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Dear parents and carers,
Welcome to Term 3. I trust that everyone has enjoyed a restful and safe holiday period. During this term, we will have many new and exciting events and activities taking place.
Our students have had a settled start to the term and are congratulated on the smooth start to term.
Welcome to Mrs Eastlake who will be working with us during Mrs Best’s leave period.
Professional learning for staff – on Monday, staff travelled to Temora to work with schools from across the Western Region. Ms Sarah Meier and Mr Lachlan Ellis led the day; they are members of our CE support services team. The input was focusing on regulations in relation to policy and guidelines relating to the NCCD, privacy, record keeping and social media. This input was both thought provoking and challenging in asking all staff to reflect on existing practices. There was considerable input about the challenges that are currently being faced by the education, and how we might address these challenges.
Annual Satisfaction Survey - An annual satisfaction survey of parents, students and staff will be conducted on behalf of all Catholic schools in the Diocese this term. The surveys are designed to gather feedback from parents, staff and students about our school and will be used to inform school improvement. Responses are confidential and individuals cannot be identified.
The surveys will be launched via email on Monday July 29 and close on August 9, using the email addresses supplied to the school. If you do not receive an email with a link to the survey, you can access and complete the survey at the following link.
https://www.research.net/r/stjosephsgrenfellparent2019
Please note the link will not be active until Monday July 29.
Open Day – we will be holding an open day on Friday August 16. This is an opportunity for family and friends to visit us at school and spend some time in class with us. Feel free to bring a friend – the flyer for the day is included in this newsletter.
During the first few days of this term, we have been refocusing on - Aspire, Believe, Connect.
These words form the basis of a short phrase/slogan that is an easily remembered way of identifying what we are working towards.
Aspire – to be our best
Believe – that Jesus is with us
Connect – with each other, the world and God
The children have been discussing these words and phrases in their classrooms to ensure that we have embedded a consistent understanding across our school.
During this term, the Western Region principal’s meeting will be held here in Grenfell. This will be a terrific opportunity for us to share our daily work with colleagues from across our region.
Sincerely,
Public Speaking - our public speaking topics for this year have been announced. Children in years Yr. 2/3/4 and Yr. 5/6 will prepare a speech to present to their class. These speeches will be adjudicated and winners will represent us at the inter school event with St Mary’s School Young.
Our Yr. 2 students will prepare a speech for presentation here at school, but will not be participating in the inter school event. This is a fabulous opportunity to begin to develop their public speaking skills.
Topics are as follows:
Stage 2: Speeches will go for 2 minutes with a warning bell at 1minute 30 seconds and at 2 minutes.
Topic for Year 3 is Best Friends
Topic for Year 4 is Good Advice
Stage 3: Speeches will go for 3 minutes with a warning bell at 2 minutes 30 seconds and at 3 minutes.
Topic for Year 5 is Don’t try This
Topic for Year 6 is The View from the Top
The interschool competition with St Mary’s will be held on Tuesday August 20 here in Grenfell.
Sporting Schools sport – this term, our sporting school’s activity is rugby league. We are looking forward to working with Shanika Harpur in the coming weeks. These lessons will take place on our normal Thursday sports day.
Book Week – Book week is coming…
The theme for 2019 is
Reading is my secret power…
Now is the time to start thinking about the Book Character parade and what characters we might be seeing on the day. Remember to bring a copy of the book that your character appears in to the parade.
Life Ed Van – this year’s Life Ed Van visit will take place in late August. More information will be coming home about this visit over the next few weeks.
Library – now is a great time to have a look around at home and return any extra Library books – these could be under the bed, on the bookshelf, on the kitchen table or even in the “to read” pile.
Boorowa Touch Football carnival – we are in the early stages of preparing for the Boorowa Touch football carnival which is set down for October 25. Additional information will be sent home in a separate note.
We will only be attending if we receive enough nominations to make the trip viable.
Changes to routine - Thank you to those families who are keeping us informed when children are absent from school, or there are changes to the regular routine. Please be aware that we are required to keep the rolls up to date and that thorough explanation for absences enable us to do so.
This Gospel reading is a familiar one. We are offered a tangible metaphor comparing our relationship with Christ to a vineyard. Grapevines and vineyards were very culturally and economically significant during Biblical times. People knew how important it was to care for the vineyards, as their lives and livelihoods could depend on it. The difference between a fruitful vine and a vine without fruit meant the difference between life and death, symbolically and literally.
In the analogy, Christ is the vine and we, his followers, are the branches. When considering a grape vine, we know that the branches are where the fruit is found, and the vine is what provides the support and nutrients.
In reflecting on this in my life, I often think about the choices that I make at the grocery store, the quality of fruit matters...doesn’t it? There is a big difference between a green banana and one that is ready to be eaten and enjoyed. Also, the difference between the way a piece of fruit looks and its taste can be quite at odds.
The heart of the matter is, that the quality of our spiritual fruit depends on being rooted in Christ. I often reflect on the quality of the spiritual gifts that I bring to others as a teacher, wife, friend, colleague and mother and am very aware of the need to continue to strive to allow God to bring out my best!
Retrieved and adapted from http://www.catholicsoncall.org/i-am-vine-and-you-are-branches
Welcome to term 3. Each class are investigating fractions. Quite a few students have already learned to accurately fold a strip of paper into thirds and sevenths.
As adults, we use fractions every day - dividing a pizza, telling the time and cutting a birthday cake but most of us have all but forgotten how we came to learn and understand them.
How children are taught fractions
Children understand fractions better when they are used in a real life context such as length, time, money and weight - the way we use them every day as adults. However, children learn fractions better by using models, which give a visual representation.
Area models
'Area models' use coloured shapes to teach fractions. With these, it's easy to see how much of the whole each fraction takes up. A typical exercise might be for children to work out what fraction in each shape is coloured.
A common misunderstanding for children is that the smaller the denominator, the smaller the fraction. For example, children might think that 1/5 is bigger than 1/3 simply because 5 is a larger number than 3.
On the other hand, most children understand that they will get a bigger slice of pizza if it is shared between three people rather than five.
Collections
Using collections of objects is another way of teaching fractions. In a sets based activity, children might be asked to draw a ring around 1/2 of the items in the sets below.
A child who is struggling with understanding fractions might attempt to answer this by cutting each individual shape in half, like this:
It's not wrong exactly, but it indicates that they haven't fully grasped the idea of a fraction as a number in its own right. Lots of exercises using sets can help with understanding this!
Number lines
Number lines help students move on to seeing fractions as numbers that are between whole numbers, and to be able to understand them as a way of talking about time and distance. A typical exercise might be:
So your child has to count how many times each number line has been split up and decide how far along the line the fraction goes.