Term 2 Week 7 2023
- Principal's News by Tracy Egan
- Team Mango We All Belong!
- Prep News by Michelle Alcorn
- Year 1 News by Melinda White
- Year 2 News by Kylie Vaughan
- Year 3 News by Ellaine Warner
- Year 4 News by Danielle O'Brien
- Year 5 News by Emma Crawshaw
- Year 6 News by Ben Mills
- Curriculum News
- Sporting News by The PE Department
Collaboration – Learning Together
Mango Hill SS is involved in a ‘Critical Friends Network’ with a focus of improving writing for students by learning alongside colleagues in other schools, providing feedback and suggestions for improvement.
This week we are hosting over 50 visitors including Principals, Deputy Principals, Heads of Department and teachers from five other schools – Caboolture East SS, Burpengary SS, Moreton Downs SS, Narangba Valley SS and Jinibara SS. They are visiting classrooms and speaking with students about their learning to gauge their level of clarity. Participants have provided us with wonderful affirmations and also suggestions for our next steps to further strengthen this fantastic work.
Our collective work over the past three years has resulted in almost 10% more students across our schools reaching standard in English and almost 15% more students reaching an A or B standard which is a wonderful achievement.
Our ‘Critical Friend Network’ won the Queensland Award for Excellence in the Early and Primary years in 2022. We are thrilled to be recognised for this work and proud of the effort of our staff.
The photos below show students engaged in these Learning Walk and Talks with visitors this week.
2 More sleeps until the Colour Explosion
Our Colour Explosion Fun Run is this Friday 2 June.
This is the major fundraiser for the P & C and all students can participate.
We need all students to start collecting sponsors. All donations should be made online www.myprofilepage.com.au (Please don’t bring in any cash) This event is the P & C major fundraiser so please donate a little.
Once they have sponsors, the children can choose their prize from the booklet (sent home this week). As little as $10 sponsorship allows them to choose a prize. The more donations, the better the prize!
There are other great prizes for the class who raises the most and individual highest fundraiser.
Even if they don’t get sponsors, they can still participate if parents have provided written or online consent. There is no cost to participate.
On the day of the fun run, students should wear a pale coloured shirt and older shorts that they will stay in all day. Please ensure they are old clothes as the colour may not come out.
We look forward to a fabulous event!
Colour Explosion Time Table
Have a wonderful week
Tracy Egan
Principal
tegan4@eq.edu.au
Team Mango You Tube Channel!
Don't forget we now have our Youtube channel up and running. if you can't make it to our 'Chit Chats' clicking on the links below is a great way to stay informed.
Focus of the Week
The Care Class focus that will be delivered this Friday is ‘Reconciliation Week’. This focus continues in the classrooms throughout next week.
Throughout this week and next, students will be participating in activities for Reconciliation Week which has been coordinating by our Cultural Diversity Team. National Reconciliation Week is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.
More information can be found at the following link: https://nrw.reconciliation.org.au/
Prep News
It’s Week 7 already, how quickly has our first semester of Prep gone!
This week our Prep teachers have been starting to reflect on the journey of our Prep friends since their start to school. It is with such joy we look through their books and celebration the incredible progress of their first semester. We love watching them grow, learn and achieve. Some of our reflections and celebrations have been seeing:
- those students who arrived at school not knowing how to recognise their name - now writing sentences with sounds they’ve learned!
- watching our students work together as a team, building positive friendships and learning with and one from another.
- our Prep friends gain confidence in learning and at play.
- our Prep friends who wouldn’t try for fear of failing or not being able to do it - now they are having a go and seeing themselves as learners. What grit and resilience they have shown!
The next couple of weeks are traditionally tough in Prep households as our little ones tire from a big semester. Our top tips are: get outdoors as much as possible as a change of scene really helps, sleep-ins are your friend and remember the positives from the semester and celebrate these with your child. As tricky as it seems, every day counts! For us to help our Prep friends reach their potential we really need them at school, every day (unless they are sick of course). We miss them when they are away.
