Staff Carpark

A friendly reminder to all visitors that the staff carpark is reserved for staff members only. For your convenience, please consider using the kiss-and-go area on Broome Ave. Your cooperation ensures a smoother traffic flow and accessibility for all. Thank you for your understanding.

• Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
• Child Safety Code of Conduct
• Complaints Policy
• Child Safety Responding and Reporting Obligations Policy and Procedures
• Volunteers Policy
• Visitors Policy
• Student Wellbeing and Engagement Policy
• Bullying Prevention Policy
• Digital Learning Policy

We are committed to continuous improvement in our approach to child safety and wellbeing and welcome feedback from families and members of our school community on ways we can further strengthen our child safety policies, procedures and practices.

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions, please contact the school office.

In the Spotlight 

Hello Foundation families,

What a great fortnight we have had.  We are learning to share, be patient and make good w4choices.  We are demonstrating our school values.

The last few weeks the Foundation students have been getting up to lots of exciting and new learning. One of the great learnings this fortnight has been Mothers’ Day.  We also talked about some of our special places, imagine the ice-cream shop came up a lot!  We wish all the mothers’, grandmothers, and special woman in our lives a lovely Mothers’ Day, thank you for all you do.  A reminder to return their black reading folders from next week every day, please see our earlier compass post.  

We have enjoyed having Mr Morgan helping in Prep A and Prep B for 21 days on a University placement.  We bid him farewell and wish him well for the future.  We are also excited to begin our movement program next week PMP, we also enjoyed watching our buddies and siblings run the Cross Country this week.

Some reminders:

With the colder weather upon us, there is a rise in sickness.  Please keep your child home if they are unwell to avoid the spread of germs as we have members of the school community who are immunocompromised.

The doors will open at 8:50am every morning, if you arrive late please don’t forget to sign in at the front office.

Please encourage your child to leave toys at home, this includes, fidget tools, figurines, toy cars, stuffed toys, dolls or games. We understand toys are expensive for parents and we would hate for them to get lost or broken. We have lots of fun things at school to play with so students do not need to bring anything but themselves! If toys are found at school they will be collected by the teacher for safekeeping and returned after school. If you could please have a chat to your child about this to ensure no toys get lost. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding this request. 

Reading/Phonics: We are learning to connect our sounds to letters and begin to understand syllables.

Writing: We are exploring how to sound out words and have a go at writing the sounds we can hear.

Maths: We are learning about adding and subtracting and continuing our learning on Place value.  

Here is an update on the wonderful things we’ve been learning over the last two weeks. Our fabulous glass door is currently out of action and we hope to have it back up and working as soon as possible.

Literacy:

A big thank you to the parents and grandparents who have assisted with morning reading - we are very grateful for your time. The students love reading out loud and sharing a discussion about their book with you. If you are interested, reading takes place every morning from 8:50 - 9:05. Please ensure the school has a copy of your Working With Children’s Check and you have signed in at the office prior to reading with the children. Thank you!

Just a friendly reminder to read with your child each night and enter it into their Reading Diary. Reading each night hugely benefits their reading development and encourages a love of reading. We highly recommend using decodable readers on Wushka and enjoy the range of non-fiction texts available.

Below are our current focus sounds and words. Your child would greatly benefit from practising these at home!

Tricky Words (sight words): who, many, any, love, over, says

Digraphs: ai (rain), ay (play), ee (tree), ea (leaf), oa (boat), ow (snow)

Terminology: Homophones

Wow Words: immediately, briefly, glance, announce, require, perfect

Year 2:

Trick Words (sight words): Thought, Bought, Work, Animal and Because

Digraphs/Trigraphs:  Adding the suffix ‘ing’ to base words to create words in action, learning to ‘drop the e’ and add ‘ing’

Grammar: Working on Adjectives and creating depth in our writing

Wow Words: Huddle, Glow and Foolish

Writing: Create our own storybook with a clear beginning, middle and end.

Students have taken on the role of author of their own storybook! Last week, they carefully planned their storyline with a clear beginning, middle and end. This week, students were given a blank book template to write their creative stories. We are still in the process of writing, illustrating and perfecting these! Students can’t wait to share them with their peers and yourselves! At home, ask your child about their storybook creation!

Numeracy: Give and follow directions, and share amounts equally into groups. Is it a fair or unfair share?

Last week students revisited the directional terms forwards, backwards, left and right, above, below, next to and near. We also touched on quarter, half and full turns. Students used these directions to assist their classmates in moving positions around the classroom and solve mapping tasks.

This week we are working on sharing, an introduction to division. Students have been learning how to share different amounts and whether it is a fair or unfair share. We have been using Think Boards to solve sharing problems. A Think Board is a great tool to develop a student’s understanding as they are required to make and draw the problem, record the number sentence and create a word problem to match the number sentence.

Thank you for reading our newsletter and keeping up to date with what’s happening in year 1  /2. We hope all have a very happy Mother’s Day and get rightfully spoilt!

