17 March 2021

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Dear Parents/Caregivers

OUR SCHOOL VISION IS TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN BECOMING STRONG, THOUGHTFUL AND INDEPENDENT INDIVIDUALS WHO ASPIRE TO BE THE BEST THAT THEY CAN BE. OUR ETHOS OFFERS STUDENT CENTERED EDUCATION THAT IS FOCUSSED ON BOTH THE PRESENT AND DEVELOPMENTAL NEEDS OF STUDENTS.

Important Dates to Remember

Students return to school in Term 2 on Monday 19th April. There will be no School Development Day on this Monday as the whole RUMA network are due to hold our School Development Day on Friday 23rd April.

Week 1 will commence Monday 19th April – Thursday 22nd April with Friday a School Development Day. This will mean you will have an extra-long weekend as Monday 26th April is the ANZAC Day public holiday. Week 2 will commence Tuesday 27th April – Friday 30th April 2021.

The school will hold its ANZAC Day Ceremony on Thursday 22nd April 2021 - Week 1. I would like to extend a formal invitation out to any direct family members of students within our school who are in the armed forces or previously served their country in the armed forces. Please inform the front office or respond by email to Somerly.PS@education.wa.edu.au with details.

P & C Meeting

Just a reminder to all parents that the P&C AGM is on Monday 22nd March at 6.30pm and will be followed by a General Meeting.

The P&C welcomes new members and you can get involved with the P&C in a number of ways, by volunteering in any of the events that occur throughout the year. The cost to join the P&C is $1.

AGM is the same as a General Meeting with three special functions

• The election of Office Bearers and Executive Members including President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer
• Presentation of the Financial Report
• President’s Report

The P&C require Office Bearers and Executive Members. Please contact the front office for nomination forms.

The P&C are currently asking for donations of Easter items for our annual Easter Raffle. This will be held on Thursday 1st April 2021 - the last day of term. Students will bring home some tickets for the raffle in the coming days and will be invited to wear an Easter hat for a short parade during the assembly. Donations can be brought to the front office or the classroom teacher.

Parent / Teacher Meetings

Just a reminder our Parent/Teacher Interviews are on Friday 26th March from 12pm to 5pm. This means that on this day, students will finish at 11.45am.

Parent/Teacher Interviews were endorsed by our School Board and approved by the North Metro Regional Education Office. Reporting to parents in this way makes up part of our strategy to improve parent communication regarding students’ progress and achievement.

Bookings are now open through the following link below and will close on Wednesday 24th March.

TTFM – Tell Them From Me

As part of our continued focus on school effectiveness, Somerly Primary School will be participating in an online survey for students and parents. This will be the third year the school has participated in these surveys and have formed an integral part of our school evaluation and planning process.

We greatly value the role of parents and carers within our school community and look forward to receiving your feedback. The more responses we get the more accurate results we have, which can be used to make further improvement plans. The survey will take 20–30 minutes of your time and will be a range of multiple choice and open ended response questions. Please look out for this in the coming weeks.

NAIDOC Excursion

To commemorate NAIDOC week in Term 2 we have organised a whole school excursion to Perth Hills Discovery Centre. Groups of classes will attend the excursion on a day trip, on one of the days between Monday 28th June – Thursday 1st July. The students will be involved in various activities during the day experiencing traditional indigenous pastimes. Please keep these dates in your diary, we will provide further details in the coming weeks.

New students

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Jonathan, Sapphire, Leah and Ella who recently commenced at Somerly Primary School.

Zoe Stenhouse
Principal

Merit Certificates

Room 1: Ryleigh and Eveanna; Room 2: Zaiden and Maddison; Room 3: Lucas and Rayne; Room 4: Cooper and Zavia; Room 8: Paige and Amber; Room 9: Raffaele and Sophie; Room 10: Brock and Aston; Room 11: Aubree and Skye-Bree; Room 12: Eva and Caleb; Room 13: Latrell and Universe; Room 14: Oliver, Mati and Abriana; Room 15: Sophia and Liam; Room 16: Cali-Rose and Kora; Room 17: Ava and Robbert; Room 18: Ruby and Abdulhamed; Room 20: Acacia and Meyer; Art: Mwila and Room 20; LOTE: Deacon, Thomas and Room 20.

Behaviour Focus

Our behaviour focus for Week 7 is:-

Transitions

• We always walk quickly, quietly and respectfully around our school
• We walk next to our partner and close to the person in front

Students Late to School

If your child arrives late to school, they are missing critical morning routines and learning activities. The school day begins at 8:40am and students will be considered late if they do not arrive by this time. If your child arrives after 9:00am you are required to enter through the front office and provide us with a reason for the lateness. A late slip will be printed for you to give to the class teacher.

Not Feeling Well?

If your child is not feeling well before school, please keep them home and notify the office by phoning 6206 4200, sending an SMS to 0437 480 486 or emailing somerly.ps@education.wa.edu.au.

Late Collection of Students

Somerly Primary School has a student finish time of 2.45pm each day. If your child has not been picked up before 3pm, you will be required to come to the front office to sign them out.