We’re finishing off our assessments in Prep and we couldn’t be more proud of the growth in learning that we see.
Have a great week
Michelle Alcorn
Deputy Principal- Prep
malco14@eq.edu.au
Comprehension Skills
This term we have been reading lots of picture books and diving deeply into comprehension skills. When we learn to read, we have to learn to decode (crack the code!) and comprehend. If we don’t understand what we are reading, we are “barking at print”. It doesn’t matter how good we sound… the point of reading is to understand the message. Sometimes with beginning readers, the messages are quite simple. “The dog ran away.” That’s why we always incorporate longer, more complicated texts into our English program; to give our students the opportunity to hear and understand more complex texts. When stories are longer, there’s more characters to follow and there’s more hidden details, it takes skill to understand the text.
At Mango Hill, we use the QAR framework when teaching comprehension skills. The main purpose though, is to understand what we read.
We ask a range of questions about texts, not just simple ones. We need students to be able to connect the text to themselves and the text to their world. We need them to be able to “read between the lines” and know what the author is implying, through their language choices. That’s what builds us, as readers and writers!
At home, how can you help?
By listening to and reading stories with your child. Not just stories though! Factual texts and non-fiction texts can often be tricky to comprehend, as they contain new vocabulary we haven’t come across yet. The more we build our understanding of words and use them, the better we are at reading and writing!
Have a great week
Melinda White
Deputy Principal- Year 1
mwhit37@eq.edu.au
Using Mental Strategies to Add and Subtract
Last week the students in Year 2 started their new number unit. They are investigating efficient ways to add and subtract numbers to solve a range of problems.
They are building on their knowledge from Prep and Year 1 and are using part, part whole mats along with number sentences (e.g. 15 + 5 = 20) to show their thinking. They are also using their number fact knowledge to help them solve problems.
Something that is new for our Year 2s, is that they are learning to add two-digit numbers using mental strategies. The first strategy they have been learning to use is the split strategy. The split strategy is a mental calculation method where numbers are 'split' into their place value (tens and ones), making it easier to add them. For example when adding 42 + 35 you can split the numbers up into 40 + 2 + 30 + 5. You can watch this You Tube video to see how the split strategy is used https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYnhxcpLTgY.
Another strategy the students are learning to use is the jump strategy. This is another mental calculation method where students are encouraged to think of a number line. They put the smaller number at the beginning of the number line and then jump up to the larger number using the place value parts. For example when adding 42 + 35 you start at 42 and jump 3 tens for the 30 and jump 5 ones for the 5. Here’s a You Tube video showing the jump strategy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiTHNwCrVeo .
The last of the strategies is the compensate strategy. For this strategy, students add a number to one and subtract from the other later to ensure that the balance remains the same. This strategy is an efficient strategy to use when the numbers are close to a whole ten. For example when adding 37 + 19 you could give 1 from the 37 to the 19 making that 20 then add 36. Here’s a great photo to explain.
Look at these children in 2O and 2C doing a great job adding and subtracting using their strategies.
Have a wonderful week
Learning in Year 3
This week in Year 3, I have had the pleasure of being part of a number of lessons in Math and in English. Year 3 students are super engaged in their learning and are working towards assessment of course. In 3K, students were solving a range of multi-step Math problems, and they had to show and articulate their reasoning as well. Our teachers differentiate for students so that students are facing just the right amount of challenge. It was so rewarding to see the shift in thinking in some students during the lesson. In 3M, students were generating ideas and then selecting the ones that would most lead to creating and sustaining a mood as their character shared it’s thoughts and feelings in their diary entry. 3M used mind mapping. Some classes are also other using thinking routines to really step inside the experience of their character.
Play in Year 3
Parents, thank you for your support as your children, our students, continue to learn how to manage emotions at play time and demonstrate great sportsmanship. Special shout out to all the friends who attend Soccer Club who have been applying your teachings and our teachings at each break.