Hello Middle School families,

The 3/4s sure have been busy over these past couple of weeks! First of all, we want to say a big congratulations to you all for participating in the cross-country last Friday. We were so proud as we saw many students challenging themselves and stepping out of their comfort zone, as well as sharing words of advice and support for their fellow peers.

The students have been strengthening their research and paraphrasing skills in Writing. As we near the end of our focus on explanation text, students are now putting these skills to use to create a ‘bus stop’ style poster, presenting information on their chosen topic in visual and succinct ways. This includes to option to showcase their information as a flow chart, cycle, or steps.

In Maths, we have been developing our understanding of fractions, including how they can be represented, what it looks like when we add or subtract fractions, and how we simplify them.

We have begun speaking to students about our assessments this term, reminding them that this is an opportunity to show us what they can do and how much they’ve grown. We look forward to sharing their progress with you.

Finally, a big Happy Mother’s Day to all our Middle School mothers, grandmothers/nana’s and special people. We hope you have a wonderful day (and maybe a nice sleep in!) ❤

READING - Understand what it means to synthesise, and how to apply this strategy whilst reading a variety of texts

WRITING - Research a topic to collect key information, applying this to create an explanatory poster.

MATHS - Order fractions from smallest to largest, simplify fractions, and convert improper fractions into mixed numerals.

INQUIRY - We are learning to identify the different types of climates and where these occur

Another wonderful and busy fortnight in the Senior School. We are so proud of the effort everyone put in last week during the Cross Country trials. The participation and enthusiasm everyone showed was phenomenal! We wish all those who have made it through to the next round the best of luck!

Below are some reminders for all students in the Senior School. Please take the time to go through them and discuss with your child.  

• Winter Interschool Sport – Continuing from Term 1, we are still encouraging excellent sportspersonship regardless of the outcome. Win or lose, we are proud of everyone for having a go! Our sports this term are netball, AFL & soccer. Due to unpredictable weather, we do recommend packing extra clothing on a Friday. Please ensure you have given permission on Compass and made payment on Qkr for transport.
• Cross Country - District Cross Country is on Tuesday 14^th of May. Congratulations to our Senior students who have been selected to compete! Please check Compass for permission and additional details. If you are able to help at the event in any capacity, please let the office know. 
• Return of forms - At the end of Term 1, some students were given an enveloped IEP document. Could these please be read, signed and returned as soon as possible. For our Yr 6 students, Applications for Yr 7 Placement are due Friday 10th May, regardless of intention to attend a State or Independent school. 
• Homework - To ensure consistency and accountability among the Senior Students, homework will be handed out on a Monday and due the following week, on the Friday. This allows students 2 weeks to complete ALL tasks neatly and ensure that they are responsibly managing their time in preparation for Secondary School. Homework will be posted digitally to Google Classroom on a Monday to save printing, however students are required to complete the tasks by hand in their homework book so that we can correct them collaboratively on the due Friday. We have discussed the expectation of neatness and setting out, along with the importance of using a ruler, headings and subheadings. Tasks include spelling (our SMART spelling list is included as the first page), reading comprehension, grammar, number, measurement/geometry and/or statistics/probability & STEAM. Depending on their year level (5 or 6), all SMART spelling words in that list are to be written out 5 times across the 2 weeks. We do not recommend the students writing the list all in one night as it can cause them to repeat a spelling mistake. Nightly reading is encouraged (at least 4 nights a week) and should be recorded in their homework books. If you require a printed copy, please email your child's teacher.
• Health – Ensuring our students are happy and healthy is our number one priority. As you may be aware, we currently have a student and 2 parents in the Senior School who have either recently completed or are still undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Due to treatment, their immune systems are compromised, making them highly susceptible to infection and illness. In the event your child or a close contact of theirs is ill, we encourage you to please consider the following:
  • Keep your child at home until recovered or advised by a health professional
  • Inform the school of any contagious illnesses such as Covid or chickenpox
  • Discuss the importance of personal hygiene and hand washing

Further information regarding infectious diseases and the recommended exclusion times can be found here at: https://www.health.vic.gov.au/infectious-diseases/school-exclusion-table#exclusion-periods-table

We appreciate all efforts to help keep everyone here at Mentone Park safe!

Reading: Identify details and information from a different social, cultural and historical context. We continue using the text ‘Parvana’, to achieve this.

Writing: Research and provide factual information about a specific topic.

Maths: Construct angles using a protractor and compare and convert time systems.

Inquiry: Explain the causes of severe weather

This week in STEAM we are looking into our next ‘Big idea’ of Matter and Energy. We are exploring questions including “What is energy?”, “Where does energy come from?” and “What does energy ‘look’ like?”. Here are some evidence of the types of energy we have found in our around out school. Our students in 3-6 are beginning a research investigation project where they will design and create a series of experiments based on a topic of matter, energy or living things.

Thank you to the families that have been donating their 10c bottles at Return-it depots and vending machines. So far we have raised $49.60 for our sustainability and STEAM program. We have our school’s donation ID number and barcode below and at the office, if you are looking at donating any bottles or cans that have the 10c label on it.