Friday 7 th February 2020 Welcome Mrs Maciver! We are thrilled to welcome Mrs Carol Maciver to our teaching team this year, as she takes on the Year 3/4 class on a Friday (Mrs Shore’s day off). Mrs Maciver did some prac teaching here a few years back and spent last year teaching at Young Public and St Mary’s. She comes with a wealth of world experience and some fluent Spanish to boot! Mrs Maciver will be assisting with Scripture and Kitchen Garden, and teaching Science, History and Geography to the lucky middle grades. A Massive Thank You To Rolf! This week we said goodbye (at least at school) to our wonderful General Assistant Rolf Rotzler. Rolf has been with us for a few years now, taking care of maintenance and gardening, and boy is that a busy job! With so much work of his own and family members to take care of and assist, Rolf just could not fit us into his busy schedule any longer. He has been a wealth of knowledge and a hard worker and we will miss him around the place on a Monday. Dick Galvin has taken on the role of General Assistant, having been a part time employee doing some other maintenance tasks over the years. We see that Gina already has a huge list for him and we are sure that he is going to be a great addition to our school team.
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Friday 7th February 2020 · 2020-02-10 · Friday 7th February 2020 Welcome Mrs Maciver! We are thrilled to welcome Mrs Carol Maciver to our teaching team this year, as she takes
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Transcript
Friday 7th February 2020
Welcome Mrs Maciver!
We are thrilled to welcome
Mrs Carol Maciver to our
teaching team this year, as
she takes on the Year 3/4
class on a Friday (Mrs Shore’s
day off). Mrs Maciver did
some prac teaching here a
few years back and spent last
year teaching at Young Public
and St Mary’s. She comes
with a wealth of world
experience and some fluent
Spanish to boot! Mrs
Maciver will be assisting with
Scripture and Kitchen Garden, and teaching Science, History and Geography to the lucky
middle grades.
A Massive Thank You To Rolf!
This week we said goodbye (at least at school) to our wonderful General
Assistant Rolf Rotzler. Rolf has been with us for a few years now, taking care
of maintenance and gardening, and boy is that a busy job! With so much
work of his own and family members to take care of and assist, Rolf just could
not fit us into his busy schedule any longer. He has been a wealth of
knowledge and a hard worker and we will miss him around the place on a Monday.
Dick Galvin has taken on the role of General Assistant, having been a part time employee
doing some other maintenance tasks over the years. We see that Gina already has a huge list
for him and we are sure that he is going to be a great addition to our school team.
Swimming Lessons
The kids have been sensational
this week, really giving it their all
at swimming lessons in Boorowa.
Mrs Shore organized some great
activities and drills for all of the
different skill levels and the
teachers were pleased with the
progress that the students all
made.
Some of our tiniest students blew
us away with their confidence
and skill in the water, keeping
Mrs Mitchell well and truly on her
toes!
Mrs Richens pushed the top
students hard to build their
stamina and we were thrilled to
have some willing parent
volunteers along to give advice
and support. Thank you! Mrs
Shore worked on stroke correction and diving skills and we
are confident that all of the students are going to give it
their all at the Swimming Carnival on Tuesday.
On that note, Kindergarten and Year One students will
attend school as per normal on Tuesday. Year Two and
above will meet us at the Young Swimming Pool by 8.50am
for the start of the carnival at 9.00am. Please
remember to bring sunscreen, a towel, a hat, water
bottle and food. Parents are invited to wear red to
support the team.
At this stage we are still having swimming lessons
on Monday afternoon as planned, but that will be
dependent on the weather. I am sure that we will
all trade swimming lessons for some much needed
rain if need be.
Lower Division Report
With three days of swimming lessons and a full five day school week, we suspect that there
will be a lot of exhausted Lower Division students this week!
Lower Division started their first formal literacy lessons this week, learning their first Jolly
Phonics sounds and tricky words. Each day we have been focusing on a new sound and word
and practicing both in so many different ways, including singing, actions, tracing, writing,
worksheets, drawing and of course chatting.
Students also received their homework this week. If you have any questions or queries about
your student’s homework, please don’t hesitate to ask Miss Whitechurch to clarify. Homework
for Lower Division will be sent home on Monday and is to be returned Friday please.
Last Friday, K-2 completed their first KLA unit day. We focused on Earth’s natural resources in
Science where we searched the school for Earth’s treasures. We then returned to the
classroom to sort and classify our findings. We had some great conversations about which
objects should go into which categories. Is bark a part of the “Earth, soil and rocks” category or
the “living things” category? We decided although bark is not alive, it comes from a tree,
which is a living thing. Same with a feather. Students also realised that it was quite difficult to
collect air and wind. “We don’t need to collect air because it is all around us, it is already on
the paper!”
