1/2M Class News

We are well into Term 2 and have achieved so much this year in 1/2M, including our ‘Me Box’ and animation presentations and of course the Eisteddfod! Thank you to the parents who have already discussed their child’s achievements and learning goals at the Three Way Interviews. We look forward to informing parents more formally about their child’s progress through the written Semester 1 Reports which will go home at the end of term. Please make an appointment if there are any questions regarding these.

A big thank you to all the parents who had their child looking so wonderful for our Eisteddfod performance last Tuesday. The children were very well behaved, sang beautifully and looked absolutely fantastic in their uniforms. They should be very pleased with their efforts. Here are some of 1/2M students’ thoughts about the Eisteddfod…..

*My favourite bit was singing. (Eden M)
*We sang two songs on the stage, ‘My Island Home’ and ‘Blue Moon’. (Stevie-Lea)
*The recorders did a very good job. (Eli)
* We watched and listened to other people. We came first and the recorders played and we came first again. (Georgia)
*We got a trophy. (Aiden)
*Yesterday we went to The Crossing Theatre to sing our songs. It was fun. (Jeffrey)
*First we watched the other schools then it was our turn. My favourite part was when we sang. (Caitlyn)

Our unit this term is ‘Getting Along’ which focuses on how other people care for us. We are also enjoying reading, writing and talking and listening about texts that persuade us in some way, such as expositions. Mrs Davis is helping us in Science and Technology lessons and we have started learning about emails and magnets. Year 2 students turning eight this year have been joining Stage 2 and Stage 3 for athletics practice during the week. Year 1 students and the seven year old Year 2 students will be joining KD and K/1N for running, games and ball skills practice in sport this term, so it is a very busy time indeed.

Parents are welcome to help in reading groups which are held Mondays to Thursdays from 10.00 – 10.30 am. A reminder – could parents please send in the money for the Maths texts, if you have not already paid for these ($15.00). Thank you also to those who have sent in their portfolio money ($2.00), and the tissue boxes and glue sticks. Thanks also to those parents who have continued to support our homework program. The homework program is a valuable tool in consolidating the work done in the classroom.

Here are our animations to enjoy!

The Balloon Family Goes to the Beach



The Balloon Family Goes to the Park



The Balloon Family Goes Camping



The Balloon Family Goes Fishing

Leadership Conference

On the 30th April our school captains and councillors travelled to Tamworth to participate in the Impact Leadership Conference to help our leaders learn more about being a school leader. The conference started at 8:45am and by the time we entered the town hall the conference had already started. They were showing movie clips and we had to write down in our books who were the leaders in the clip. Our favourite segment of the day was ‘loud noises.’ There were two men who ran that segment and their names were Mason and Ronan. They did fun games with us and we even had do dance.
We learnt a lot about what makes a good leader and ways to be positive leaders and good role models within our school. We had a great time and would love to go again.

Connor and Daniel

Cunningham – 2010 Cross Country Champions!

Last week our annual Cross Country Championships were held with Cunningham the winning house in yet another very close result. Our champions for each age division are Jonty and Clariese (8/9 years), Jordan and Kate (10 years), Coby and Lidia (11 years), Riley and Amber (12/13 years).

Good luck to all of our athletes who are looking forward to boarding the bus on Friday 21^st May and travelling to Burren Junction to compete at the Narrabri Zone PSSA Trials.

5/6C News Term 2

Welcome back to Term 2. The first few days of the term have been very busy but we have settled well and have jumped straight back into work mode. This term our Science unit will be on electricity and circuits. This will be a lot of fun with heaps of hands on activities. Our class and Miss Baldwin's class have started a program where all the boys work with Mr Cornish and all of the girls work with Miss Baldwin. This program runs for the first hour of the day. The idea came from current research on the benefits of boys and girls working in their own groups for certain times during the day.

We have been talking about ANZAC Day and the importance of this day to us. We are completing a writing task about sacrifice, history, pride, loyalty and freedom. The class are extremely engaged in this activity and are producing some excellent pieces of work. We have continued our approach to fitness this term and run every morning around the oval. This is very good practise for the cross country which is on next week.

The class all enjoyed their holidays and were very excited to get back to work!! We used Inspiration (computer program) to plan and write a recount of the holidays. It sounded like the students had lots of fun. NAPLAN is also approaching quickly and the students in Year 5 are looking forward to completing these tests. (some of them)

This is going to be a very busy term with the class needing to work very well to keep up with expectations. Even though it will be very busy, there will be plenty of interesting activities to complete.

5/6C

We have experienced an enjoyable visit from Mr Michael Coutts-Trotter, the Director General of Education for NSW. Mr Coutts-Trotter was in Narrabri for the annual New England Education Region Principals Conference, which this year was held at The Crossing Theatre.

Whilst at the conference he saw our drum group perform (which was the highlight of the opening ceremony), as well as some other great items by other local schools. He also delivered the keynote address to principals from across all 126 schools in our region.

Together with Mr John Charles, School Education Director (New England West), Mr Coutts-Trotter then had the pleasure of visiting our school, where he was greeted by our school captains and councillors, together with Mrs Annabelle Guest, President of the Narrabri West School Council.

Our Pre School and Kindergarten rooms were then visited and this was an opportunity for him to see high quality programs in operation. In particular he was able to see how Pre School children can easily transition into Kindergarten in the same school. It was quite obvious he enjoyed meeting our students and joining in with their activities. He asked them lots of questions (and they had some for him as well!).

The 5/6C classroom was the next port of call as Mr Coutts-Trotter wanted to ask Mr Cornish about his recent trip to Singapore. He was excited to learn that we are hoping to organise video conferences with a school in Singapore that has 4,000 students!

We are sure Mr Coutts-Trotter and Mr Charles left with a wonderful, impression of our schools students, and also our captains and councillors, who were terrific hosts and guides around our school.

2/3S Rugby Clinic

Today 2/3S students participated in a Rugby Union Clinic. We began with some ball warm ups in pairs. Then we practised passing the ball to each other while running. It was important not to do a forward pass.

Towards the end of the session we played touch football. 2/3S enjoyed playing touch football and all students participated with enthusiasm.

We were all given posters and stickers as a souvenir. The posters told us information about the Waratahs and how to register to play football.

Water Bug Research

On Wednesday the 2nd of December, 5/6C went on an excursion to Narrabri Lake to undertake research on bug life. This term we have been researching lifecycles of various bugs. We contacted Miss McCaffrey from CMA (Catchment Management Authority) in Tamworth. She explained the process for catching and identifying the bugs. It was difficult to catch and identify bugs because of the huge amount of mud in the water. The lake is very low which didn't help our research. Miss McCaffrey explained the best way to get bugs and the reasons why the only bugs we could find were Water Boatmen. The Water Boatmen are very tolerant to difficult conditions and don't have gills, so the mud in the water did not effect their breathing as much as some of the other insects. This was a very good excursion and we learnt a lot. We would like to thank Mrs Davis for organising the excursion and Miss McCaffrey for coming from Tamworth to talk to us.