RC. Your child loving learning! No Images? Click here Dear Families National Quality Standards (NQS) Parent Survey Results Thank you to the many parents who responded to our recent Kindergarten to Year 2, NQS survey. The results of this survey were encouraging and will inform our future planning through our Quality Improvement Plan (QIP). Over 90% of parents were very happy with the following:
Physical Environment: We are aware of the need to improve some of our play areas; however, were encouraged that families were understanding of the current disruption caused through the construction of the new building. Plans are in place to further improve play areas once construction is completed. Collaborative Partnerships with Families and Communities: While 80% of families were satisfied with the collaborative partnerships between home, school and the community, we have noted the need to improve some of our communication. We value and appreciate constructive feedback as it enables us to plan more effectively to build our school community. Thank you Jacqueline Quinlivan. Deputy Principal IMPORTANT DATES/DETAILS
UPCOMING EVENTS:
KG1Recently, the KG1 class had a wonderful surprise visit from Violet the kangaroo joey! The children could observe Violet very closely as she sat in the middle of their circle and looked around at her new surroundings. This was followed by a long scratch, which the children found very funny! Our class have been introduced to the 's' sound, practising how to form the sound correctly. We've brainstormed words that begin with the sound (not necessarily the letter 's') and looked at picture books of things that begin with 's'. During our story time some children point out the 's' sound as well as rhyming words! On Wednesday 14th August, we went to AQWA with KG2, singing together on our bus journey, then having morning tea on the grass when we arrived. Following morning tea, the children eagerly went off in their groups to explore all the amazing sea creatures, getting up very close to some in the touch pool. A favourite activity was watching the sharks and turtles being fed, and the slightly scary experience of sharks and sting rays swimming overhead in the tunnel! We had lunch at AQWA, then it was time to get back on the bus, several children fell asleep on the way back to school! Each child has recently spent time with me putting 3 picture cards (several sets) in sequence, then telling the story in their own words. I asked them..what happened first, what happened next, what happened last? Our outdoor learning is lots of fun, with activities such as bubble painting and tinkering with real objects and tools. Ros Greaves. Teacher KG2Last week, the Kindergarten 2 class went off on an exciting adventure! We went to visit AQWA to explore different sea animals and creatures. The children were very excited to go on the big bus, singing along the way. Once we arrived at AWQA we had morning tea and then split into groups with our parent helpers, ready to see all the amazing animals. We even got to see some of the animals being fed, including the turtles, stingrays, sharks and fish. We had lunch at AQWA before coming back to school on the bus. Over the past few weeks we have enjoyed many different sensory play experiences including sea animal slime, farm animal feeding with seeds and even mud! In Literacy, we have been focusing on the beginning sounds in words, we have identified and brainstormed words starting with 'm' and 's'. In Numeracy, we have been focusing on capacity. We used water and different size containers to see what could hold ‘more and less’. Courtney Stein. Teacher KG3It has been another adventurous fortnight for Kindergarten 3. Students have been engaged with creating the various Australian animals and look forward to an exciting Zoo excursion this coming week. Koalas, echidnas an emu and cockatoos have taken up residence in our class. Mary our Echidna in particular drew much fasciation for the students. After they help make her they were eager to know what kind of food she eats and where she lives. In Numeracy, students have extended themselves with not only recognising numbers but matching quantities to the numerals while ‘having a go’ at number formation. A highlight for the term was Book Week. Students shared with their peers their favourite character from a well-loved book. It was wonderful to see the students gain greater confidence as they shared with their class members. Margaret Gokavi. Teacher PP1Measuring, measuring, measuring! Pre-primary have begun measuring in Mathematics. We have started by measuring the length of objects, including ourselves. The children used pop-sticks to measure a partner's length when they were laying down, and then advanced to using unifix cubes to measure the length around the floor mat. We had to beg and borrow from other classes but eventually we had enough cubes to finish. We are still counting how many we needed! It’s quite a BIG number for Pre-primaries. Melanie Baker. Teacher PP2 Spring