Working Bee—Thank you

I would sincerely like to thank all families who braved the heat and attended last Saturday’s working bee. The shed is looking fantastic and much of our excess or damaged furnishings have been cleared and are now awaiting disposal. Our teacher references have begun the move to one of our vacant portables which will be an accessible and rich resource for our staff. Our school library is one step closer to being able to be open for students during lunch times as well as rearranged into a vibrant learning space for teachers to utilise with their classes. I would like to thank Sue Smith for coordinating the library resource move, Fiona Knobben our business manager and Kerri Allerby our admin assistant for attending the working bee. I also extend a very special thank you to Dean Pearce for organising this whole day. I look forward to further working bees throughout the year and getting to meet more families over some cold soft drinks and a sausage sizzle.

Year 1 & 2 Swimming Program

Our Year 1 & 2s are concluding swimming this week. What a fantastic job Bill Manoleras and Jack Rhodes have done coordinating this program – thank you so much for organising this and thank you to all students for their exemplary behaviour and also to staff and parent helpers for your supervision and time. Our Foundation students will be undertaking their swimming program later in the year.

NAPLAN

This week has seen students in Years 3 and 5 undertake the annual NAPLAN testing. Our students have been resilient, kept positive mindsets and applied their knowledge and skills the best they can. Thank you to all teachers in Years 3 and 5 as well as our fabulous Education Support staff members for successfully administering 2023 NAPLAN. A special thank you also to Sarah Nobbs who has led this.

Junior School Council

Our Junior School Council (JSC) has been finalised and the selected candidates will be presented with their official badges at this week’s Year 3-6 assembly. Due to the volume of badges to distribute, assembly will commence a little earlier this week, beginning at 2.45pm. Thank you to all teachers in Years 3-6 for undertaking this process and a special thank you to Julie Brannan and Tammy Voukelatos for leading the JSC again this year. I would also like to thank Dale Evans and Simon Radford for coordinating our school assemblies, seeking feedback from staff and students and ensuring that we arrive on time, know where we are going and participate enthusiastically in each assembly.

Social Media

On a concerning note, I have had reports from some parents that there have been some inappropriate use amongst students of social media platforms including Snap Chat, TikTok, Facebook/Instagram and gaming chats. Whilst these platforms are not accessible at school, parents/guardians are encouraged to take note of the 13 year plus age recommendations for these social media and monitor their child/rens use of these. Staff will be raising awareness of cyber safety within class as well as outlining our rights and responsibilities when using digital technologies.

Neighbours

We have also had several complaints from neighbours in recent weeks about parking across driveways during drop off and pick up times. We gently remind families to be mindful of our local residents during these times.

Enjoy the rest of your week

Richard Buckingham—Principal

eLearning Leaders from last week

In last week’s Newsletter, a list of eLearning leaders were published in the Newsletter. Two names were omitted. We do apologise for not listing these two students as eLearning Leaders—Hannah and Max from Year 3P.

STUDENT OF THE WEEK AWARDS FRIDAY 17TH MARCH

Foundation - Making 9

In Foundation we all have had our mathematician hats on and focused on making models of the numbers.

Students recorded the number 9 in their maths workbook by showing it with their fingers, on a number line, on a dice, in a ten-frame as a digit, as a word and drawing nine objects…making sure to count and check they had the right quantity in their collection.

Year 1 and 2 - Counting Patterns

Caterpillars were crawling everywhere with counting patterns from head to tail.

Year 1 and Year 2 have been focusing on skip counting, noticing patterns and using those patterns to continue the counting sequence.

Year 3 - Shapes are everywhere

In Year 3 we have noticed how regular shapes can be creatively put together to construct many different objects.

Students have been looking closely at regular shapes, naming them and articulating the attributes that make them unique from one another.

Year 4 – Place Value through investigation

In Year 4 we put our knowledge of place value in an investigation. We worked in groups and applied our shared knowledge, skills and understanding to help with reading, writing and the importance of noticing the position of a digit within a number.

We conducted our ‘Candy Crush’ investigation, purchasing pieces that linked to the different place value positions with the aim to achieve the greatest total.

Year 5 - How long? and Converting Units of Measurement

In Year 5 we have been using trundle wheels, measuring tapes and rulers

We measured our heights and the distance our engineered designed paper plane travelled. We worked on recording our results and converting between units of measurement linked to length/distance.

Year 6 – Pizza Toppings

In Year 6, we are starting to bring together the four operations to solve multi-step worded problems. We have discussed how to unpack a question, including working out what it is asking us to do and to identify the operation/s required.

We have explored using different strategies and the importance of identifying relevant and irrelevant vocabulary. You might like to have a go at one of the problems we have explored.

Give the Pizza Toppings problem a go…See how many combinations can you come up with…Talk to someone about your strategy.

Visual Arts - Week 8 - Term One

This week in the Art Room

Foundation

Painting—We are learning how to move paint in different ways. We have used a brush and now we are learning to blow paint through a straw. Our objective is to turn our paint blowing into a fireworks display.

Year One

Collage—We will continue with our weaved paper turtles and add some overlapping paper to the body of our little fellow. The colours we use will be carefully selected to make our collaged turtle look realistic.

