January 29 – Expectations and Preparation (Curriculum Day)
January 30 – Expectations and Preparation (Curriculum Day)
June 7 – Student Report Writing (Curriculum Day)
August 12 – Teaching and Learning Improvement (Curriculum Day)
November 25 - Teaching and Learning Improvement (Curriculum Day)
Curriculum Days are for whole staff professional learning, specifically targeted to a school curriculum priority. For 2024, our school focus is Literacy.
PPD's (Professional Practice Day) are set aside for individual teachers to focus on work specific to their classroom. For 2024, this will focus on Reporting and Assessment.
Open Afternoon
It was great to see so many families pop in and visit our classrooms last week. The students were extremely proud to show off their wonderful work and challenge you in a game.
Cross Country
Congratulations to all of our runners who participated last week in the District Cross Country. Well Done to Mackenzie O and Hugo J who qualified for the Divisional Cross Country competition. A terrific achievement!
Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea/A Day in May
On Friday 31st May we will be supporting the Cancer Council by participating in Australia's Biggest Morning Tea and combining this also with ''A Day in May.'' Children will be able to purchase a cupcake and Juicebox for $6 that they can enjoy with their classmates at recess. All proceeds will be donated directly to the Cancer Council. Orders can be made via QKR. Children can also participate in the "A Day in May Fundraiser'' by wearing a touch of yellow and bringing a gold coin donation where proceeds will go directly to Challenge, supporting kids with cancer.
Semester One Reports and Parent Teacher Interviews
As we have reached the halfway mark of this term, our children are busily completing assessments in a range of curriculum areas. Please take note of the following dates:
Curriculum Day for Report Writing – Friday 7th June
Student Reports available on Compass – Friday 21st June
Parent Teacher Interviews – Wednesday 26th June 2:00 – 6:30pm
More information will be provided via Compass about Student Reports and Parent Teacher Interview bookings as they get closer.
Junior Mayor
Well Done to our School Leaders for presenting at the Kingston Junior Mayor Competition on Thursday 23rd May. The team of Ollie B, Kiara F, Toby D and Pippa P have worked together to create the presentation which will be delivered by Ollie B.
Education Support Appreciation
Recently, we celebrated our Education Support staff and all the work that they do inside and outside of the classroom. Our team at MPPS is always willing to assist our teaching staff in any way, provide activities at lunchtime and be there for our children when they need it the most.
Foundation Enrolments
If you have a child who will be in Foundation in 2025 then we ask that you complete an enrolment form as soon as possible. We hosted our first Foundation Experience session on Wednesday and it was great to see many children enjoy this opportunity.
Tree Works
Next week there will be tree works taking place around the school following our recent Safe Tree Audit. All works deemed ‘High Priority’ will be carried out by DE appointed arborists. At School Council this week discussion was held to look into the planting of new trees to replace those removed as part of the works.
In the Spotlight
Hello Foundation families!
It was lovely having most families in our ‘Open Classroom’ last Friday, to celebrate Education week. We hope you enjoyed being taught by your child on how to play Addition Connect Four and the opportunity to see how far they have come in their Writing! We are very proud of their accomplishments!
Another very big thankyou to our parents and grandparents that attended our Mini Working Bee on Monday and were fantastic classroom helpers! Your time was greatly appreciated, getting our Tricky Words ready.
We are officially a little over half way through Term 2 and 63 days into Prep! The Foundation students have excitedly enjoyed putting their Mathematics skills to the test everyday, counting down to their 100th day of being in Prep.
We will be celebrating our 100 days of being in Prep event with exciting activities in early Term 3. More details regarding this will be communicated closer to the date.
Please find important reminders and helpful information below for the Foundation area:
Reminders:
Student Illness:
As previously communicated earlier this week there has been a particular rise with our little ones in the Foundation area, presenting as very unwell to school. Ensuring our students are happy and healthy is our number one priority. We do have a number of students in our Mentone Park Community that have immune systems that are compromised, making them highly susceptible to infection and illness.Therefore, we please ask that if your child is unwell that you, please keep your child at home until they have fully recovered. Even if they don’t have a fever, they still may be infectious and too unwell to complete the tasks that come with school.
Just a reminder if your child is experiencing diarrhoea and/or vomiting, as per guidelines they should not attend school until 48 hours after they no longer have symptoms. If they are unwell at school, parents will be contacted to come and collect their child from school.
We have been discussing the importance of personal hygiene and hand washing in class but we please ask if you could also further discuss this at home, we would greatly appreciate it.
