The Millsy Flyer

Student Success:

We have had wonderful student success for the beginning of this year. Harper and Archie both made the ELM basketball team. We had 16 swimmers compete at the zone swimming competition with Liam competing at the regional finals. Liam has now been successful at making the Hunter team to compete at the State Championships next month! Preston is off to trial for the regional league team, Ava is representing in diving and Charlotte in tennis and cricket, Eddie for cricket, Layken for AFL. Wow! What great sports we have at Warners Bay!

Upcoming Events:

We have lots of events planned for the rest of term including the Easter Hat Parade, our cross country carnival for 8 year olds and over and the Year 6 mini fete.

Harmony Day:

We will be celebrating Harmony Day this Thursday. Students are encouraged to wear a dash of orange.

Our first whole school assembly will be held next Tuesday at 2.00pm in the school hall. Parents are welcome to attend.

NAPLAN:

Students in Year 3 and 5 are sitting the NAPLAN assessments over the next two weeks. The results for the assessments will return to our school and parents in Term 2.

Principal’s Reading Challenge Launch Week:

This week we are launching our Principal’s Reading Challenge! Keep an eye out on our Facebook page for some information. We would like all student to engage in the reading challenge this year!

Cross Country:

Our cross country carnival will be held on Thursday 4 April 9.30am – 11.10am for 8 year old – 12 year old students. Parents are invited to come along to assist on the course as course marshals or to watch from the designated viewing areas. Please sign in at the office on arrival.

Distance to run:

8 and 9 year old category – 2 laps (2 km) Please note: 8 and 9 year old students compete together.

10 year old category – 2 laps (2 km)

11 year old category – 3 laps (3km)

12 and 13 year old category – 3 laps (3km) Please note: 12 and 13 year old students compete together.

External Validation:

Next term, our school will undergo External Validation (EV). This process is where we assess and determine how well we are going in 14 areas across Learning, Teaching and Leading. We have a team of teachers who are currently putting together our evidence package for the EV panel to assess. After EV is complete, we will begin to write our new school plan. There will be consultation with pour community about what needs to be in our school plan for 2025 – 2028.

Attendance:

We are continuing to focus on attendance in our school. Particularly on unexplained and unjustified absences including having the day off for a child’s birthday. A reminder that parents do need to bring their child to the office when a child is late to school.

New mural:

We had a new mural painted in the school holidays on the C Block verandah – it looks amazing! Carlie is currently working on a design for the hall wall and two small designs for the K – 2 COLA area.

Kiss and Ride:

Please remember to drive down to the start of the Kiss and Ride zone when picking up your child from school. It is very unsafe to wait in front of the gate when parents then have to line up behind in the No Stopping zone. Please utilise the whole Kiss and Drop zone.

Kiss and Ride parking zone rules:

The rules for a Kiss and Ride Zone are available on the Lake Macquarie Council website. I have added them here for your reference.

These zones are designed for quick entry and exit and minimise congestion and risk when used properly by all parents and carers. These zones operate under the same conditions as no parking zones, which means you may stop to drop off or pick up children for a maximum of 2 minutes. You’re required to remain in, or within 3 metres of your vehicle.

New Curriculum for Years 3 to 6

This term, our teachers in Years 3 to 6 have been implementing the new syllabus for mathematics, which has involved them learning about and teaching our students some important metalanguage and new strategies to provide them with opportunities to develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of mathematical concepts and a fluency with mathematical processes that helps them to interpret and solve problems.

Here is some of the language our students have been learning about in mathematics:

Partition

Partitioning is dividing a quantity into parts. In the early years it commonly refers to treating whole numbers as made up of two parts (number bonds), e.g. 10 is 8 and 2. 

In later years it refers to dividing both continuous and discrete quantities into equal parts (equi-partitioning) when learning about fraction and division concepts.

Place value system

The place value system has 4 properties: positional, base-ten, additive and multiplicative. 

The place value numeration system is based on two inseparable principles:

• the positional principle – the position of each digit in a written number corresponds to a unit eg hundreds stand in the third place

• the decimal principle – each unit is equal to ten units of the immediately lower order eg one hundred = 10 tens

The importance of strategy choice

The strategies students use to carry out addition and subtraction develop from counting to using known number facts and properties. Some strategies are more efficient than others.

Whether a strategy is appropriate depends on the task or question itself. To be able to select appropriate strategies to add and subtract, students need to be aware that the numbers in a problem influence which methods are easier for that particular problem.

To foster choice and flexibility, students need opportunities to identify different strategies, and what makes them appropriate. Many methods involving addition and subtraction take advantage of one number’s proximity to a multiple of 10 or 100.

Some of the strategies they have been learning are: jump, split, compensation, levelling and constant difference strategies. These strategies are shared using models such as the bar models and number lines.