ANZAC Day Commemoration

Thank you to everyone invovled in our ANZAC Day assembly this week, in particular Erin. It was a respectful ceremony commemorating service men and women in Australia and New Zealand. Many students completed artworks whilst reflecting on the importance of ANZAC Day to all Australians. The artwork below was completed by Year 4 and Gene. 

Yunggi Bengal Reward Time

We are very pleased our students have achieved our whole school reward target of  10 000 Yunggi Bengals. Our Yunggi Bengal system is designed to reinforce our PBL expectations and acknowledge all of those students who are demonstrating positive behaviours. It takes a lot of students consistently demonstrating great things to achieve such a big target, well done everyone!

School Volunteers

We have welcomed the ACT School Volunteers Program into our school and already we have some wonderful partnerships being developed. We are trully grateful to our volunteers who are currently focused on our whole school prioity to improve reading outcomes for all students.

Mother's Day Morning Tea Preschool to Year 1

This week we are trialling a return to families beign able to gather in our school with our Mother's Day morning tea. Our P and C is partnering with the school to provide a morning tea for Preschool to Year 1 families only. The event falls on our Athletics Carnival day for Years 2 to 6 and so we have plenty of space to spread out in the courtyard.

Friday 7 May at 10.45 End of Week Preschool, Kindergarten and Year 1

Monday 10 May at 10.45 Beginning of Week Preschool

Please view the flyers below for additional details and our COVID safety plan. 

Don't forget to let us know you are coming by booking tickets in our event calendar.

We have organised coffee vans for both days. As the Friday is for more families the van will be avaiable from 10.15. grab a coffee on the way through. 

May 1 is the beginning of Hats Off!

NAPLAN

We wish our Year 3 and 5 students all the best with NAPLAN assessment next week. Here are some tips to make sure they are ready to do their best:

• Good sleeping habits will go a long way towards ensuring that your child is feeling their best on the testing day.
• Have a good breakfast to ensure their bodies are fuelled up!
• Take the pressure off of your child by asking them to try their best and the result will take care of itself.

Enrolments 2022

Enrolments for the 2022 school year are now open. Enrol by 4 June to receive an offer of enrolment from 26 July.

Every ACT public school is a great school, and if Ngunnawal Primary School is your local priority enrolment area (PEA) school your child is guaranteed a  Kindergarten to Year Six  place here.

Your best source of information for enrolling is the Education Directorate website education.act.gov.au or the Enrolments Telephone Service (02) 6205 5429. You can also contact us about enrolments directly by emailing info@ngunawalps.act.edu.au.

If you have a preschooler at Ngunnawal and you live in the suburb of Ngunnawal or have siblings in the school your child will automatically be enrolled at Ngunnawal Primary School.

If you are attending NPS preschool and you live outside of Ngunnawal you will need to complete a new enrolment for Kindergarten 2022 for your local school.

We will be offering meet the teacher sessions and tours in term 4. 

Rebecca Turner

Principal

Writing/Spelling

During writers workshop students have  been learning about what is in a sentence. We have been exploring the importance of capital letters, finger spaces and punctuation and how to use these writing conventions in our writing. Independently we have been looking through books and identifying parts of a sentence.

Reading

During reader’s workshop, we have been learning how to sound out words. First, we watch our teacher as they show us how we sound out a word we don’t know. We do this by making the sounds of the letters and blending the sounds together. We listen for the word we can hear! Then we practise sounding out together as a class where we write down the word we don’t know on a mini whiteboard, and then sound it out. Lastly, we practise being independent readers by doing the same activity again but by ourselves with a quality or levelled text.

Maths

In maths number we have  been learning about the number 8 and 9. We have been focusing on number formation and representing numbers in a variety of ways, such as tally marks, ten frames and pictures.

Strand

This term we have started a new unit on time. We have been learning the days of the week and have practised putting the days in order from Sunday to Saturday. We have enjoyed listening and singing along with songs about the days of the week.

We have been thinking about what day it was yesterday, what day it will be tomorrow and what day it is today. 