Date claimers
Will we see you at Colour Explosion this Friday? We can’t wait for our turn running the Colour Explosion course! Other days to put in your calendars are Friday 16 June when Year 3 have their Stay and Play and 21/22 June when the Year 3s participate in their Athletics Carnival (depending on their age). We hope to see you there.
Take care and have a wonderful week
Ellaine Warner
Deputy Principal-Year 3
ewarn23@eq.edu.au
Australia Zoo
All of our Year 4 classes have been attending Australia Zoo this week. The visit to the zoo is aligned with their current HASS unit where students investigate different environments, considering how perspectives shape how we use and care for them. Our students have returned in the afternoon sharing lots of exciting stories about their experiences. Thank you also to the parent volunteers who have attended to support their child’s class.
Mid-Year Concert
In Week 9, Year 4 will perform their Mid-Year concert. I have been lucky enough to observe the dances coming together and they look amazing! You won’t want to miss out on seeing them! During Week 8, classes will have an extra rehearsal to practise their routine in preparation for the concert. I can’t wait to see their performances on the night!
Danielle O'Brien
Deputy Principal- Year 4
dxobr0@eq.edu.au
Stress Responses and Self-Regulation
This year, we are working hard to ensure that our students learn to recognise their own stress responses and how to self-regulate. When we have a regulated body, we are able to learn more efficiently. One of the regulation tools we incorporate into classrooms are Ready to Learn Breaks. These breaks last for only 2-4 minutes and will happen routinely throughout the day to fortify student learning.
Ready to Learn Breaks are student-centred, short-burst regulatory activities that support students to ready the brain for learning. These breaks may be energy-up breaks with movement and action; or a calm-down break like meditation and breathing to de-escalate the energy. In 5V this week it was great to see students engaging in a ‘Beans’ Ready to Learn Break. When Mr Vlieg called out the name of a type of bean, students will ‘act out’ the bean. You can imagine what a classroom full of jellybeans looks like! As soon as the 2 minute break was finished, students returned to their writing and were really engaged in their task. Well done Mr V and 5V!
Emma Crawshaw
Acting Deputy Principal – Year 5
ewils209@eq.edu.au
Learning in Year 6
On Monday I visited 6D to checkout their learning in Maths. 6D were working with Mrs Rintala on collecting, analysing and comparing data sets. It was great to see the inquiry-based approach that 6D took to collecting data from the class, as they trialled different ways to do this accurately. It was an excellent learning experience from the students as they quickly discovered how challenging this can be without a clear process. They went on to compare the data they collected through a side-by-side column graph. I loved seeing the innovation on display from students who used the Numbers app to enter their data and create exciting graphs.
Across the Year 6 classrooms this term, students have been reading the text, Blueback, by Tim Winton, and analysing the text to determine the overall message. As a part of this unit of work, students are writing a text to persuade their reader what Tim Winton’s main message is through the story of Blueback. Students have been learning about the subtle skills of persuasion, include persuasive language features, how to use evidence from the text to support their argument, and sentence structure for effect. It has been incredible to see the growth in the quality of the texts students are producing in this challenging unit of work. I look forward to reading some of their assessment pieces in the next few weeks!
Camp
Although camp feels a while away, it is early in Term 3! Your children will have received additional notes recently regarding medication and dietary requirements. Please aim to return these ASAP so that we can ensure we are organised to support all students to have a successful and safe camp.
Ben Mills
Deputy Principal –Year 6
bxmil3@eq.edu.au
AR Millionaire Readers’ Club!
Wow Avery! Congratulations to Avery on reaching 3 Million words in AR this week. If you are visiting the Hub this week, make sure to have a look for Avery's picture that has been added to our wall.
What's happening in STEM this Term
In Prep our students are learning about what animals and plants need to survive, and made animal enclosures that have food, water, shelter and a big space.
