ICT Talk by Mr Wickham

Stage 3 were very lucky today to receive a visit from our Head of Senior School, Mr Nigel Wickham.  Mr Wickham presented on topics including Cyber Safety, Social Media, Digital Citizenship and our Digital Footprint.  The students were all extremely engaged and learned a lot about staying safe online and being responsible with their use of devices both at school and at home.

One of the more powerful analogies that Mr Wickham presented to the students was the fact that they would never go to bed and leave the front door and windows wide open for anyone to get in.  He likened this to being online, and that privacy settings on apps and devices are incredibly important, they are like 'locking your front door' in order to be safe.

The main points from his presentation included;

• If you would not say something to a person's face, you should not write it online.
• It is actually against the law to take a photo of someone without their permission and post it online
• Your device (phone, iPad, computer, etc) actually belongs to parents, they paid for it and signed all the contracts associated with it.
• Social media has age restrictions of mostly 13 years +
• If /when you do go on social media, remember to 'lock your doors and windows' so that you have control of who can come in.  Use the privacy settings and re-set them every 6 months.
• Always talk to your parents if anything makes you uncomfortable - take a screenshot and show your parents or teachers.

The students had some good questions for Mr Wickham, mainly around the use of apps.  I have included below a link icon to an excellent site that helps parents and children navigate the appropriateness of content.  It is called Common Sense Media, and it gives you reviews from parents and from children, and details of what the app offers.  It is certainly worth reading up about any app your child might ask you to buy.

Please do ask your child about their session with Mr Wickham today.  As you know from the ICT Agreements that came home over the last two days, we take student online safety and responsibility very seriously at school.  We want all students to use their devices to enhance learning, and to use them safely at all times.

Drought Relief Fundraising - Talk about this as a family - let's make a difference together!

Our First Fundraising Event Flyer!

Welcome to the Learning Hub in 2019

Welcome to the Learning Hub in 2019

The Year 6 class visit the Learning Hub (library) on a Tuesday this term.

Our goal is to encourage a love of literature and the children will be engaged in a wide range of reading material covering various themes connecting with family, the community and the world.

Students begin with ‘learning to read’, followed by ‘reading to learn’ - please encourage your children to read every day. Library bag are required for borrowing to protect the books.

The 2019 Premiers Reading Challenge (PRC) is being launched on 4 March 2019 and students in Year 4-6 are encouraged to read 20 x books, on their own, in order to be recognised by a PRC certificate.

You can find the book lists here: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/booklist/home.html.

Happy reading!

Leading by Example

In Year 6 we have talked a lot about leadership and responsibility.  I have been reminding my fabulous class how important it is to lead by example, and that all the younger students do look at us for 'what to do and what not to do'.  This makes it really important how we present ourselves.

Mrs Bennett shared a uniform reminder with the students at Assembly this morning, in regards to appropriate earrings. It's always great at the start of the year to check the 'little items' as well as the big. Here is a list of a few items for which there will  be reminders over the next couple of weeks.  

Girls:

Hair must be tied back if longer than the shoulders. Only navy blue or black hair elastics may be worn.

Hair ribbons – School ribbons only; white with Summer uniform, blue with Winter uniform.

Earrings are to be either plain gold or silver ball studs (No coloured /shiny stones, patterns or designs).

Nail polish is not to be worn to school.

Boys:

Hair is required to be off the collar and not falling in eyes or tucked behind ears.

This is a bit of a 'heads up' for us as Year 6.  Let's be ready with all of this in place, so that when it is mentioned at lines, we are already showing the best possible examples of presentation for the younger years.  

Parents, I just wanted to let you know that this was happening so that you can best support your children in rising to the expectations of leadership - thank you.

Week 3 Update

This week in Science we have enjoyed learning about the scientific method, and investigating states of matter.  Firstly we looked at some common types of matter and identified some properties of each sample through observation, then made a decision about whether it was a solid, liquid or gas. 

Later we looked at an M&M as a solid, and followed standard scientific method to investigate some properties of an M&M.  Did you know that even though a whole M&M is solid, only the outer shell is soluble?  Ask your child what experiment we conducted to discover this property of semi-solubility.

I have attached some photos below of our experiments, some shots of basketball at lunchtime and some of our first week of Spelling Partner Testing.  I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Parent Information Night Presentation

Please find below the slides from the presentation on Monday night for parents.  There have been some requests for copies of these slides, so I thought I would share with everyone.  Thank you for your interest and attendance on Monday. 

Warm regards,

Mrs Cutmore

Place Value Game

Click on the link below to access a fabulous place value strengthening game.  Use those reasoning and noticing learning muscles to get to your target number!

Place Value Target Game

Classwork Week 3 - Science - for completion in class

SCIENCE: Changing States

SO WHAT IS MATTER?

• Use the below clips to record a definition for the term 'Matter' in your Science books.
• Please also attempt to write a definition for each of the 3 states of matter: Solid, Liquid & Gas in your books.

Note: These definitions should be in your own words and you should be able to explain them in person without reading your definitions. 

Classwork Week 3 - for completion in class Square & Triangular Numbers

Watch the video below and pause it at 6 minutes 45 seconds to answer the following questions:

TRIANGULAR NUMBERS:

1. Why are they called triangular numbers? 
2. How many gifts would I receive on the 12th day of Christmas?

Now continue watching the clip to the end of the video and answer the following questions:

SQUARE NUMBERS:

1. Why are they called square numbers?
2. What is the square root of 49?
3. What are all the square numbers up to 12 squared? Please record each like this: 

NOTE: Your responses should be recorded neatly in your Maths journals

Wow! What a Week 2!

This week we started our Reading Groups, discussed our Science topic, had our first Christian Studies, Spanish and Music lessons for the year, and of course had the years 3-6 Swimming Carnival.

I couldn't be prouder of how Year 6 led by example at the pool, cheering on their houses and friends, going in many races and helping younger students get where they needed to be.  Bravo for a great start to being school leaders!  A special mention to our House Captains Liv, Jaden, Jake and Tia for a wonderful day of fun and for leading so well. (Kudos to Jake who swam as an example even though he wasn't 100% - there's resilience in action!)

And congratulations to Jaden and Macarthur house for winning the overall carnival.

We also had a lovely time this afternoon with our Kindy Buddies.  The Year 6 students showed the Kindy students how the Spheros work.  The Kindies were delighted at the rolling robots, and Year 6 were delighted at the Kindy reactions.  It was an excellent start to this ongoing mentoring relationship that builds over the course of this year.

Here are some photos of our time in class, the Kindy buddy session and the Swimming Carnival.  I hope you enjoy them.