Thargomindah State School eNewsletter

Principals Report

Welcome to Week 6! It's hard to believe we only have 4 weeks left of this term.

We have been very busy at Thargomindah State School over the last few weeks.

The year 3 & 5 students successfully completed their NAPLAN online tests for this year. Well done to Savannah, Charlize, Hailey and Mason on completing your 4 NAPLAN tests and for working hard to achieve your best results.

Last Wednesday, we were lucky to have a visit from Toby Adams and some Kullilli Elders. Toby took the time to show our students how to make a Coolamon (hand-held carrying vessel). Toby found a tree in our school grounds that would be perfect for making a coolamon. Students were very engaged and showed a keen interest in the making process. We now have a scar tree near our sports shed and we were also lucky enough to keep the coolamon which is now on display in the administration area.

Last Thursday, we had a visit from Toowoomba based, RAVA theatre productions. RAVA were in Thargomindah to present Charlotte's Web at the Shearer's Shindig. It was so wonderful that these performers could come to our school to run drama and dance workshops. All students enjoyed this experience and it was fantastic to see so many students watching Charlotte's Web at the Shindig on Friday morning. I'm sure you will all agree it was a highly entertaining perfomance that the students (and adults!) really enjoyed.

This Wednesday (Week 7), we have the RACQ Streets Ahead road safety program being delivered to our Prep to Year 6 students. The workshop session will take place from 10.00am to 11.00am and will focus on pedestrian, passenger and rider safety.

On Thursday the 9^th of June (Week 8), students and staff from Eulo, Eromanga, Wyandra and Morven State School will be joining us for a “Small Schools are Great Schools” Day. Students will be taking part in a range of games, sports and activities while the staff will be working together during Professional Development workshops. This day should prove to be highly beneficial and enjoyable for both students and staff.

Over the last few weeks we have made some slight changes to our morning bell times. This does not have any impact on learning time. The change has been made to ensure safety of our students and limit students in classrooms without supervision. Although teachers and teacher aides may be at school early they are not required to supervise students as they are usally spending this time preparing for lessons or meeting with staff or parents. Please note supervision of students does not commence until 8:15am and students are not to be in classrooms before 8:30am. Lower students can still drop their bags off in their classrooms and head out to play when they arrive. Please see the below flyer for further explaination.

A big congratulations to all of the certificate recipiants! Students have really been working hard over the past few weeks now that learning is returning to some form of normality.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Warmest regards,

Joel

K-2 Class Report

We’re back for another fortnightly newsletter!

Hello everyone, and I hope you’ve all had a restful and well last couple of weeks. This last fortnight we have finally got the students back into some normality in their learning and routines as most children have gotten over their first (of no doubt many) waves off illness. This last fortnight has seen the K-2 class learning their Auslan performances to be presented at the end of the term and learning the lyrics to songs for our end of year production “Into the Jungle”. I am always very grateful for the opportunity to get the students up and moving, singing, dancing – doing something other than having them seated at their desk for hours on end. In partnership with this it is always a positive reinforcer to have learning partnered with physical movement and sign. I have found that for the younger students this always yields positive results in their working memory.

This last fortnight in English we have been focussing on the story features of a traditional Japanese tale “The Tiny Samurai”. Aspects of story features are the characters, setting, story plot, conflict and resolution. Something interesting we learnt from this story is the way traditional housing worked for people living in Japan and how they are different to what our housing looked and looks like. Also, what was noticeable different was the environment in which the characters lived. In “The Tiny Samurai”, Issu, the main character, lived in the countryside on a farm. For him to travel to the palace, he had to sail a boat up a small river with mountains towering over either side. Compared to where the children live, here in Thargomindah, we don’t see plains of bright green grass, or towing mountains either side of our river. This led the inquiry towards what their native trees look like compared to ours and what foods they eat in comparison to us also.

In maths these last couple of weeks, we have finally finished off our time unit of work and the assessment for that has been finalised. We are now moving into the next unit of work which is focussing on chance and probability. Already, I have seen an incredible response of positivity coming from the students in their willingness to learn and enjoy the activities that are part of this learning. This will continue into the next week and alongside this chance and possibility unit, we will also be finalising our number and algebra assessments.

