Calwell Primary School eNewsletter

From the Principal

Dear Families,

Welcome to our Week 8 Newsletter. Its hard to believe that we only have 3 weeks left of Term 1. We are looking forward to our Athletics Carnival which will be held at the Calwell Playing Fields on Thursday 11^th April. Congratulations to all of our students who competed in the Swimming trials last week and to those who will represent our school at the zone carnival.

Tonight, our Parent Association are going to meet online at 7.30pm. They are hoping to attract more people to the online meeting. A link to this meeting will be sent out today via email. The association welcomes anyone who would like to attend the meeting to find out more about how to work with and support the school.

Harmony Day

This Thursday our school will be celebrating Harmony Day. Harmony Day, which is observed each year on March 21, celebrates diversity, aiming to foster inclusiveness, respect and the idea that people of all different cultures can make a valuable contribution to society. The theme for Harmony Day 2024 is “Everyone Belongs.” Students are encouraged to wear their Team Calwell shirts or something orange. We will be meeting as a whole school to have lunch together and our teachers will be leading our students in Harmony Day activities and learning during the day.

Talking with our school

Our teachers and school staff work hard every day to provide the best outcomes for every student.

Preparing for great teaching takes time. It is important that our teachers and school staff have time outside their core hours to rest and reset.

Communication with parents and carers is important to us and our staff will always work to get back to your enquiries within a reasonable timeframe. We aim to do this within 3 workings days. If your matter is urgent we will get back to you as quickly as possible.

There is no expectation that teachers respond to queries from families during their personal and family time.

Every student and every family is important to us. By respecting the time of our teachers, you are helping to make time for great teaching.

We want to continue to work closely with you on your child’s learning at school and do our best to respond to you in a timely manner.

We update families on what is happening at our school in a number of ways from information nights, emails, notes, newsletters, and social media. We encourage you to stay in touch with our school through these channels.

Kind Regards

Ben Roberts
Principal

Principals Afternoon Tea

CARES

Swimming Trial Placements 2024

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.

- Harmony Day Thursday 21st March

- National Ride2School Day Friday 22nd March

- Friday 22nd March Frozen Friday

- Easter Raffle drawn Monday 25th March

- 25th & 26th March Years 3-6 Drumming Program

- Special Easter Recess Wednesday 27th March

- Tuggeranong Regional Swimming Carnival Thursday 28th March

- Book Club due Thursday 28th March

- Good friday Public Holiday Friday 29th March

- Easter Monday Public Holiday Monday 1st April

- Years 3/4 Birrigai Long Day Camp Tuesday 2nd April

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 13^th 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.

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.

During weeks 7 and 8 students will be learning about how they can be Safe, Respectful and a Learner in the 'toilet' setting. Students will discuss how to use this space correctly and what behaviours do not belong in this space of the school.

National Ride2School Day

Join in the fun on National Ride2School Day where students are encouraged to ride, walk, skate or scoot to school.
National Ride2School Day is the perfect opportunity for students and school communities across Australia to embrace a healthier start and to try riding and walking to school for themselves.

At Calwell Primary, we will run our ‘walking school bus’ to our school again. The walk will be held on Friday 22 March 2024 (week 8). We are hoping to get lots of students and parents involved this term again. 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 riding, walking, skating or scooting to school as possible.