From The APL&T

Dear Families

Phonics Screening Check
Recently our Year 1 students undertook a phonics screening check (PSC) which is mandatory in all CESA Diocesan Schools. The screener is an additional tool that helps inform our teachers and system on how our learners are progressing in phonics. It is undertaken with children 1:1 by the classroom teacher. This assessment, in addition to our Initialit assessments continue to support the teaching, learning and intervention of literacy at our school. We are extremely proud of our students and their results this year. 70% of our students achieved above the expected achievement and our school has also achieved above the highest average scores in all CESA Schools and also the Catholic schools in our region. Congratulations to our Year 1’s and the Early years teachers.

Transition to School
On Friday mornings, we are delighted to have the newest members of our community join us for Nativity Stars. Nativity Stars is our transition to school program where our students in Reception in 2025 join us for the morning. Lucinda King runs this program and welcomes students and their families to the school. The children are engaged in many activities, learn where various places are in the school and continue to develop friendships. It is wonderful to see their happy faces every Friday.

Class microphones
All of our classes are equipped with ‘Fleximikes’. Teachers are able to use a regular speaking voice throughout the day without having to raise their voice, as the sound field system amplifies throughout the classroom. Students can sit anywhere in the classroom and can hear instructions from the teacher without having to be placed in front or right next to the teacher. The amplified sound supports filtering out any background noise which can cause a distraction particularly for students with learning challenges.

Grandparents Day
This week there is a buzz around the school with many rehearsals and final tuning of the performances occurring. Thank you for sending in costume requests. We look forward to ‘Nativity Counts Down’ on the last day of the term.

Kitchen Garden
What a busy term we have had in Kitchen Garden. The focus has been on Technologies. The 5/6 classes have used design and technology skills to design, create and build scarecrows for our Garden. Keep an eye out in the Garden for the Scarecrows. The Reception, Year 1/2 and Year 3/4 classes have used their design and technology skills to design, create and build bird feeders. The classes bird feeders have been hung in trees outside the 3/4 St. Joesph building, if you would like to see them. Along with their building, the classes have engaged in many plantings and harvesting of vegetables and herbs that we then transferred into our Kitchen classes. In our Kitchen classes, all year levels have been engaged in cooking and creating new recipes and dishes that they have not had before. We have made dishes such as Kale and Silverbeet Mallung, Patatas Bravas and Japanese Pancakes. All recipes used during Kitchen lessons this term will be sent out via Seesaw shortly.

Some Student reflections on Term 3

Reception
Elle has enjoyed learning the dance for Grandparents Day and reading and writing.
Elliot shared that he likes playing with his friends and likes learning numbers.

Year 1/2
Students from Year 1/2 have enjoyed learning facts about Space. Liam shared that Mars is an inner planet, Neptune has the strongest winds out of all the planets and Jupiter has a storm that has been going for 200 years. He has enjoyed science and the work relating to space. He had many more facts to share about space.
Scarlett shared her knowledge of the Sun being a dying star and that if a star dies it can turn into a black hole.
Mackenzie has learnt that scientists believe that it rains diamonds on the planet Uranus. Mackenzie has also enjoyed the Math Mystery problems they have been solving in the class.
Harry has enjoyed making their shops and making the items to sell in the shops. He has also enjoyed playing with his friends.

Year 3/4
Charlie has enjoyed science and learning about condensation and evaporation. He, like many Year 3/4s, enjoyed the Olympic learning tasks which involved the students creating an Olympic torch, flag, mascot and sport using Minecraft.
Aaliyah shared that she enjoyed writing information reports. Students collected information about either an animal, place or country and then wrote their information report. Aaliyah and Charlie also shared that they enjoyed their excursion to the Art Gallery and the Museum.
Alia enjoyed making the bird feeders and using lots of colours to attract birds. She has also enjoyed the time spent together with other classes learning in HASS and Religious Education, which involved being able to use Minecraft to create the Olympics.

Year 5/6
Charlie shared that he enjoyed the Mini Olympics, especially the Potato Competition. He enjoyed the Money Incursion and learnt ways to save money. He also enjoyed Animals Anonymous coming to our school to teach us more about Australian animals and their adaptations. He particularly enjoyed seeing the Sugar Glider.
Poppy also enjoyed the Potato Olympics, where students had to join in events using the potato to earn points. She also enjoyed decorating the potatoes with flags and accessories for a selected country. Rehearsals for the choir and Grandparents Day have kept Poppy busy, and she is looking forward to performing an advertisement during Grandparents Day and also having a soloist role in the finale. Poppy also participated in Cross Country.

As we near the end of the term, I would like to thank everyone for the amazing work that is carried out here at Nativity. Our students and staff have had an extremely busy term and no doubt that after Grandparents Day they will all be excited to be on holidays.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

Kind regards
Melinda James