Term 3 Week 9 2021

Year 3 News

What a convincing group of students we have in Year 3! This week I’ve had the pleasure of seeing our students participate in activities to support their speaking and listening unit. As a part of the unit, students are required to participate in a class debate and share an opinion. In 3L, students were developing a list of high modality words, as they listened to a story read by Mrs Langman. Students in 3R were practising their use of high modality words by writing their opinion on a given topic. It was great to see students carefully crafting their sentences by adding or changing key words to make their opinion more convincing.

Using the Third Teacher (the learning walls) in our classrooms continues to be a strong focus for students across our school. This week I observed a lesson in 3E where students were using examples on their learning wall to self-asses and see if their responses were 3 or 4 stars. Similarly in 3T, students completed a task where they compared fractions and justified their thinking. They then used the learning wall to determine whether their response was a 3 or 4 star level. It is fantastic to see our students independently using this resource as they strive to improve.

Gigum Arts Fest

What an exciting week it is for our school to celebrate the Arts! All week we’ve had our classes and their parents viewing the artworks in the new Gigum Hall. Our students are incredibly proud of having their own artworks on display and have been impressed at the talented work of their peers across the school.

As we celebrate the Arts this week, we also have some exciting lunchtime clubs on offer. It was great to see so many of the Year 3 students getting involved in these clubs during the week.

Writing in Year 4

Our Year 4 students have taken pride in their writing progress this whole term.  I want to share some excerpts of their writing with you …

“Bitna was as bossy as an Asian Black Bear.” (Olivia)

“Meanwhile, in a crowded loud village far away there was a senseless man who was as weak as a poor humming bird with a broken wing.” (Sasha)

“Feeling great, Kenji walked to Mount Fuji.  His footsteps were so loud. CLOMP! CLOMP! CLOMP! But then, he saw a bright blue body of beautiful water.  Yes, it was pretty, but Kenji didn’t know how to get across.” (Bryce)

“But Haruto was the one that learned the most.  He learned to always be kind, be kind, be kind even if you’re going through rough times.” (Jiona)

“Azizi soon started sprinting as fast as she could.  She was as frightened as a baby leopard being hunted as prey by poachers.” (Grace)

Wow, Year 4 is full of authors!  Congratulations to our students and their teachers.

Fractions Fun

Year 4 had some fractions fun this week when 4B, 4C, 4S and 4G competed in their class in a fractions quiz.  Students independently solved fractions questions and then the points were tallied. We took a few photos to share with you. 

Electives

This Friday is the last week of Electives for Term 3.  Students continue in their same elective for Term 4.

Care for Learning in Year 5 and Year 6

It has been inspiring being in classrooms this week to see the hard work and commitment of all our students and teachers come to fruition. Over the last few weeks students have completed their writing assessment and have commenced their speaking and listening task which has provided a platform for students to discuss and debate their thoughts and feelings about texts. Great collaboration in action! Classes have also been developing a deeper knowledge of their maths’ concepts which was evident when I visited 5P this week. It was great observing the different guided maths groups in action during the lesson. Mrs Penrose has developed so much leadership in her class that a couple of students were a peer mentor and taught a specific part of the scale to students needing some extra support as Mrs Penrose taught a focussed instruction group to really consolidate some students understanding of mathematical language. It was fantastic seeing the amount of student voice in the class and peers helping one another to be the best they can be. Great job 5P!

Year 6 Graduation – Graduation Committee Fundraising

Thank you to all of the families who have donated baked goods, drinks, goods for class hampers and/or time to help raise funds to support the Year 6 Graduation. This week we will be selling raffle tickets to go in the draw to win one of the class hampers. If you would like to buy tickets we are selling them at the Arts Fest or if you are a Year 6 family we are selling tickets through the Year 6 class teacher for $2 a ticket. The raffle will be drawn at the end of this week. Thank you for your support.

Student Leadership

At present we are reviewing and updating our Student Leadership opportunities as a way to increase student voice and agency across our school. To ensure that the opportunities we offer at Mango Hill State School are aligned to community values, I would really like to collaborate with interested parents and carers. At 1:00pm on Tuesday 14 September I am hosting a forum in which I will present the leadership opportunities we are putting in place for 2022 and beyond. This would be a great opportunity to provide your voice and suggestions on how we can make this program effective and represent the ideals of our school community. If you would like to attend please RSVP by COB Monday to vabbo5@eq.edu.au.

Have a terrific week.

Inclusive Education

At Mango Hill State School, we strongly believe in inclusive education and we reflect on our practices so we can be consistently learning and improving. Inclusive education can be described as the belief that all students can learn best in their class alongside their same age peers. We use many evidence-based practices to ensure that our students learn and play in inclusive environments. One practice is the strategic use of co-teaching.

What is co-teaching?

It is a teaching arrangement in which two teachers deliver the curriculum in an inclusive way to students in the same classroom or learning environment. At our school, co-teaching typically involves an ILT (Inclusive Education teacher) and a class teacher jointly planning, instructing and assessing a class of students in a particular curriculum area eg writing. Both teachers collaboratively differentiate the curriculum to suit the needs of their class. There are many models of co-teaching which are used flexibly and interchangeably within a lesson.

All of our teachers have had the opportunity to learn about co-teaching, and three of our wonderful ILT are currently offering a Book Study for those teachers who wish to take their knowledge and understanding of co-teaching to the next level. 

Have a great week