Year 6 Students Visit Canberra

It was a privilege to visit the Year 6 students in Canberra and listen to their stories about the trip.

The itinerary, so carefully planned and well organised by Year 6 teacher Ms Sandra Ching, was filled with a busy schedule of places of high interest and maximum learning opportunities. The trip meets the Year 6 curriculum requirement to study “the Australian Government system, to take on real meaning and relevance for students”. 

I met the students after their tour of Parliament House and joined them for the visit to the Royal Australian Mint. The itinerary also included some opportunities to relax and enjoy time in a variety of ways.

Applause to the students, all frequently remarked upon by personnel at each of the places on the tour, as being “beautifully behaved” and “credits to their families and School”.

Many thanks to Ms Ching for her outstanding coordination of the trip and also to accompanying staff Mrs Mary Karvounaris, Mrs Jenny De Nardis, Ms Georgina Stride and Mrs Susan Duffy.

It is a huge responsibility to take students away to camp and a very large undertaking to take students interstate. The care for each individual was, as always, outstanding. The Year 6 students will long remember the trip.

Year 1 Students Explore Math Strategies

Which strategy will I use? This is a question often asked by Year 1 students when trying to decide which will be the most effective strategy in solving an addition or subtraction problem. First, students are asked to identify keywords such as ‘in all’ or ‘difference’. This requires students to make meaning of the problem. Then, they can choose their strategy: counting on and back, adding and subtracting with Friends of Ten, doubles and near doubles. They practise verbalising their chosen strategy to further develop their understanding. 

Number bonds are always used in our classroom to help us with any addition and subtraction problem. We have been using these to work out the difference between two objects. Which item has more, which one has fewer and by how many?

In this situation, the number bond clearly shows there is a missing number to be found. Lots of thinking and definitely many strategies are used to solve our mathematical problems!

In 13 – 7, I use Friends of Ten. I split up the 13 into 10 and 3 because I cannot take away 7 from 3 ones. Then 10 – 7 is 3. I add this to the 3 ones and the answer is 6. – Scarlett Bertalli

In 13 – 7, I use near doubles. I know that double 7 is 14 so I take away 1 to get my answer 13. – Serena Ma

In 13 – 7, I use a number line to count back from the whole number to try and find the missing number. When I count back 7 spots, I land on 6. I can also count on from 7 and stop at 13. – Zara Barr

When I am looking at two numbers, I use the crocodile mouth to find out the biggest number. The crocodile likes to eat more food so he always faces the bigger number. – Portia Carosa-Koziora

Mrs Lola Ballis

Year 1 Teacher

100 Days of Prep

Congratulations to our Prep students who celebrated 100 Days of Prep on Thursday 2 August.

It was a wonderful celebration filled with stacking towers over 100cm, building structures with 100 blocks, working as a team to construct paper chains with 100 links and threading 100 beads to make their very own necklaces. We wore our special 100 headbands, which we created ourselves to mark the occasion.

To add to the celebrations, we had a visit from the local CFA who showed us their fire truck and allowed us to not only explore inside the truck, but also gave each student a ride in the cherry picker. Mrs Bourke and I loved seeing the excitement on the girls’ faces.

We took a trip down memory lane and said a quick hello to the ELC students. This was a time for the girls to reflect on just how far they have come.

At the end of such a lovely day, each Prep student received a certificate from Mrs Moor and the girls enjoyed eating their hundreds and thousands chocolate buttons that they created in STEM with Miss Flint. 

The celebrations did not stop there! At our very first assembly in the new Barbreck, the students, accompanied by the wonderful Mrs Dods, sang a very special tune and hosted their own morning tea to celebrate with their families. The received a gift from SCOGA, their very own bag tags. We were very lucky to have them presented by SCOGA President, Mrs Chrissy Ryan.

Happy 100 Days, you did an amazing job!

Miss Annie Taylor

Prep Teacher

Lunch Orders and Money Owed

Please note, any money which is outstanding for lunch orders will need to be settled through the Flexischools payment system. This system provides greater efficiency and ease in paying any outstanding amounts. The Junior School office will no longer collect money but they will still contact parents before sending girls to the Café, to seek permission for your daughter to purchase lunch if she has left it at home.

When logging in to Flexischools, you will be notified of any amounts owed and receive instructions for making a payment.

If you have any questions regarding the process, please contact Flexischools directly or the Junior School office.