is almost here and the Pre-primary children are enjoying the change in the weather, especially at River School. In our Science studies we have been learning about the weather and how it affects our daily lives. At River School we studied the clouds and observed the signs that Spring weather is coming soon. We have seen an abundance of flowers at Heirisson Island and some very cute baby ducklings, followed by their protective mother. We have also been learning about why some places are special to us and should be protected. Working together, we created a special base camp for our groups with some wonderful River Ranger helpers. In Art we have been examining sunflowers closely to see what parts they are made up of. Using oil pastels and paint we made our own representations of sunflowers just like the famous artist Van Gogh. During Book we have been looking at story settings and characters. We are making our own story books in class and on Friday we dressed as our favourite book characters for the Book Week parade. Little Red Riding Hood (Felicity) even had real goodies in her basket, which she shared with the whole class! Jo Coffey. Teacher PP3 Last week in PP3, we had an author come and visit our class. Mrs Wills was a Pre-primary teacher and is also an author who wrote a book called “Thankful Hearts”. She came in to talk about the process of how her “ big idea” became a beautiful book. Mrs Wills started her presentation off by asking us all what we needed in order to create a story book. We determined that first we need an idea, then we can create a story from that idea. Next, we can create the illustrations, title and blurb. Thirdly, we print out all the pages and double check to see if the colours and illustrations were all correct on the printed out copy of the book. Lastly, we need to add a spine and it becomes a book. While in our session with Mrs Wills, we also spoke about what it means to be thankful, we thought of some things and people we are grateful for and wrote them down on a thankful heart. The children were so engaged and led some very interesting and enlightening conversations throughout the day about thankfulness. Hayley Beath. Teacher 1.1Two weeks ago, the Year 1 classes went on an excursion to Tranby House, Peninsula Farm. When we arrived, we learnt about the members of the Hardy family who lived on the farm over 100 years ago. Eight students were selected to pretend they were the Hardy family. It was lucky that we had someone called ‘Elisabeth’ to be Elizabeth! Throughout the morning, we played lots of old-fashioned games, including skip rope, an egg and spoon race and hopscotch. We also had a tour of the house and saw the interesting items they used when living in the olden days. In the afternoon, we learnt more about many artefacts and found it difficult to work out what some of the items were! We also sketched a picture of the Hardy family so that we could compare it to our own family when we returned to school. It was a beautiful day near the Swan river and we loved learning about the history of the Hardy family and their new start in Western Australia. Lauren Shaw. Teacher 1.2Many exciting events have been happening in Year 1 this term. To learn more about our history topic, ‘families in the past’, we went on an excursion to the Peninsula Farm, formally known as Tranby House. Here, we discovered the meaning behind the name Tranby House, who built and lived in the house and many of the different jobs done in the past. It was very interesting learning about the Hardey family and how different life was back then. Each group toured the house, made a peg doll, identified artefacts and played old-fashion games. It was a fantastic day with wonderful weather. Vanessa Jongeling. Teacher 2.1Block Play Learning Task: The students had to design a car park to fit within the carpet square area of land. It had to have parking spaces to suit every car and truck and access the higher levels. They had to work collaboratively to complete the challenge. For some groups this was challenging as they had to learn to cooperate, negotiate differences of opinion and listen to each other’s ideas. Risk taking was evident as students attempted to build the higher levels of the car park. Parts of their build collapsed, and they demonstrated resilience and problem-solving skills to rebuild. The students enjoyed sharing their completed product with the class and sent a digital photo/video to their parents. First Aid: St John Ambulance visited our class and discussed what to do in an emergency. The students were able to role play and practice the important steps from checking for a response to giving their information to the 000 operator. In class, the students wrote a recount to help them retain the information. Book Week: Students were so excited to dress up as their favourite book character and share their book with each other. Library time each week is appreciated; choosing books, reading with friends or by themselves and sharing the love of reading.