Take Home Reader Tips:
A friendly reminder to read with your child nightly and record it in their Take Home Journal. We are very proud to have been witnessing our students have a continual excitement to read! Again, we still encourage the use of the decodable readers on Wushka, that have been assigned to your child, in combination with their hard copy readers.
If your child gets stuck on a word, encourage him/her to have a go at sounding out the word. If necessary, demonstrate what this looks like first. Remember to praise with abundance when your child is successful at working out a word or when your child goes back to have another go. Never tell your child to ‘guess’ a word or use the picture to help them. Always keep the focus on letters and sounds. Learning to read initially requires a lot of effort for many children and at this early stage much patience is required. It is important to build up confidence and allow them to enjoy success as they work out words with your help. If your child stumbles over a tricky word that can’t be sounded out, simply give him/her the word and ask him/her to repeat it. Tricky words can be practised at home, using the key chain that will be sent home.
Tricky words:
Each student will receive a keychain next week with our Tricky Words for Term 2, that we will have learnt by the end of Term 2. Tricky words are words with irregular spelling
patterns that cannot be sounded out letter by letter but rather memorised after being exposed to the words in context. We encourage you to practise the words with your child at home before/after their nightly reading, in combination with our learning in class.
Mathematics Tips:
Developing numeracy skills early gives children an important foundation for their learning and development. It helps prepare them for daily life, including general problem-solving and handling money.
Here are some simple yet effective optional activities you can do with your child at home to help them apply the numeracy skills they learn at school:
line and the number of buttons on your clothes
Staff Car Park:
We kindly ask that you please do not drive, walk and bike ride through the school staff car park, directly in front of the Foundation classrooms. This is to ensure the safety of our school community. Thank You for your understanding in this matter.
Below are our current focus letters/sounds and words. Your child would greatly benefit from practising these at home!
Letters/Sounds: m,s,t,a,p,i and f
Vocabulary: gloomy, hopeful and stared
Writing: reading fiction mentor texts and then using this as inspiration write a narrative with a beginning, middle and end.
Maths: use a variety of strategies and hands on materials to add and subtract objects such as play dough. In addition to beginning our new unit of shapes, the students have particularly enjoyed making 2D Shape Pizzas!
Thank you for reading our Foundation newsletter!
Hello Middle School Families,
Can you believe we're already halfway through Term 2? The students have been hard at work over the past two weeks completing assessments, and we're so proud of the effort they're putting in. It's wonderful seeing how much they've grown already this year.
In maths we've been focusing on multiplication and division, and exploring how the two are related. In writing the students have begun identifying the features of different styles of poetry, and had a go at writing their own pieces.
This week in reading, we focused on the book Bowerbird Blues which is the chosen text for this year's National Simultaneous Storytime. The students have enjoyed strengthening their comprehension, questioning, and predicting skills wiggle completing the related activities.
Finally, we have begun our new subject, Social Skills. This week, students were asked to describe what being safe, kind, and fair look like at school.
We hope you all enjoy the rest of your week!
Reading: Strengthen our comprehension skills, focusing on the Simultaneous Story Time book Bowerbird Blues.
Writing: Exploring language features and text structures to create pieces of poetry.
Maths: Identify the relationship between multiplication and division facts and learn to solve division sums using a range of strategies.
Inquiry: Compare the diverse characteristics between Australia and neighbouring countries.
We’ve officially hit the midway mark for the term! Thank you to the Senior Students for continuing to be resilient as we brave the changing weather and undergo mid-year assessments. Below are recent and upcoming events within the fortnight and some important reminders. Enjoy!
Recent/Upcoming Events:
Reminders:
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: Create informative texts directly linked to our inquiry topic.
Maths: Calculate the perimeter and area of self constructed shapes.
Inquiry: Explain the impacts of bushfires or floods on environments and communities, and how people can respond.
Bounce Back: Consolidate our understanding of the BB acronym and apply it to our everyday lives.
Foundation | Zach M |
Eliza R | |
Eden W | |
Grade 1 & 2 | Casey A |
Jack B | |
Grade 3 & 4 | Dylan GB |
Brodie L | |
Grade 5 & 6 | Micah C |
Hugo J | |
STEAM | Austin S |
Art | Xander M |
Fri 31st May | Biggest Morning Tea |
Fri 7th June | Student-Free Day |
Mon 10th June | Monarch's Birthday |
Fri 14th June | School Disco |
Fri 28th June | Last Day of Term 2 |