Calwell Primary School eNewsletter

From the Principal

Dear Families,

As we venture into winter, we have made it to the halfway point of the term! Hopefully you have noticed some changes around the school including the new front of school sign, updated garden beds and we have recently installed a defibrillator in the front office. We will also have a new table in the senior playground in coming weeks for groups of children to sit at and participate in quiet activities during break time. Preschool will have a water refilling station installed shortly to ensure our youngest learners can stay hydrated.

As you are all aware winter brings many bugs and illnesses to children and staff. We have had a large amount of sickness going through the school in the past 2 weeks including influenza, gastro, RSV and covid to name a few. Please ensure you keep your child/ren home if they are unwell and reinforce good hygiene practices. It is helpful when responding to absent SMS messages if you let us know if your child has a specific illness. This helps us monitor sickness across the school. Unfortunately, our staff are not immune to sickness either. This week we have several staff away and as a result this weeks planned assembly on Friday has been cancelled. Cares and PBL awards will be handed out on Friday morning in our morning gathering. We find combining classes within a unit when staff are absent allows teaching to continue and ensures consistency for children. We also have regular relief staff who work at different points across the week. When multiple staff are away, we may move to supervision within a unit. When this occurs children access different online resources and learning materials as well as other fun activities across the day.

Last week we acknowledged Reconciliation Week. Children from kindergarten to year 6 enjoyed the Didjerbone incursion which focused on Aboriginal culture. The presenter demonstrated a number of instruments and showed how traditional instruments have been translated into modern day instruments. He explained how these instruments are integrated imto new modern technology to amplify and layer sounds.

It was a pleasure to host year 6 combined band with students from Taylor and Theodore attending. Children across the school enjoyed a mini concert at the end of the session. Year 5 band travelled to Theodore to participate in a combined band morning. We hope our bands will be able to join with other schools in term 3 and 4.

After a long wait for allocation of a school psychologist I am happy to announce that this week we welcome a new school psychologist (Kim) who will work at Calwell on Thursdays and Fridays. Over the coming weeks we will be working with Kim to review our referral list and allocate cases to Kim. Next week we will say farewell to our support staff member Chelsea who will be going on maternity leave. We wish Chelsea every success as she steps into motherhood.

We continue to accept enrolments for 2025. Year 6 families must ensure an enrolment for high school is submitted ASAP to ensure you receive an offer at the beginning of next term. This ensures children have certainty about next year and are included in the receiving schools transition processes.

Over the coming week teachers are busy preparing mid-year academic reports. These reports will capture a snapshot of your child’s current academic progress in chosen curriculum outcomes and include a short comment from the teacher. Reports will be distributed in week 10 and families will have the opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher next term to discuss the report.

Early next term we are rolling out a new Parent Portal, a secure online platform for sharing student information between schools and parents and carers. The Parent Portal will make it easier for you to engage with the school by housing key information on one system from preschool through to year 6. It will allow you to notify us if your child is sick, book parent-teacher interviews, receive your child’s academic reports (including past reports), receive their school newsletter, receive messages from their child’s teachers, get daily notices of school activities, update contact details and make payments.

Initially, the Parent Portal will complement existing school communication channels. The Parent Portal will help streamline everyday school administrative tasks parents and carers need to do for their children, minimising printed handouts. Eventually, it will be the key online communication tool used by all ACT public schools. You can start the sign up and identity verification process now so you’re ready to go. Head to the Education Directorate website Parent Portal page for all the details.

I look forward to seeing you around the school this week.

Kind Regards

Katie Brown
Deputy Principal

Parent Portal

Parent_Portal.pdf

CARES

Gold Awards

ICAS assessments

Students at Calwell Primary School in years 3-6 will have the opportunity to participate in the world-renowned ICAS  competition this year. The testing window dates for these assessments are Monday 5th August to Friday 9th August 2024(Term 3)

What is ICAS? 

ICAS is an online academic competition that is designed to assess students’ higher order thinking and problem-solving skills in English, Mathematics, Science, Writing, Spelling Bee, and Digital Technologies. 

Each assessment celebrates students’ accomplishments by providing opportunities for recognition and development. Every student who participates will receive a printed certificate and an online results report. Top performers will be eligible for medals. 

We encourage you to consider entering your child into ICAS this year.  

