Welcome Back!

Here's hoping that everyone managed to cram in some rest and relaxation during the last two weeks, and that we're all ready and able for another 10 weeks of school!

Here's a brief run down of some of the exciting learning tasks we have ahead of ourselves this term...

In Maths we will continue to build on their work from Semester 1, with new work going into mapping, grid references and nets. We will continue working on our representations of fractions in various forms, and various methods of multiplication and division. Problem solving and analysis of word problems will be under focus, as it has been an increasing area of weakness for some years now.

In Social Sciences Mrs Dyson will continue the good work with Australian history, while I will pursue Economics and Geography. These two areas can be quite dry and unexciting if not done correctly, so I'm trying to put some learning into a game type format. In the end it might be easier to get the kids to design the game themselves however...

In Science we will be finishing off our work with Light and moving into states of matter, which is another area where you can have a lot of fun!

And, even though Mr van Wyk will be teaching it instead of me I'm sure the kids are champing at the bit to start building planes for the air show! For those who haven't heard about it from past years the rules are very simple - get your uncracked, unboiled egg past the finishing post using a flying machine of your own design. Sure - a lot of the pilots don't make it, but you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs!

Naplan testing

Well, here it is.

This week sees the arrival of this year's Naplan testing for year 5's.

I don't want to get political but I would remind you that Naplan scores have now been linked directly to school funding, so that students who are absent from the tests this week may miss out on much needed assistance in years to come. This was definitely not a school based decision.

Tests will happen on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week, with a one day only catch up for absent students on the Friday. No further catch up days will be allowed.

Good luck to all students, and my message remains the same - DON'T PANIC!

Terrific tetrathlete

Earlier in the year Jessica Townsend entered a tetrathlon with her friend. You can see the results here in this little article Jess brought in from one of her horsey magazines...

That's dedication...

Budding artistry...

I just wanted to share these photos with you from Mrs Dyson's literacy class...

The children have been looking at artwork from the early settlers as part of their Social Sciences work. In this exercise their task was to emulate the work of one of our early settler artists.

Everyone was given 2 yellow dots as part of a voting process to determine the class favourite, and while there were some excellent pieces from many, there was no doubt of which picture the children preferred.

Belated April Fool's Day

I almost forgot to post this little jape from April Fool's Day! I know it was a while ago now, but I appreciate it when a child comes up with a well thought out, funny and CLEAN joke for the first of April.

On April 1, Tahlia dropped off a packet of BROWNIES for me. Trying to draw the line on gaining weight, I didn't open them, until the nearing of the 12 o'clock deadline for April Fool's gags, when a gaggle of girls started to panic...

Hmmm....

Here comes another one...

Well while we're at it, here is the graph of correct answers from the Naplan Maths we conducted in February. Weak points from this test included multi-step problems, which basically comes down to reading and analysis of the problem, which has been a growing problem over recent years.
 
By the way, if any of these tests are still kicking around at home, can they be sent back to school so they can be put into the child's assessment folder please.

Naplan mock test

I've been marking tests and playing with Excel in order to try and make things clearer for everyone and improve the focus of my teaching. 
Just thought I'd show you the graph of the Language Conventions test we did late last term...



Now, up to Q25 is all spelling. For Q1-Q12 the children were told which word was spelled incorrectly, and for Q13-Q25 they had to find it for themselves. You can see for yourselves that these spelling results are not thrilling, but also they are not unexpected. Children just don't read enough today.
The rest is all grammar and punctuation, and these results are more encouraging. The questions start easy and get harder, so we expect to see the graph bars get shorter as we go on. One of the biggest dips in this section would be Q29, and I've included it here for you...

Q29 Class 5 Blue is going on _______ excursion to the zoo this term.

Possible answers:     * a              * this          * an           * some

Almost everyone who got it wrong gave the same answer, and I'm sure you can guess what it was.

Congratulations must go to Ashleigh for topping the class, and also for only getting a single question wrong (Q47) for the grammar and punctuation set. I'm sure she's not going to mess up another contraction problem anytime soon.