In year 2, students are learning about being safe online and how to be a Safety Superhero, in particular the importance of online chatting, passwords and personal information and listening to your body clues if you feel unsafe.
Please see some photos below.
Have a fantastic week
Suzette Holm, Jessica Rivett
shol0@eq.edu.au
Term 2 PE
Sports Day and Athletics Carnival
In week 10, the Mango Hill State School Sports Day and Athletics Carnival will be held. Attached are the overviews for each day. Please check the relevant document for your child’s event so you aware of the day/day’s they will be competing:
- Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 – Sports Day
- Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 – Athletics Carnival
The overview document includes all information including:
- General Event Schedule
- Timetables
- House Groups
- Age Groups
- Individual Event information
- Points Scoring
- Age Champion
- Food/Canteen
- Spectator Expectations
- District Qualification
Met North Cross-Country Trials
Last week two students from MHSS represented Pine Rivers District at the Metropolitan North Cross-Country trials at Bald Hills. Cloudia (10yr Girls) and Jayda (11yr Girls) would be racing the best cross-country runners from the entire region, which is an extremely high level of competition.
For the first time ever MHSS has a student make the Met North Cross Country team! Not one, but both girls will now compete for the Met North Region at the Queensland School Sport Cross Country Championships in Harvey Bay. Congratulations to Cloudia (5th – 10yr Girls) and Jayda (6th – 11yr Girls) on their amazing runs at the Met North Cross-Country trials. What an astounding achievement.
Interschool Sport (Year 5-6)
A reminder that all Year 5 and 6 students will get the chance to participate in the Pine Rivers Interschool Sports Competition. Students compete against teams from other schools in a variety of sports. The confirmed dates for Pine Rivers Interschool Sport in Term 2 are:
- 9June (Friday Week 8)
- 23June (Friday Week 10)
- 14July (Friday Week 1, Term 3)
* Due to cancellation of week 4 and 6 interschool sport, new dates have been set
Pine Rivers District Sporting Trials (10-12yr Old’s)
Pine Rivers District School Sport offers 10-12 year old students the opportunity to try and make the Pine Rivers District team for a variety of sports. If successful, they compete at Metropolitan North trials and carnivals, with the possibility of selection into teams competing at State events. Students must be nominated by their school in order to attend a district trial or carnival.
District trials are held at various venues within the Pine Rivers District (e.g. Les Hughes Sports Complex) and are not attended by MHSS staff. A Pine Rivers District Coach and Manager will facilitate the trial.
Students who express an interest to trial can collect forms from our PE office. They will be given the Pine Rivers District forms and the relevant trial information. Completed district forms are to be returned to the PE office by the due date. Once the forms are collated, students will be nominated for the trial. Forms are then handed back to students and must then be taken to the coach/manager at the District Trials. Students will NOT be allowed to trial if district forms are not handed in completed. Unless specifically organised by the school, it is the parents’ responsibility to transport students to and from district trials.
Most Pine Rivers District trials are limited to students turning 11 or 12 years of age and who are considered at a high level in the sport e.g. Div. 1 or A Grade. Cross Country, Athletics and Swimming trials however are open for students turning 10, 11 and 12 years of age. Sports that students are able to trial for include the following.
- AFL
- Basketball
- Cricket
- Football (Soccer)
- Golf
- Hockey
- Netball
- Rugby League
- Rugby Union
- Softball
- Squash
- Tennis
- Touch
- Triathlon
Mango Hill can normally nominate up to three students for each district sport trial. If more than three students wish to be nominated Mango Hill will select the three best candidates for the trial. The selection of these students may be either based on past performances/current club form or through a selection trial at school.
If you are interested in your child trialling for Pine Rivers District more information can be obtained from the Mango Hill State School newsletter, with regular trial updates listed. You can also contact Mr Nick Hills - nhill96@eq.edu.au (MHSS PE Teacher) so he is aware of your intention to attend the trial.
Mr Hills & Mr Newell, Miss Richards and Mr Lisha
Physical Education Teachers