Term two is always a tricky term with the number of public holidays and local events that occur. On top of this year-round, we have had a lot of children ill and out with COVID. So, this has put a huge dampener on our ability to gain traction with the learning. Aside from this, I am very happy with the way my class has held themselves and their ...somewhat... rollercoaster attention to learning. We will attempt to finish our assessments a week or two earlier than terms one and three as we have report card writing to have completed and to be sent home in week ten.

Thanks everyone, and lets bunker down for the next few weeks of school!

Bye for now,

Miss T

Kindy Recap

Welcome back kindies!

After a brief step back from coming to school due to the dreaded Corona Virus, we have welcomed back our two kindy girls with open arms. Mia and Sophie came back to school full of energy and ready to rumble. As part of this term’s kindergarten focus they are investigating traditional tales. What we have been learning about traditional tales is that they are from long ago, they generally do not have an author and they are stories that are very popular. This fortnight in kindy the children were exposed to traditional tales from Indigenous Australians. Some books from the Dreaming that we have read are ‘How the kangaroos got their tails’, ‘How frogmouth found her home’, ‘The echidna and the shade tree’, and more. All these stories were investigated through the Age Appropriate Pedagogies framework with a particular focus on scaffolded learning with a creative aspect over the top. We recognise that it is important to expose the children to different texts including those that are Australian and those that have a variety of illustrations. From the reading of these texts, discussions open about the way a story is told, or the manner in which the illustrations have been portrayed. Also, from this, we can relate what we see in real-life and how we can mimic or attempt to re-create events from the story.

Some active play opportunities that arose from the reading of these stories was the re-creation of story events by using play dough to make the characters, creating a ‘mini-world’ using trays and little animals’ figurines, painting that relates to animals the story. Included in the kindergarten curriculum is the opportunity for children to be exposed to multiple languages, signs and sensory experiences. The rich learning that can be achieved through the reading of Aboriginal Dreaming stories is achieved by engaging in the above activities, but also by learning what the different words mean. For example; one of the localised Aboriginal languages used in ‘No way Yirrikipayi!’ is “pika” and the children learnt that “pika” means “horse”.

Next week kindy students will engage in more rich-learning experiences through the guidance of stories and song. They will get more chances to dance, sing, make symbols in different sensory materials (sand, glitter, mud, slime), and make art using rocks, paint and sand.

We are grateful for the opportunity to guide, teach and watch our kindy kids learn and grow this term in the K-2 space and we look forward to another two weeks of fun!

Miss T & Miss M

3-6 Class Report

Welcome to week 6 of Term 2! We are already over halfway through the term and we are finally starting to get some traction with student learning and teaching. With so many interruptions, we have had to be flexible and make it work with the few students who have been well enough to attend school of late. We have been excited to have everyone back on deck over the last two weeks which has been great!

This week in science we have been continuing to look at the plants that we planted at the start of the term. Some of them have grown a considerable amount, while others are yet to sprout. We are taking photos to show the growth of our plants and to compare the different locations that we planted them in. The plants that were planted outdoors in the garden beds are overall performing better than the plants that we planted inside the classroom. We are exploring the different reasons for the different growth rates in our coming lessons.

In HASS this term we are exploring the different levels of government in Australia and the impact of federation on the country. We have been discussing the different levels of government this fortnight and the people who are in control of each level. We will be further exploring this concept more over the coming fortnight, including a little bit of role-play.

In English, students have been engaging with many different texts from around the world. Our focus is folk tales and the morals of these different stores. So far, we have covered – The Wishing Fish (a story from China), Cinderella (An English story), The Tiger, the Rabbit and Chung-Ho (A Korean story) and The Rainbow Serpent (A Dreaming story). Students have discussed in detail the characters, their human qualities, the moral of the different stories and the structure of each story.

This term is going so quickly, it’ll be assessment time again before we know it.

Until next fortnight,

Ms Morgan