Zones of Regulation

During Zones of Regulation lessons we have been exploring different emotions that link to each colour. Students acted out different emotions and identified ways our face and body would look like in each Zone. We also identified and reflected on events or ‘triggers’ that push our emotions into the yellow, blue and red zone. This is to help gain awareness of our emotions and work on problem solving to avoid those triggers.

Writing

Last term we learnt how to write procedures. We started our learning by deconstructing procedures and looking for language features and the structure we needed to follow. We then began sequencing procedures by cutting them up and rearranging them in order and to make sense. Students have been using the bump it up wall, checklists and student rubrics to help them independently improve their work. They have written procedures in small groups, pairs and individually on a range of topics.

Reading

This term in reader’s workshop we have been setting up the expectations for each section of the reader’s workshop model. We have been working towards building independence and stamina. We have been focusing on the reading strategies of sounding out, chunking and retelling. Students have been learning to be word noticers and find the meaningful parts of words to help them decode and understand unknown words. We have been developing a love of reading anywhere and anytime! Students have been enjoying reading just-right books to help them get smarter at reading. This term they have also enjoyed spending time reading with buddies, classmates and soft toys.

Don’t forget to read every day and fill in your reading log one book per day!

Number

Last term, Year 1 students were learning about place value and number lines. They enjoyed a variety of activities that involved using dice, playing cards and dominoes. These hands-on activities allowed the students to participate in a range of games which enhanced their understanding of the value of numbers to 100. The Year 1 students were also practising their knowledge of place value by recognising quantities of a collection and recording numerals according to the amounts that were being represented. Using their understanding of place value, the students then learned how to place numerals on a number line in the correct sequence. This assisted them to further their knowledge of two-digit and three-digit numbers. 

Strand

Last term, Year 1 learnt about two dimensional shapes and three dimensional objects. We focused on recognising and describing a variety of two dimensional shapes such as square, circle and rectangle using edges and vertices. We also learnt to recognise and identify a variety of three dimensional objects such as a cube, rectangular prism and square based pyramid using edges, vertices and faces. 

History

During our inquiry unit, Year 1 students were learning to identify and describe changes in their own lives. Students created a personal timeline that demonstrated a sequence of events in order using photos over the course of their lives. They also interviewed relatives including parents, carers and grandparents to compare some aspects of daily life that have changed over recent times while others have remained the same. They also observed objects from the past such as, landline telephones, cassette tapes, portable CD players and polaroid cameras. They enjoyed observing these objects and investigating their use in decades past.

Chantel is the manager of Ngunnawal Primary School’s P&C run canteen. Eight years ago, she traded the long nights and three week rotating rosters of the hospitality industry for her role as canteen manager. Now, she balances priorities in a full service canteen, catering to over 650 students and staff. There’s never a boring moment in Chantel’s day as she and her team work to provide exciting, nutritious food for the whole school community.

What does it take to run a healthy canteen?

It takes dedication and a lot of hard work! There needs to be a variety food available. We sell a lot of sandwiches, salad boxes and roasted chicken breasts, which are all green food items. We also offer a few amber items such as pies, sausage rolls and chicken nuggets - all the low fat, low salt variety. We don’t have any red food items, and last year's menu assessment was just over 60% green. I think there’s a misconception of what canteens provide, which probably stems from back when I was a child and school canteens would sell lollies and frogs. Now we're offering a lot more fresh fruits, veggies and salads and other healthy options. Nutrition Australia has put guidelines in place to ensure canteens are making better choices for our kids, which I think is really important.

What’s the favourite food item on your canteen’s menu?

We've just started offering fruit smoothies, made up of milk, frozen fruit and pineapple juice, which we sell over the counter at lunch and recess. They’ve been so popular that we always try to keep the ingredients stocked up, so no one misses out!

What would you say to parents that are interested in volunteering with the canteen?

Come in and give it a try! It’s always a novelty for the kids when their parents are volunteering in the canteen, they bring their friends to see. I’ve been volunteering for the last 13 years. I used to help out at P&C fundraising events since my son, who is now in Year 12, started preschool here at Ngunnawal Primary School. When you’re dropping the kids off just come and spend half an hour with us, every little bit helps.

What do you love most about the role?

Watching the kids grow. At the start of the year, they are shy little people who come up to the canteen window but by the end of the year their confidence has grown.