Tracey Jenkins. Teacher 2.2We cannot believe that six weeks have already gone past since we started Term 3. The time machine, the mealworms and old toys and games are still thoroughly enjoyed in class by the students. We now have a number of class ‘time machine inspectors’ who monitor our use of the machine. In the time machine, many of the students enjoy going back to Bible times to meet Jesus, some like to go to the future to see what their future holds and some like to pick specific places from the map the students made inside the time machine. Now the mealworms! They were all very busy shedding their skin as they grew. On Day 23, we started to see pupas! (The mealworms are not actually worms. They are the larva stage of an insect’s life cycle). The excitement was so great that a couple of people dropped the containers and the mealworms and some pupas had to be chased and rescued from the floor all over the classroom. We hope that ALL the mealworms were rescued! In Mathematics, we started to learn how to read analogue clocks through many different hands-on games. Our favourite game is ‘Time Check’ as the game makes us stop our work whenever Mrs Chi rings the bell, so we can check the time. Year 2.2 also have had the cross country, an incursion to learn about first aid and of course, the book fair and book week dress up. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the parents who come to help our class, whether it is for the big events like cross country and book fair, or for the guided reading every morning. Your help is much appreciated, we truly couldn’t do this without you. Min Chi. Teacher Mealworms busy shedding their skin as they grow Learning how to read analogue clocks We enjoyed book week and book week dress up 3.1In Year 3.1 we thought the first two weeks of this term were busy until things got really busy with: the Cross Country carnival; an excursion to the Victoria Park Library; a visit from Mr Galappaththi to talk about the Apollo 11 moon landing; a First Aid course with St Johns; research, writing and rehearsal in preparation for our assembly performance; Book Week reading on the oval, Book Fair and Dress Up Day; concert rehearsal; and discovering how some things melt for Science. Phew! And that’s only Weeks 3 to 5. Thank you to all the parents and staff who made all these exciting experiences possible. Deanne Johnston. Teacher 4.1In Science we have just concluded our topic ‘Properties of materials’. Elias and his dad brought in their very impressive bicycles and we compared the different materials used on the road bike and the mountain bike and the benefits of using these materials. Mr Klenner was invited to our class and he spoke to us about the protective clothing that firefighters use. The level 2 jacket worn by firefighters is made from a material that is tear and fire resistant, water resistant and absorbs sweat from the body. How clever are material scientists! In Maths we were given a Coles catalogue and we had to feed a family of 4 with 3 meals for a total spend of $35.00. Lots of discussion and negotiating took place! It showed us how we need to be aware of special buys and how expensive convenience ready-made foods can be. In HASS we have been doing independent research on explorers. We wrote our own scripts then recorded our presentations. We finished off by making a ship made from recycled materials. Wendy Innes. Teacher Congratulations to Quinn who took up the challenge to write a book review which was then published in the KZONE magazine! 5.1The Year 5 students have been learning about light in Science. We have completed various experiments that have shown us different ways we can interact with light! We have reflected light, used it to make shadows, and investigated how we can refract light to create a rainbow. We also learnt that white light is made up of all the different colours of the rainbow. If you ask us, we can explain to you how this allows us to see different coloured objects! Sarah Wills. Teacher 6.1In the last few weeks the year six class had an instructor come from St John and teach them basic first aid skills. They learnt how to treat a person that is unconscious, how to put someone in the first aid position, and what DRSABC means. They also learnt how to treat a person who is choking and what to do when calling triple 000. The students thought it was very informative and enjoyed the hands on aspect of the lesson. In Art the students have been learning about Pop Art. We have talked about the artist Roy Lichtenstein and then we designed our own words in the Pop Art style, similar to his art work. They have created some very fun and colourful words. For book week the class researched all the different characters in the Dr Seuss books and then they chose a character of their own to paint. They had fun wearing their figurine and displaying it at the book week parade. We had The