday 14th October. With our first Saturday club meeting starting at 8am Saturday 21st October at the Calwell playing fields.
Tiny Flames / Tiny Tots start their weekly fun at 9am. Tiny Flames is for children aged 3-4. We provide a modified program that is designed to develop the children’s fundamental movements of running, jumping and throwing through fun and enjoyable activities.
U5 to U17- There is no standards or requirements athletes must meet to be able to participate in Little Athletics, meaning children of ALL abilities are more than welcome to join in. Athletes will participate in different running, jumping, throwing, and walking events on a week-to-week basis.
Come and Try days are available and you can register for these via the website https://littleaclac.wixsite.com/athletics or https://registration.resultshq.com.au/CentreRegistration/FamilyDetails/405bf317-7f91-405a-bd37-e95bbc36125b
