Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day

Today our school partnered with Gungahlin Child and Family Centre and Gugan Gulwan to celebrated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day with all of our preschoolers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from across the school. It is an opportunity for us to show our support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, as well as learn about the crucial impact that culture, family and community play in the life of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child. Unfortunately this year we were not able to make it the community event we had hoped, but our children had a great time.

Deputy Director General Visit

Last Thursday Deputy Director General, Deb Efthymiades visited our school. Our wonderful school captains greeted Deb and took her on a tour of the things they are most proud of in our school. This finished in their classrooms with a discussion of their recent learning experiences. Deb complimented our school on the high levels of engagement in learning, the pride for our school reflected in our indoor and outdoor environments and the warm welcome all students gave her as she moved around the school.

School Leader Appointments

Last week I had the pleasure of appointing two school leaders to our school permanently.

Erin Salleo has won the position of school Leader C. She will continue on as our capable leader in the Preschool and with our Specialist Team. Many of you will also encounter Erin as our Disability Education Contact Officer (DECO) and an active participant in school events. 

I also congratulate Natalie Munoz who has permanently won the Early Years Engagement Partner position. Natalie brings experience in both the education and community services fields that strengthen the supports our school is able to offer to our students and their families to maximise positive outcomes for all. 

Dion Drummond Performance

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week we are treating all of our students to a performance to compliment our whole school learning focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. Dion Drummond (whose Aboriginal name is Moogera - meaning “storm”) is of Torres Strait Islands descent on his mother’s side and Aboriginal from his father’s family.  Dion was born in Mossman (Kukuyalangi) 80 km north of Cairns, Queensland. Dion was part of the well-known Naroo Dancers, and has performed extensively in Australia and overseas.

The first part of his programme is full of wonderful and playful Islander music including various Island dances and singing.  For this section of the show, he wears traditional headdress and grass skirt. The second part of his performance is devoted to Aboriginal dance, indigenous to Far North Queensland (Cape York), didgeridoo, clapping sticks, stories and explanations of various artefacts.

Ask your children over the next couple of days what they learnt from Dion. We will share some pictures of our school visit after the performance.

School Satisfaction Survey

We are looking forward to seeing all of the wonderful work our school community has been doing reflected in the School Satisfaction Survey this year. Of course, it is also a great avenue to suggest areas for growth. We encourage all families to complete the survey to help our school celebrate success and plan for improvement. Survey links will be coming out soon.

Rebecca Turner

Principal

HISTORY

At the end of last term we investigated what life was like for Indigenous Australians before the arrival of Europeans. This term we have started inquiring about how it is that Europeans came to settle in Australia, and in the coming weeks will we consider the nature and consequences of contact between Indigenous peoples and early explorers and settlers.

Part of our investigation into how Europeans came to Australia includes looking into the Age of Discovery, and we have begun individual research projects on key explorers from that era in preparation for a ‘Living Wax Museum’ that we will display for the school community later this term.

ART

We have started our Art unit Bush Tucker which explores painting by Utopian artists. Students will be creating their own medicine artwork using inspiration from the Indigenous artists.

So far, students have learnt 3 drawing techniques; blind contour, contour and observational. We have begun to learn how to blend our colours when painting using a variety of colours that can be found on leaves.

MATHS

Our Maths content this term has covered angles and multiples during the first 2 weeks. During our focus on angles, students investigated where we find angles in our everyday lives. They also used a right angle to make comparisons with other angles to see if they were smaller or larger than a right angle.

The lessons on multiples have unpacked different strategies for skip counting by single digit numbers. The students have also been identifying numeral and visual patterns found in a sequence of multiples. In the coming weeks our Maths lessons will focus on mapping and multiplication.

HEALTH

This term during our Health units students are exploring healthy eating. For 4 weeks, we are documenting what we eat for 2 days of the week. We will use this data to analyse what food groups we are eating from.

Last week, we learnt about the 5 food groups based on the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating. We used images we found in catalogues to help create a poster to promote one of the food groups. Enjoy some photos of our work.

Congratulations to the following students recieving bronze and silver awards.

Respectful

Responsible Learner

Responsible Learner

Each year, the Directorate surveys all parents, school staff and students in Years 4 to 12 about their satisfaction with public education. The 2020 School Satisfaction & Climate Survey will be available online from 10 to 31 August.

The survey results will help us to continue to make quality informed decisions about how to improve our school. No personal identifying information will be provided to any school or college.

For each child in their family who attends an ACT public school, parents will receive:

• A letter about the student survey asking whether their child may participate during class time; and
• An email about the parent survey, including a unique link to access the survey; parents who do not receive the email may contact EDUSurveys@act.gov.au to request a survey invitation.

A shortened paper-version of the parent survey is also available in the following 12 languages: Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, Dari, Dinka, Farsi, Hindi, Karen, Korean, Mon, Urdu and Vietnamese; email EDUSurveys@act.gov.au to request a copy.

For the results to reflect the opinions of our whole school community, we need as many parents, staff and students as possible to complete the survey. Your feedback is important, and we hope you will take part.

For more information, visit: https://www.education.act.gov.au/public-school-life/school-satisfaction-andclimate-survey

Cancer Council ACT recommends Canberra primary schools and early childhood services adopt a combination of sensible sun protection behaviours when spending time outdoors when UV levels are 3 and above. August isa the beginning of the Hats On period.

School Banking is back.  School Banking Day is on Thursdays and is now up and running for Term 3. 

School Banking is a fun, interactive and engaging way to help young Australians learn about money and practice good savings habits. For each weekly deposit made at school, students will receive a  Dollarmites token. Once they collect 10 tokens, they can redeem them for a School Banking reward.

If your child has previously participated in School Banking, or has an existing Commonwealth Bank Youthsaver account, they can start banking straight away by bringing their Dollarmites deposit wallet to school on School Banking day.

If your child has lost their deposit wallet, please contact your School Banking Co-ordinator or visit any Commonwealth Bank branch for a replacement.

Our School Banking program is made possible because of volunteers. Thank you to those volunteers for donating their time to run School Banking for our students.

If you would like to know more about School Banking, please ask for a 2020 School Banking program parent guide from the school office or visit www.commbank.com.au/schoolbanking