Toddler Activity Group

Nights of Reading

Thank you for your wonderful support in our Home Reading program. All students have a home reading log for you to record each night that your child reads at home. Your child’s Teacher will assign a Reading Eggs/Eggspress lesson or book to read, or a book. Please contact your child’s teacher if you require more information on this. The children are then awarded certificates when they have read for

• 50 nights- Bronze award
• 100 nights -Silver award
• 150 nights- Gold award
• 200 nights- Diamond award

It is great that so many of our students are reading regularly at home to support not only our school reading programs, but their learning across the whole curriculum.

NAPLAN for Year 3 and Year 5 Students

As children progress through their school years, it is very important that checks are made along the way to see how well they are learning the essential skills of reading, writing and mathematics – skills that will set them upon the path to success as adults.

NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy against the national standard and compared with their peers throughout Australia. At the classroom level, NAPLAN provides additional information to support teachers’ professional judgement about student progress.

Preparing for NAPLAN

NAPLAN assesses literacy and numeracy skills that students have already learnt through the school curriculum. Teachers will ensure that students are familiar with the test formats and will provide appropriate support and guidance. Excessive preparation is not useful and can lead to unnecessary anxiety. If you have any questions about your child's preparation for NAPLAN, please make a time to speak with your child's teacher.

NAPLAN tests are constructed to give students an opportunity to demonstrate skills they have learnt over time through the school curriculum, and NAPLAN test days should be treated as just another routine event on the school calendar. The best way you can help your child prepare for NAPLAN is to reassure them that NAPLAN tests are just one part of their school program, and to advise them to simply do the best they can on the day.

ACARA does not recommend the use of commercial products, such as booklets and practice tests, to help your child prepare for NAPLAN tests. None of the commercial products currently on the market were endorsed by ACARA. The use of services by coaching providers is not recommended.

Participating in NAPLAN

All students in Years 3 and Year 5 are expected to participate in NAPLAN tests. NAPLAN tests give you information on how your child is progressing against national standards. This information can be used to identify areas in which your child may benefit from additional assistance. NAPLAN does not replace, but rather complements assessments run by your child's classroom teacher throughout the year.

Adjustments can be provided for students with disability to enable them to access the tests on an equivalent basis to students without disability.

Some students who have been attending school in Australia for less than a year before the tests may also be eligible for exemption. Exemptions should be discussed with your child’s teacher.

Parents or carers may withdraw their child from the tests to address issues such as religious beliefs and philosophical objections to testing. It is recommended that withdrawal be considered in consultation with the school. Formal notification must be received by the school principal prior to testing.

Wherever possible, we will organise for individual students who are absent at the time of testing to complete missed tests at another time during the test window.

If you have any questions regarding NAPLAN please talk to your child’s teacher in the first instance.

Jodie Brown
NAPLAN Coordinator

Learning Focus

Year 3's Learning Journey so far for 2021:

For the first 6 weeks of this term the Year 3 students have been reading & writing persuasive text. During reading activities students were engaged in text analysis, identifying the main idea, identifying the persuasive devices and word analysis activities. We also learned how to plan our writing in detail before starting to write our persuasive text.

In Maths we looked at different ways that we can represent a three-digit number using number lines and MAB blocks. We are getting very good at counting forwards and backwards in twos, fives, tens and hundreds up to a 1000. Students also learned numerous strategies they could use to add and subtract two and three-digit numbers.

During Geography lessons students learned the location of the Australian states, territories, capital cities and major regional centres of Western Australia and the location and identifying attributes of Australia's major natural features.

In Chemical Science we are investigating that the changes of state between solid and liquid can be caused by adding or removing heat such as melting chocolate and freezing liquids. Excitement is brewing in Year 3 as we will be constructing and flying kites in the coming few weeks.

In Design Technologies students investigated the different materials from across the world that are used to make kites and the different reasons they are made.

Year 3 Teachers

Block 3

Year 4 – Room 13 and Room 14

We have had a great start to the year and have learnt many new facts and skills.

In English, we have been learning how to write historical narratives. We worked with our Teachers to write about the exploration and discoveries made by Vasco de Gama and discussed the significance of this information. We are starting to use our skills in writing narratives to research, answer questions and write independently about James Cook and his journeys. This has linked in with the Year 4 History concepts.

In Mathematics we have learnt about Place Value. We learnt about how to round numbers to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand and use this skill to estimate when adding numbers. Many students really enjoyed learning how to use the formal algorithm to add three-digit numbers. We have also learnt how to tell the time to the nearest minutes and this is a skill we will continue to practise. For the remainder of the term we will be learning about multiplication and division and statistics and probability. In one of our favourite Maths lessons of the term we investigated arrays and learnt that if you have to multiply a number by four then you could use the strategy to times by 2 and then double the answer. We loved painting our arrays and then creating prints to double the initial array.

In Science we have been investigating the properties of materials. We have conducted many experiments to find out the answer to our scientific questions. This has included learning about decomposition, whether materials will leak, soak or repel and whether they will tear, snap or stretch.

We have also been very fortunate to participate in Year 4 Sport and have had coaches come in every Thursday afternoon to work with us in our choice of sport, either basketball, volleyball or t-ball. We are enjoying this opportunity a lot.

P & C