Virginia Primary School Newsletter

Regular attendance is important for every child’s learning. Children should attend school every day unless they are ill.

Did you know that if your child is away, there are several options on how families are able to notify the school as to why the child/ren are absent;

• You are able to send the school an SMS  at any stage. The number is 0418277129, which comes through the automated computer system.
• If you have the Skoolbag app, you can also send through an Absentee Form.
• If no contact has been made with the school, then you will receive a text message  asking why your child is absent, if this is the case, you can simply reply to that text stating the reason your child/ren are not at school. 
• Are you planning a holiday? Did you know that for an extended time away, you will need to collect an exemption form from the Front Office to fill out and request this time off. 

We will be holding our Annual Walkathon on Friday week 9.

This is our major student fundraiser, it is an opportunity for the students' to raise funds whilst participating in a fun whole school walk. We ask for your support in assisting your child to get as many sponsors as possible. As child safety is a priority, we ask that you DO NOT send your children “door knocking” to seek sponsorship.

We invite all families to come along and join us on the day. We will begin the morning with our assembly over at the Community Centre and then commence with the walkathon straight afterwards. We hope to see as many parents as possible. 

Over the past few years, we have raised money for our Kitchen Garden, IT infrastructure and last year we were able to add depth and variety to our reading resources. Last year we exceeded our target of $5000, which was fantastic, and we are hoping to reach our goal once again this year. Funds raised will be put towards repairing our basketball court. We will have a thermometer on the office window to allow the students to track our progress.

 We also want to give back to our community for their efforts and support towards our fundraiser by offering the following:

• Children who raise $50.00 or more will receive a complimentary novelty handball.
• Every student who raises $100 or more will go into the draw to win a $100 Rebel Sports Voucher. There will be three categories (Pre-school, Junior Primary R-2, Primary 3-7)
• The student who raises the most money in Junior Primary will receive a ‘Be Active Hamper’ worth over $300 of value, and the student who raises the most in the Primary years will receive a ‘high tech scooter’ worth over $300 which has been kindly donated by Super Scoots.

We thank Supa Scootz for their generous donation. 

Walkathon sponsorship forms  were sent home earlier in week 4, please ensure this is filled out as money is pledged. Laps will be recorded on the form after the event so that money can be collected. However many sponsors choose to make a flat donation rather than per lap, either way is acceptable.

Please help support your child/children and our school. 

If you have misplaced your sponsorship form, more are available from our Front Office.

Welcome back to term 3! We have had a busy start to the term with the introduction of the first level of the SSP sound pics and learning about oral hygiene. The children were all provided with a toothbrush and have been involved in brushing their teeth at preschool every day for 1 week. We have also been talking about the importance of healthy food, drinking lots of water and the impact sugary foods play in the formation of decay. As a part of learning about what can happen if you do not look after your teeth the children observed some extracted teeth containing cavities and x-rays of teeth. We have also been having a great time visiting the new school playground. The children voted the climbing ropes and rock wall as their favourite pieces of equipment.

We have had many families attend our 3-way-interviews this week and many more to come next week. As a part of this process the children are able to share their learning with their parents and lead the conversation during the first part of the interview. Taking part in a formalised, reciprocal conversation is a major accomplishment for many 4 and 5 year olds and is a very positive experience for the children. It has been lovely witnessing the proud looks on so many little faces. This week the children have begun dressing up as astronauts and blasting off in the preschool rocket to learn about the solar system. 

What a wonderful start to term 3 we have had in rooms 1 and 2. We have been focusing on Superhero themed books for modelled and shared reading to link in with the Book Week theme of “Reading is my Super Power’. We have really enjoyed completing character analysis’ and story sequencing activities. We have continued to revisit sounds during Inquiry time and complete SSP rotations to support our phonics knowledge and reading. We are continuing to write recounts and are attempting to write these independently using learning intentions and success criteria checklists. We will be introducing information reports to link in with our science unit on plants. In maths we have been investigating measurement and have started looking at length and height where we are also comparing and ordering objects of different heights and lengths. We look forward to the rest of the term and the growth that student will continue to make.

What an amazing start to term 3 in Room 3 and 4. This term we have been exploring the Habit of Mind ‘Taking Responsible Risks’. We are aware that we take Responsible Risks in our learning all the time! We don’t need to be perfect because making mistakes is how we learn. We are working interdependently (being able to work and learn with others) during our guided reading and SSP rotations.

