Our Barbreck students wore their uniforms with pride for the annual school photographs. Thank you to all families for your support with ensuring our uniform standards.

Our District Swimming Team was recently announced with much celebration. As is becoming tradition, each girl received their personalised swimming cap (thank you Mrs Barr for organising the caps!) before proceeding through the Barbreck Tunnel to cheers of delight by our Barbreck girls. What a lovely way to send our girls off to their Armadale District Swimming competition! Our Swimming Team experienced wonderful results in placing third overall and first in the Population Trophy.

Thinking Lessons

This year we have included a ‘thinking lesson’ into the Barbreck timetable for all girls. The purpose of these lessons is to expose the students to different thinking routines, as well as to teach them complex reasoning processes such as comparing and contrasting, classifying, deductive reasoning … and then to apply them across various subject areas. Over the next few years, as this subject develops, philosophy and ethics will be considered as possible extensions of this learning program.

Developing a deeper understanding of knowledge occurs when students ‘examine and analyse knowledge in a way that helps them make new connections, discover and rediscover meanings, gain new insights and clarify misconceptions’ (Marzano, 1997). For example, learning the concepts of insects and arachnids as classes of animals may provide students with a basic understanding. However, by comparing and contrasting the two, students are encouraged to look more closely at the information and explore it for similarities and differences. This deepens their understanding as students think more deeply about the information by using a complex reasoning process.

For this Semester, I will be teaching Year 4 girls for their Thinking lessons. Our first lesson last week was on the complex reasoning process focus ‘comparing and contrasting’. The students studied the differences between insects and arachnids. With some guidance on what to explore, they began to see that the body structures of insects had similarities across all insects and the body parts of arachnids had similar body parts across all arachnids, but when comparing both they noticed that insects and arachnids had some key differences.

In the next stage, students will be encouraged to develop ways to sort their information and decide on key attributes (categories of information) for comparison. Students will undertake this exercise in pairs and sets of pair, utilising the Think Pair Share thinking routine, where the thinking processes are shared. Eventually a common understanding is established within the group, and the girls learn ideas and processes from each other.

Marzano, R. et al (1997), Dimensions of Learning, McRel, Colorado.

Presentations by Barbreck Reporters

Our reporters this year will have the opportunity to present at each assembly across the following four areas: Academic Learning, The Arts, The Environment and Sport.

This week, Year 6 Environmental Reporter Harper Roberts addressed the girls about nude foods and presented the following posters.

https://www.nudefoodday.com.au/resources/

 Poster 2 below – Thoughts to consider for the week