Year Two

Painting—We are learning about Indigenous and Torres Strait art and how it is made. We will continue to paint our collaged animal silhouette, using ear buds to print dots onto our art. We will create colour patterns around our Australian Animals.

Year Three

Printing—We will continue our artwork about Cultural Diversity. We will complete our hands and arms by dipping Styrofoam into paint to create texture for our skin. We will use our crate a skin tone match by tinting and shading paint.

Year Four

Textiles—We will begin this week by learning a hand stitch and discuss the importance of it in history. We will sew through two pieces of fabric to create an edge with Blanket Stitch.

Year Five

Painting—We are continuing with out Two Point perspective drawing of a City Corner. This week we will learn how to draw and paint cast shadows, making using tints of one colour.

Year Six

Textiles—This week we will continue with hand sewing but this time we will design and create a pattern to make a simple filled toy. We will remember to indicate the stitch we will use to hand sew the edges of our creation.

JSC Term 1 Fundraiser

Dear Parents/Guardians and WNPS students,

In Week 11, on Thursday 6th April, the last day of term, we will be raising awareness of, and funds for the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal. This famous hospital provides sick children with world class care.

We would love it if all students would bring a gold coin/coins donation to support this very worthy cause.

The JSC would like students to come in Free Dress or Easter Themed Dress on the day. There will also be an Easter bonnet parade in the morning. The Coffee Van would also be in attendance for parents to purchase a coffee and make a donation.

If you would like to find out more about this wonderful charity, or make a more substantial donation, check out the link below.

https://fundraise.goodfridayappeal.com.au/

We look forward to seeing students in their Easter Themed/Free Dress on this very special day!

Thank you

From your Year 6 GM JSC Leaders, Anita and Pippa.

Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge 2023

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the Premiers’ Reading Challenge 2023. Your child should have brought home their unique login details, which can be used to enter their books into the website.

To log on to the Premier’s reading challenge:

· Click on this URL: https://vprc.eduweb.vic.gov.au...

· Click on the VRPC login.

· Complete your child’s log in details.

· Log any books that your child reads.

Number of books students are required to read:

Foundation to Year 2 (Students in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 can read books by themselves or with someone else).

• Number of books: 30

• Number of books from the Challenge book list: 20 or more

Year 3 to Year 9

• Number of books: 15

• Number of books from the Challenge book list: 10 or more

Remember all children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

Year 6 News

The Year 6 students have had a fantastic start to the year and are enjoying being the leaders of the school. We have had a busy, but productive first few weeks with many wonderful things happening in and out of the classroom.

Literacy: The Year 6 Literacy program is a comprehensive unit planned and structured around our class text, Coraline, written by English author Neil Gaiman. The unit integrates all areas of Reading, Writing and Speaking and Listening.

We have almost finished the text and have been discussing the different themes in the novel, including bravery, courage, love, relationships and villains and heroes. Students have been analysing the vocabulary, language features and writing elements used by the author. Students will now have the opportunity to transfer these writing elements to their own fictional narrative pieces that they will be drafting and publishing. Classes will also be viewing the film Coraline, and undertake activities and discussions on the similarities and differences between the film and novel.

Students have also been analysing short passages of texts linked to our Shared Inquiry unit on Health, as well as working on improving their reading fluency during explicit sessions in class and when participating in reading conferences.

Shared Inquiry - Health: This term in Shared Inquiry we are looking at ‘Health’. This week's focus was safety and in particular, physical harm. After a very fruitful discussion about ways you may be injured in various locations, the students were asked to work in groups to create a puppet show about the problems caused by an unsafe environment. The students really enjoyed this task and came up with some entertaining productions in a very short time. Some groups shared their puppet shows in front of their excited audience and there was much laughter to be had, even by the performers themselves!

A comment from Greta 6GM: It was really colourful and funny watching the creativity and plots the groups came up with.

Buddies - In Buddies, we have been working together with the Foundation students to create incredible Easter Bonnets for our upcoming parade on the last day of Term 1. The Year 6 students listened to what type of bonnet their Buddy wanted to make and then supported them in putting together their wonderful creations. We can’t wait for everyone to see what we made with our Buddy! A comment from a few of our students:

Jayde 6J: I like to play games with my buddy.

Tomasz 6KR: It is cool that we can partner up with younger kids because we can help them at school and in the yard. I enjoy being there as a friend when they start school.

Lachlan 6K: Learning how to coordinate with younger students is a fun challenge.

Axel 6J: I like helping my buddy to learn new things and watch him grow.

Book Here https://chessforschools.com.au/

PLEASE NOTE—CHANGE OF DAY FROM FRIDAY TO A TUESDAY

Music Bus lessons starting at Williamstown North Primary School in Term 2!

The Performing Arts Department at Williamstown North Primary School are delighted to introduce The Music Bus program for students to participate in instrumental music lessons from term 2.

For more information on how The Music Bus program is run and the many benefits of instrumental music education, please see attached flyer from The Music Bus and : Watch this Music Bus Information Video

You can visit the website at: The Music Bus Or call them on: 1300 168 742