We have continued to learn our sounds through SSP. Through our whole class inquiry we are consolidating our blue code sounds. Our learning intention is to be able to identify letter-sound relationships and write the correct grapheme for each phoneme. During our rotations we are working on learning and retaining the sounds of our individual code.

In guided reading we are continuing to better understand a text (comprehension) by using mind-maps to help us to know the genre of text we are reading and the elements specific to each genre. We have continued to practise reading with fluency and expression in order to be a balanced reader.

In maths we have been applying and transferring our knowledge of number into learning about place value. We have been investigating the value of a digit according to its position in a number (hundreds, tens, and ones). Our learning intentions include to understand the value of a number and to be able to partition numbers.

We would like to thank everyone for their support with the Book Week Parade.

The students returned to school this term rested and keen to start another term of learning. They slipped straight back into the routines and enjoyed sharing all their holiday adventures with one another.  In English we have continued our Literacy Circle work incorporating various activities including poetry, writing, grammar, guided reading and spelling. Students are focussing on targeted reading goals and strategies during guided reading sessions and are working to develop their comprehension skills as they progress through the reading levels. In writing we started this term with the narrative genre and the students have been enthusiastic about exploring characters and settings before we move onto complications. The play ‘Room on a Rock’ in week two provided the perfect opportunity students to response texts. In Maths the students have participated in exciting hands on lessons based around money. We were blown away with the students’ prior knowledge of money and their ability to already add small sums of coins. We were very excited about the  book week parade. All of the bright and wonderful costumes based on the author Aaron Blabey and all his wonderful books looked amazing. 

We’ve hit the ground running in Term 3 in Room’s 9 and 10. We were very excited about our book week parade and were extremely proud of all the students with their creative costumes. 

 In English we have continued our guided reading and LLI group work incorporating writing, grammar concepts and word work. Students are focussing on targeted reading goals and strategies. In writing, we began this term with the Response genre and students have thoroughly enjoyed ‘actively judging’ the Book week performance “Room on Our Rock’, art work, songs, dances and texts. We are learning all about expressing our opinions through the use of evaluative language. As of week 5 we will be revisiting and developing our procedural and narrative writing skills.

In Health our focus is on healthy eating, choices and keeping our bodies protected which coincides with our participation in the Premier’s Be Active Challenge this term.

Maths has involved exciting hands on lessons based around multiplication, division and time. Our mathematics vocabularies are broadening as we continuously add to our word walls and have learnt to use the RUCSAC acronym (read, underline, circle, select, answer and check) to help us comprehend and accurately solve worded problems. We are using ‘Maths Talks’ before, during and after lessons to reflect on our learning and respectfully challenge each other’s thinking. Next we will be focusing on measurement topics: Area, Perimeter, Volume and Capacity.

In HASS we have been learning all about Australia’s government in our Civics and Citizenship Unit of work. We have learnt that there are different systems of government across the world including dictatorships and communist countries. Australia is a democracy which means all eligible citizens can have their say and vote to elect representatives for our country. We have learnt that because Australia is so large, the Federal Parliament cannot manage all the services on its own to run the country. The Australian government services are split into the roles and responsibilities of the federal, state and local governments. To try to understand how representatives persuade citizens to vote for them, we were set the task to pretend to run for the position of class prefect.  Our aim was to write a script and present our speech to peers. Our learning intention was to understand how and why decisions are made democratically in communities. We used persuasive and emotive language and reasoning skills to come up with classroom related ideas that would win the vote of the people. We have had lots of fun playing dress up and have enjoyed learning about Australia’s government systems are organised. We enjoyed sharing snippets of some filmed presentation at Room 12’s Week 4 assembly!

We are very pleased to be back in the classroom for Term 3 and another busy term of learning! We thoroughly enjoyed the book week parade and also look forward to sharing some of the fantastic work with our parents towards the end of the term.

 In English this term, we started off the term with some learning about procedural writing. We learnt that procedures can come in many different forms such as recipes, game instructions, directions and craft projects. We learnt lots about action verbs and how to use these accurately with a qualifier (or an adverbial phrase) to make a specific and meaningful command. We finished off by creating our very own board games and writing instructions to go along with them. We enjoyed playing the board games with our classmates. Our next text type is Explanation and we are excited to learn all about a new type of writing. In reading, we have focussed on our reading goals and deconstructing texts for comprehension. We are focusing on the reading strategies for comprehension and are cycling through a range of the strategies such as questioning, inferring and summarising at the moment. We are finding it useful focussing on specific word work activities that relate back directly to the features in the text type we are learning at the moment. We are also enjoying participating in Oral Language and practising our active listening and speaking skills.

