Pelican Brief Issue 1
From the Principal
Welcome to 2023!
It has been a fantastic two weeks back. Everyone is very settled and finding our groove for 2023.
As always, it has been a flying start to the term. We currently have eleven students enrolled. This is the largest we have been for quite some time. Our year level breakdown for 2023 is:
- Kindy, 1
- Prep, 1
- Year One, 3
- Year three, 1
- Year Four, 1
- Year Five, 3
- Year Six, 1
Our Kindy operates on a five day fortnight and our station kids attend every Friday. Prior to the term starting we had our parent meet and greet evening to welcome Harriet and her family and on Wednesday evening we had our curriculum information session; thank you to everyone who attended both or either. I have attached our weekly timetable to this newsletter.
We are excited to announce that we will be doing breakfast club every morning from 8:30am students will be able to have a cup of cold milo and a piece of toast or some cereal.
This term our year five and six students will be joining the other Outback advantage senior students to go on a leadership camp to Brisbane. They will attend a leadership conference and....
As part of our Science curriculum we also have a Starlab excursion coming out on Friday 31st March. This will happen in the evening and three sessions will be run, K-2, 3-6, families. More information on this will be communicated throughout the term.
Thank you to all parents who participated in our parent survey a follow up survey will be distributed at the end of this term.
Our first P&C meeting has been postponed until Wednesday 8th Febrauary. Our AGM will be on the 8th March 2023.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend,
Laura
Week One Highlights
From Mrs Birchley
Hello families and carers!
The past two weeks we have been getting to know each other and starting our subject learning for the term!
In particular in Science, K-1 have been learning about the weather and what clothing and acitivties are suited to different types of weather. Yr 4 have been looking at things in the day and night sky and starting to touch on how shadows occur. Yr 5 and 6 have been delving into finding out more about the Solar System and utilising the laptops to do research on the NASA website.
In Arts we have teamed up with QAGOMA (Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Arts) from Brisbane and are engaged in their "Superpowered on Tour" program for regional schools. It focuses on introducing students to Australian Artists such as Kaylene Whiskey (Yankunytjatjara people), Tony Albert (Girramay/Yidinyji/Kuku Yalanji peoples), Gordon Hookey (Waanyi people) and Vincent Namatjira (Western Aranda people). This past week we looked at Gordon Hookey and his book "The Sacred Hill". The Kangaroo masks that we went home with were based on learning about him and his book.
In English, I have been working with K-1 learning how to re-tell a text, "The Very Clever Bear" by Nick Bland. We have started making puppets from the book to help us visualise how to re-tell. Yr4-6 have been working with Miss Glassey reading "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White and pulling out information from the text about the setting and characters.
In Maths K-1 have been learning to count up to 10 using painting and manipulatives to help them visualise this. Yr 4 have been looking into number lines and learning how to add using hundreds and thousands and yr 5 and 6 have been looking into equivalent fractions.
Yr 5 and 6 started Japanese this week!
Attached below is pictures from the week, student timetable and flyers on sleep and nutrition.
Have a great weekend,
Harriet Birchley
Week Two Highlights
Questions to ask students after school
At the beginning of each day we do morning circle. We go through the following five steps:
Greeting (we greet the people next to us)
- Positive Primer (pick a song and walk around Hi-fiving (elbowing-tap elbows instead of hands, COVID safe) each other with a smile.
- Announcements for the day or coming days
- Values and expectations
- What Went Well (students pick one thing from their morning that went well)
- Breathing
Then to finish our day we say our highlight of the day. To continue these positive conversations at home I will include some questions in each newsletter that you can ask your students to prompt conversation.
- Which subject was the most interesting to you today? why?
- What subject was the most challenging today?