We also started our Geography unit which will focus on the places people live. We talked
about our own homes and compared them with other types of homes, identifying the
similarities and differences. How is your home similar and different to a house boat, a caravan,
a castle, a high-rise building?
Middle Division Report
What an exhausting week at school! Mrs Shore has been busily organising swimming lessons
and is so proud of the achievements that all the student have made this week, not just those
in middle division. I think there might be some rather tired people at Murringo this weekend –
teachers and students alike! Looking forward to some good swims at the swimming carnival on
Tuesday. GO MURRINGO!
In class we have been working towards completing spelling assessments after completing our
maths assessments last week in record time. We have looked at some of the questions that we
might encounter in NAPLAN later this year or next year for our Year 2 students.
Also I must apologise, homework will start NEXT WEEK and Class Dojo letters will also come
home with it, not this week as I said in last weeks newsletter.
Mrs MacIver also worked with the students last Friday which they loved and all had their first
Kitchen Garden experience and everyone tried the pita chips, some students moving a long
way out of their comfort zone to do this!
***************** Reach for the stars, Middle Division. ***********
Upper Division Report
Phew, we managed to fit a lot in this week! The students in Upper Division have been plowing
through their pre-assessments that we are kicking the year off with. It is very important that
we don’t waste time teaching students what they already know, and pre-testing is the only
way to find that out! They have almost completed their Essential Assessment maths tests,
which show us where they are starting at this year on all strands of Mathematics. We will do
some of these tests again halfway through the year before school reports, and the whole lot
again at the end of the year, to see what growth the students have achieved.
Students have also spent a lot of time spelling, so that we can find a list of 100 words for every
student to work on for the term. These need to be words that they don’t already know how to
spell and some of these kids are making that VERY DIFFICULT because of their awesome
spelling skills. Some students now have their list and can move on next week but some
students still have some more testing to do.
Last week we started our Science unit on the Solar System, learning about how it began and
exploring the concept of ‘conservation of angular momentum’ to explain the phenomena.
There were lots of great questions being asked and the students really enjoyed their
experiment, trying to make a ‘tornado in a bottle’.
We also started our History unit on Australian Federation and were blown away by the
number of changes that happened to the map of Australia between 1788 and 1989 (the year
of the last change). Did you know that at one point we had a ‘Central Australia’ or that there
are actually three territories – Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay?
Our Geography unit is all about bushfires, so we spent time reflecting on what happened in
Australia over summer, how it made us feel and how people responded.
Kitchen Garden Program
Year 3 and 4 had a great time in the Kitchen and Garden last week,
with a return to our program. They made some Herb Pita Crisps and
some Tzatziki and it was delicious. Thanks to the gardeners and Mrs
Mitchell, who sweated it out in that horrendous heat to get some work
done in our poor vege garden.
Well done to Declan and Harry
who tried the food, despite having
some reservations.
Madagascar
If anybody is interested in joining the cast of Madagascar
Jnr, in the Young Regional School of Music production this
term, please see Mrs Neville or give YRSM a call. It is a lot
of fun and the show is going to be Crack ‘a’ Lackin!
Mental Adventurer
Well done to our
‘Mental Adventurers’
this week. These kids
have shown grit and determination to take on some
challenges that took them out of their comfort zone, which
was noticed by their teachers and was awarded with a White Card today on assembly.
Malayah has really stretched herself to focus so well on her assessments this week in Upper
Division. Declan and Brock have both been identified as really stretching themselves and
being willing to make mistakes in Middle Division and Cooper really overcame some fears in
the pool. Great job guys!
Scripture
Thank you to Cristina for returning as our Scripture Teacher
for Years 3 to 4 again this year. We really appreciate your
efforts each week!
In this newsletter I would like to send my ‘shout
out’ to Mrs Mitchell. She has been with us for
many years at Murringo (after I ‘stole’ her from Early Intervention) and has made herself
indispensable during this time. Mrs Mitchell has seamlessly moved between the teacher
and the teacher’s aide role so many times her head must spin. This year is no different,
with our very talented teacher taking on both roles again and being incredibly flexible
with her timetable to accommodate the school needs. We love you Mrs Mitchell!
Around The
School Today …
Term One Calendar
We have included the dates that we know about at this stage. When there are new dates added, they will be
in red. Please mark these dates on your calendar or put this calendar in a prominent spot at home, so that