 In maths, we started the term off with division and we are so pleased with the growth that students are making with their learning. Students have continued to practise and excel at their multiplication facts, with some children even feeling comfortable enough to test for their times tables medal and achieve it. We are now moving into a unit on fractions and decimals. Students are looking forward to bringing their prior knowledge to the tasks and we as teachers, are looking forward to engaging them in a range of hands on activities to help them understand and use fractions more confidently.

In HASS, we have started our brand new geography unit. We are going to be investigating continents and countries and then mapping our world by creating large posters with interactive features, including languages spoken, the national flag, population and land forms. 

This term in English, we are focussing on explanation texts. This will link with our science unit and students are writing explanations about what causes the seasons and later will construct texts on what causes solar and lunar eclipses. This is supported in our guided reading program where students have been reading a range of sequential and causative explanations, looking at structure, language features and technical vocabulary. Soon we will be moving onto poetry and will be reading an assortment of poetry and constructing poetry texts.

In Mathematics we will are currently working on measurement and shape. Initially students have been working on converting between units of measurement. Then, students have been using formulae to solve problems involving are, perimeter, volume and surface area. We will conclude this unit by completing the Imaths investigation, YouCube Houses where students will construct houses using rectangular prisms and calculating external wall area, building footprint, roof area and living space.

This term all classes have studied the picture book “On Our Rock” by Jol and Kate Temple. This is a clever book that can be read front to back and back to front, highlighting that there are two sides to most stories. This activity culminated in a performance by Meerkat Productions based on this text. Our students responded favourably to both the story and the performance. Actors Sarah and Daniel were most impressed by the enthusiasm and good audience manners exhibited by our students.

 In week 2 we had a visit from Mr Ken Duthy from the Royal Australian Regiment. Ken brought rosemary cuttings from an original plant brought back to Australia by a World War One soldier. We potted the plants in specially decorated earthenware pots and will plant them out as part of Remembrance Day commemorations in November this year. Again our students displayed courtesy and respect to a visitor to our school.

All students have recently started a unit of work within the chemical strand of the curriculum.

The JP classes have been engaged in a unit called Spot the Difference, focusing on describing the properties of a variety of objects and materials.

Middle primary students have started their unit of work called Material World, in which they have also started describing the properties of different materials and objects but also investigating why we use different materials for different purposes.

The 6/7 classes are participating in a chemical sciences unit called Change Detectives, in which they are investigating how objects/materials can undertake different physical or chemical changes.

This term, some classes are still working on last term project on cooking. We are aiming to complete this project by week 5, so we can begin a new topic. Classes that have completed their cooking project, are focusing on Zoo animals.Children are learning key features of different zoo animals in Vietnamese. They are slowly beginning to write simple sentences in Vietnamese by using keywords.

This term the JP students have been practising football skills. In week 1 we had a visit from Todd from the SANFL who ran an Auskick clinic with all students. They thoroughly enjoyed this. Through this they have been strengthening their motor skills including hand balling, goal kicking, marking and game play.

 Primary Students have been continuing their unit of work on Volleyball. We have been focusing on the three main shots used in a volleyball match (Digging, Setting & Spiking). Students have improved immensely and enjoyed learning a sport they weren’t very familiar with.

With the receptions, we are fine tuning our skills and continuing with recount writing to include several events when writing about what we did. Of course we are still making sure that the students are including, when, where, who and feelings in their recounts.

Year 1’s are focusing on procedure writing, learning about the structure and ensuring that we use a verb at the start of every step.

Year 2’s are concentrating on narratives this term focusing on descriptive sentences, in particular, using Stephen Graham’s strategy of descriptive bubbles (colour, size, shape, action, position and number). Descriptive writing allows students’ to think more in depth about their characters and the setting within their narratives.

The guided reading groups doing LLI have set themselves short terms goals for improvement in their reading. Students are currently working on using punctuation to support phrasing, looking at the author’s message in the texts and remembering details in what they have read. Those reading at home each night are making the most progress.

Groups have been focusing on two types of factual texts so far this term. The year 4/5's are writing procedural texts and topics have included How to Make and Pack a School Lunch, writing directions to Woolworths from school as well as directions to follow to reach exhibits in a zoo. Directions have been more of a challenge with map reading and using left and right.

The year 6/7's are writing explanations. We began with a pre-test on the Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly to find out what needed our focus for improvement followed by How Lightning Works. This week students are designing a machine and will explain how it works.

Both groups are making good improvements to their writing and are committed to doing their best.