Grinch, Horton, the Lorax, Thing One and Two, The Cat In the Hat and many other characters on display. Janice Lotsos. Teacher ICT The students in Year 5 have used all of their recently accumulated knowledge in one project; using inputs and outputs to create a “Steady Hand Game”. The inputs come from the electrical connection which happens when the player touches the metal wire. The outputs were LEDs, small motors or tiny buzzers. The students have gained an insight into the world of electronics and are now able to generalise their knowledge in their own world – for example pressing a button on the TV remote causes an output of infra-red signals or the simple turning on and off of a room light switch. Jay Saxton. Teacher LANGUAGES - ITALIAN Food seems to be the theme for a few classes this term. In Year 3, we have been reading the book called ‘Mangia Mangia’ where a boy asks for ‘pane e Nutella’ ( bread and Nutella). It’s a very funny story and the students enjoyed reading and acting this story out using their best Italian. The students also ate a chocolate spread on bread pretending it was Nutella which is a staple snack food for children in Italy. The Year 6’s have been learning how to order breakfast in Italian at a coffee shop and hence, we created a coffee shop in the classroom with decaf coffee, tea, juice and water and different sorts of croissants. The students spoke so well ordering from our barista Ilaria (our Italian assistant) which made me so proud of them. Signora Kerrigan. Languages Teacher LET ME TELL YOU A STORY, LET ME TELL YOU IN MY LANGUAGE COMPETITION I am looking forward to seeing videos or eBooks for the Let Me Tell You a Story in My Language Competition https://mltawa.asn.au/litm/story/ which will be due at the latest, Monday 16th September. Please put the finished product on a USB in an envelope addressed to Mrs. Kerrigan with the accompanying declaration form or email me on mirellak@regentcollege.wa.edu.au for details on how to upload onto my Google drive. Mirella Kerrigan. Italian Teacher MUSICWe have exciting things coming your way from Year 4.1! We have been learning about the types of sounds that instruments/ materials can produce, which is also known as tone colour with Miss Wong. We are working on a soundscape project, where we will make music based on locations around Perth. We are now working on making a graphic score for our soundscape. We will be having a mini soundscape exhibition at the end of this term so that everyone could enjoy our masterpieces. Students from Year 1 are having a fantastic time learning to play instruments as a group. This week, we played as a class band to the classic nursery rhyme ‘Rain, rain, go away’ with tuned and untuned instruments. We’ve also learnt how to make our own pitch patterns on the tuned instruments. Playing as a group is not easy at all! We are also learning how to play in sync by listening to our peers and following each other’s playing. Over the last couple of weeks in music with Mrs Marshall, students have been performing their group arrangements for each other. The year 5 and 6 classes have written performance reviews using music terminology to describe particular musical elements and characteristics that are evident in the performances. When the Year 2s perform for each other, they have the opportunity to practice their audience etiquette, remembering to sit quietly and to applaud at the end. They also give positive encouragement to their peers and we sometimes offer constructive feedback. This helps them to learn from each other’s successes and mistakes. Joey Wong & Rebekah Marshall. Music Teachers Here’s one example of the graphic score produced by one of a group of students. Working together as a group The year 5 and 6 classes performing their group arrangements The year 2 classes performing in front of an audience Year 3 Start Line Year 5 Class Year 4 Class SPORTOn the morning of Friday the 9th of August, Regent College had their house cross country. The students ran exceptionally well and should be proud of their efforts. Thanks to teachers and parents for their support and encouragement during the morning. Special thanks to the parents who were able to assist out on the course, this is greatly appreciated.
Lauren French. Sport Teacher
Thank you to all the Kindergarten and Pre-primary fathers for attending the recent Father's Day breakfast at Regent College. Congratulations to the 16 Regent College students who attended the recent inter- school Chess competition at St Marks Anglican College. Out of the 20+ independent schools represented, Regent College achieved second overall, with an amazing 5 students out of the 8 finalists. Thank you for supporting the recent Book Week character dress-up day (including parade), as well as the fabulously popular pop-up Book Fair. Thank you to Mrs Klenner and Mrs Phillips for your super work with the fair! REGENT COLLEGE |