Nerae Preece Principal

From the Principal

Now that was an eventful term! We have squeezed so much into 10 weeks. Next term will have new things to look forward to with our Master Plan work beginning, NAPLAN, more work with our DSSI project and many more things. Your child is going to benefit from all of these experiences and we cannot wait to share the journey with you.

Curriculum Day

Our curriculum day gave us a lot of food for thought. The teachers have set themselves some non-negotiables of things they want to have happening in their classroom to ensure that they improve reading and writing for our learners. Some of these are read aloud everyday (Reading a chapter book to the class during lunch eating time or at the end of the day. I hope we can review these books in this space towards the second half of the term. Teachers also want to work on their use of mentor texts (we will talk more about these in term 2).

RRRR Lead School

I was very excited yesterday to receive news that our school has been selected among hundreds of other schools to become a Lead School in Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships in 2022-2023. This brings relationships to the forefront of our school community. Over the next few years this opportunity gives us time to reflect on what we are doing well and identify what we want to work on to be even better.

Some of the areas that we focus on in this space is around emotional literacy, personal strengths, positive coping, problem solving, stress management, help seeking, gender and identity and positive gender relationships. This means we will be reviewing policies and processes within our school that support these things to be accessible for our students to learn.

As parents and members of our community we really would love for you to be part of this journey. After conversations with some of you already this term, I think we sit in a good space to work collaboratively to ensure that relationships within our school are respectful. Stay tuned for how you can help if you are interested!

Look after our school while we are away

While the school is a little quieter for a few weeks, we are always really grateful for our community looking after the school. If you see any unusual behaviour do not hesitate to contact the Healesville Police on 59624422 OR Lilydale Police on 97392300. We thank you for your care and support.

Thank you!

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of our families for your support this term. Your engagement in your child’s learning is so valuable and always appreciated. Thank you for your commitment to learning during the circuit breaker and thank you for participating in the 3 way interviews.

Additionally there have been so many of you that are helping in the day to day learning in the school. We have parents helping in Reading to read, classroom reading, fundraising efforts, special lunches, attending the MacRob High Abilities Camp, even helping out with afterschool pick ups! I know there are many ways that you have been helping our school be a Sanctuary for Learning.

Our community is something I never take for granted. We are so lucky to have a caring and supportive group of people surrounding our children.

Have a terrific holiday! If you are going away, please be safe. We look forward to seeing you back again on Monday the 19^th of March!

Nerae Preece

IMPORTANT SCHOOL DATES

Whole school dates to remember:

Thursday April 1st – Last day of Term 1 – Students finish at 2.30pm

Term 2 starts – Monday 19th April

Tuesday 20th April – Grade 1-Grade 6 excursion – Charlie and the War Against Grannies

AROUND THE GROUNDS

This week in Prep…

The last week of Term 1 is upon us. We can’t believe how the term has flown and how much learning we have done.

It is wonderful to see how settled and ready for learning our Preps are!

During the last week, our Science involved cooking – Sean helped us make scrambled eggs from our own chickens, using herbs from the garden. We had a wonderful time cooking and they were yummy to eat.

We have been learning more about numbers; their correct formation, how to tally them, show them on a tens frames, make them using concrete materials and draw them.

Of course, we have been reading and writing. Our Preps are becoming experts at Buddy reading. Ask your child about the things they would do if they were the Easter Bunny.

This week we sent home alphabet and high frequency word books. These are not homework but an addition to your weekly take home books. Read them together, they will help your child with their reading and writing development.

Next term we will be having a Prep ‘Show and Share’ time on a Friday. Each week, we will put a prompt in the newsletter. Our aim is to develop oral language skills amongst our students. Please do not bring anything precious. First Friday back, we would like our Preps to bring somethings starting with the same letter as their name.

Have a wonderful and safe break!

The Prep Team 🙂

This week in Grade 5 / 6…

Hi To All Families,

It’s been a whirlwind week for our Grade 5/6 students both in and out of the classroom.

As part of Chemical Science, students engaged in a incursion with Matthew and had the opportunity to learn about the properties of different types of liquids and build their own density towers. As part of this experience, we practiced developing and recording our scientific predictions and then compared the results of our experiments with these predictions to help challenge our learning. In addition, students had the opportunity to witness the creation “Elephant’s Toothpaste” and learn how chemicals react in certain ways to produce various results.

In Maths, students have been focused on using mathematical strategies to challenging problems through following a series of prescribed steps to help them understand how to better analyse and interpret problems, as well as self-assess their answers to check any gaps in their own knowledge.

Finally, for Literacy, students have been unpacking texts in their reading to better decode the important information in texts whilst focusing on identifying the themes and topics they’re reading. In addition, we have been working hard on publishing our writing which students have been working on throughout the term.

We hope you all have a wonderful Easter Holiday and look forward to seeing everyone back in the classroom at the start of Term Two.

Upcoming excursions

Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF)

We are currently taking applications for CSEF.

Please find below information in regards to the funding and if you could be eligible.

If you do have any queries or questions if you may be eligible please do not hesitate to contact the office.

Vacation Care Program

School uniform orders:

Please find below the link for the school uniform orders.

http://www.aplusschoolwear.com.au/SearchResult.aspx?Labels=BADGER%20CREEK

All orders are to be completed through the website

Rubbish in the yard

The Grade 6s did a school yard rubbish clean up during their leadership session this week. They want to remind everyone to nude their food before going out to play and to aim for rubbish free lunches to help keep our environment clean!