Primary School - Year 3 & 4

Year 3 Program (Mrs Susan Whiston)

In Mathematics, students viewed engaging, entertaining videos demonstrating different computation strategies to use for addition, subtraction and looked at the relationship between multiplication and division. It was pleasing to see strategies being implemented and skills practised in their tasks.

Students developed their literacy skills in collaboration with other subjects. They produced a Scientific Informational Report on life cycles, a Narrative in the Indigenous storytelling style, and a Brochure reflecting their own community and how it had changed over time. They also used their comprehension skills to develop Fable recounts.

It was pleasing to see how students’ language developed after viewing their English course videos. Implementing skills into writing such as their “Dreamtime story”. Below are some examples of students developing their editing by incorporating adjectives and adverbs while considering setting and character development.

‘ … wandering around when he stumbled across...’

‘... a beautiful Autumn day in the dry Australian bush.’

‘... when he approached the lake, he was suddenly attacked by a starving crocodile.”’

‘... his huge wings fell onto the dry sandy soil.

‘Long, long ago in the steamy wet season, located in the middle of Kakadu lived a beautiful Emu called Evie.’

In Health and Physical Education lessons, students were immersed in The Bounce Back program that teaches skills and attitudes that help you to keep going when things are hard (that is called resilience!). This is aimed to help them learn how to meet life's challenges and grow stronger.

Year 4 Program (Mrs Susan Whiston)

What a blessing our new courses have been for students. It has been incredible to hear the positive comments from students who were with us last year, and the ease they found following the daily lessons.

With daily engagement in Bible study, students demonstrated their thorough understandings in weekly quizzes. Students were able to see the truth of Christianity through the teaching and miracles of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John.

Through integrated English/Science lessons, students described relationships that assist the survival of living things and sequenced key stages in the life cycle of a plant or animal through writing Information Reports.

In History lessons, students researched an explorer that had a significant impact on Australian settlement. Students wrote a Narrative style recount based on their chosen explorer, created timelines of significant events and mapped the journey around the continents, labeling important places on the journey.

Within comprehension lessons, students looked in depth at the text, ‘Eliza Bird which was’ set in 1786 in London. This story was about life as an orphan child becoming a convict at nine years of age. Lessons were designed for students to develop empathy with the main characters Eliza and Tom, as they survived being transported on a ship to New South Wales, then hard labour in Australia. Students developed punctuation skills through explicit instruction and demonstrated these in their Narrative Writing, to reflect their understanding of what it was like in the 1700’s, from a child convicts perspective.

In Mathematics, it was pleasing how students transferred their knowledge of the four way relationship between addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to understanding of factors and fractions.

Year 5 Program (Mr Rick Shingles)

In English, the students focused on a wide variety of skills including reading comprehension, spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and parts of speech. These core skills were further developed and assessed through a series of integrated units. These units included a Scientific Information Report on ‘Catching and Keeping a Crayfish as a Pet’, a Historical Narrative about life in early settlement in Australia, an Oral Literacy Recount from the perspective of a child on the Goldfields and a Factual Description of the student’s favourite musical artist or band.

In Maths, the students solved problems using all four operations with whole numbers and they selected appropriate strategies to assist with counting numbers of any size. They worked through factors, multiples, estimation and rounding and they explored decimal and unit fractions on a number line. Students explored units of measurement for length, area, volume, capacity and mass, and they learnt to calculate the perimeter and area of rectangles. Student’s also learnt how to interpret different data sets and pose questions to gather data, and construct meaningful data displays.

In the other subjects, the students focused on their personal core values and how these values can help them live a life of integrity and they explored why, as Christains, it is important to read and study the Bible. Students also developed the basic skills needed for the sports of soccer and cricket.

Year 6 Program (Mrs Carryn Lagesse)

Term 1 has been a busy but great term for the Year 6 class. It has been wonderful to see that the students have been working hard and showing their skills and knowledge of the concepts taught through their work.

In English, the students focused on vocabulary and understanding their definitions, writing sentences using specific vocabulary and learning about various punctuation and parts of speech to assist their writing. They developed comprehension and writing skills which were integrated with the other subjects. To assess their comprehension and writing skills, the students wrote a writing piece on a fortnightly basis. These included a Scientific Information Report, a Historical Narrative, an Oral Literacy Recount and a Review of the song called “Riptide.”

In Maths, the students solved problems involving all four operations with whole numbers. They worked through addition and subtraction of fractions with common denominators and learnt how to create simple, equivalent fractions. Students also located fractions on a number line. They calculated the length and area of shapes. In data, they interpreted and compared a variety of displays including those displays for two categorical variables.

In the other subjects, they journeyed through the steps Australia took to be a Federation and the important people involved, they read a novel called “Strike,” investigated biomes and how animals and plants adapt to their environment; and most importantly they learnt the Books of the Old and New Testament while exploring and listening to some of those stories.

Introduction of ‘The Meeting Place’ Groups

At the beginning of Term 1, we launched ‘The Meeting Place’ groups to help our students develop a greater sense of belonging and deeper connection within the ODE (Online Distance Education) community. These groups provide students with the opportunity to interact with their teachers and peers via Teleconferences, Friendship groups, Interest Groups and Discussion Posts and Forums on a regular basis.

Introduction of the updated Years 3-6 Curriculum Program

Our Year 3 to 6 students have been engaged in our updated Curriculum Program this term, and the feedback has been wonderful. We would like to thank all students and home supervisors for their enthusiasm and support for the new program, and for their patience with the teething problems we experienced in the first week of term. Fortunately, the new Program has been humming along smoothly ever since and we have been encouraged by the quality of work that our students have been submitting.