Learn more about ICAS here: (icasassessments.com/products-icas/ )

How to participate in ICAS 

If you wish for your child to participate in ICAS this year, please: 

read about ICAS subjects and prices here: (com/products-icas/) 
read the Privacy Collection Statement below.
read the terms and conditions here: (com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-ICAS-Assessments-Schools-TsCs_S2023.V6-1.pdf)
go to Parent Portal to purchase tests here: (icasassessments.com/pages/pps) 
enter our school’s access code – RAG694
enter your child’s details, select the tests you would like to purchase, then proceed to payment.

Please note that the ICAS tests shown for selection are at the school’s discretion.  

After payment is made via the Parent Payment System, you will receive an order confirmation email, please keep this for your records. 

We are proud to offer ICAS and look forward to some fantastic results later in the year.  Please do not hesitate to contact the school office if you have any questions. 

Kind regards, 

Emma Vince

Executive Teacher

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.

- CANCELLED Year 5/6 Assembly Friday 7th June

- Monarch's Birthday Public Holiday Monday 10th June

- Christian Education in Schools (opt in) Tuesday 11th June

- Community Movie Night notes due back Monday 17th June

- Community Movie Night Thursday 20th June 6pm

- Bookclub due back Thursday 20th June

Googong

In English 3/4 have completed their unit on persuasive writing. It was amazing to see such wonderful growth in the students' knowledge of the structure of a persuasive text. We are now learning about the structure and language features of narrative texts. To begin with we started with the basic unit of a story: the sentence. We have been identifying parts of a sentence including nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. Students used the three w’s when, where and why to bump up sentence length, and quality to create imagery.

Rostrum

Congratulations to the entire 3/4 cohort for facing their public speaking fears to deliver the most amazing and entertaining speeches. You are all stars.

Maths

Our focus in maths has been learning about the odd and even rules for operations. We explored what happens when we add/ subtract even and even or even and odd and whether there is any consistency. We also examined the connections between addition and subtraction and how that helps us to solve unknown numbers in problems.

For example 3 + ? = 7

Inquiry

We are beginning to conclude our unit of work on the First Fleet. Students have learnt about the reasons why Britain established a colony in the land we now know as Australia. They then mapped the journey of the First Fleet and learned about the conditions and hard work required to establish a colony including the impact on the indigenous population living in Sydney Cove. We discovered the ways different cultures record and pass on their history, how this has been impacted by technology and explored different methods including writing, drawing, and interpreting symbols using ochre.

Cultural Integrity

This semester Corin unit have been learning about Indigenous culture through stories, sculpture and art.

After brainstorming what it means to live in Canberra, on Ngunnawal Land, learning about the impact of colonisation on First Nations People through discussion and reflecting on the message in Adam Goode’s story ‘Somebody’s Land’ each class wrote their own Acknowledgement of Country.

The classes are learning how Aboriginal people take from the land, only what they will and can use. Reflecting on last year’s excursion with Bonnie on weaving, we extended our knowledge and skill base by reading 'Collecting Colour' by Kylie Dunstan and created our own woven turtles.

Immersing ourselves in another’s culture respectfully and with an eagerness to learn, is part of the process to Reconciliation. This term we have built upon the concept of Reconciliation through discussion, learning how Dreamtime stories are very similar to creation stories found in other religions and cultures and the importance of imagery in Aboriginal art work.

As a group, the children came to the conclusion that reconciliation is about making things better and making sure we don’t make the same mistake twice; however we have to mean it and show it through our actions and words.

After watching The Rainbow Serpent video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8RA7-yktM0 from Twinkl, our rainbow serpents were sculpted from clay and painted with water colours. This was a long process, taking a couple of weeks to complete.

Exploring the concept of imagery. The classes have begun to learn how Wiradjuri people use symbols to convey messages, meanings and stories. To support the learning, the children were shown artwork by Gunaikurnai Elder, Sandra Patten on a water silo in Yarram Victoria. We spoke about the imagery that can be seen, the message the artist is conveying to the viewer and how we can tell our own story using imagery and symbols. The Sea of Hands display is a reflection of what is important to each student.

During weeks 1 and 2 students in K-6 engaged in a Safe Reward Challenge. Students were challenged to be the highest earner of safe tokens in their classroom and all other settings around the school. It was great to see students engaging safely with their peers, when using equipment and when moving around the school. Congratulations goes to the following students who received sporting equipment as their reward!

In weeks 5 & 6 students will be learning about the PBL expectations for courtyards. These expectations ensure that students in K-6 have quality eating time before breaks, move around the areas safely and respectfully maintain their school environment.