Parent Helpers Wanted!

The PHPS Library needs many able hands to help cover our new library books. We also need regular helpers to join the team re-shelving and tidying or ordering the resources on shelves. To find out more please speak to Mark.

Research Project on Assessment.

A letter is being sent home with the children this week. It outlines a research project that some teachers are involved in over the next 6 months with Professor Marilyn Fleer at Monash University.

The letter outlines the project “Assessment beyond borders: Potentive assessment in Primary School”.  The project is looking at varied ways to assess children both at school and at home.

It also includes consent forms for you to fill out and return to school  as soon as possible.

We would appreciate your support in this research project.

Maths Projects

Students in both neighbourhoods are currently in the process of completing their maths projects. To assist the students with the planning and organiusation of their project, each project group is required to complete an action plan. The plan requires the students to state their obectives and the steps they will need to follow to complete their objectives successfully. Students are being conferenced to support them with the process. In addition to this the students have identified wth their teachers those areas of the projects that they will assessed on. The assessment is in the form of a rubric, which requires the students to assess along a continuum of descriptors each other's projects in terms of how well they reached the criteria outlined in the rubric. The projects will be presented to the neighbourhoods early next term.

Year 5/6 Learning Neighbourhoods

Our more streamlined approach to having the children sign in (with teacher supervision) when they arrive, get their belongings from their lockers and go directly to the learning area where they need to be, is working well. It eliminates time spent waiting for rolls to be marked. Both neighbourhoods are now available for all the children and they have expressed pleasure at having more spaces on offer to support the range of learning they need to undertake. This is in line with the school’s Strategic Plan improvement strategy - to develop consistency in student programs and organisation throughout the years of schooling.
As a result of recommendations deriving from a project undertaken last year by a group of children in collaboration with designer, Mary Featherston, the learning spaces will continue to be developed. During the holidays tiered seating will be put in the ‘viewing room’ and work booths will be also be installed.
We’re enjoying the evolution of our Year 5/6 neighbourhood and look forward to the many possibilities this offers.

FAMILY BOARDGAMES NIGHT

All families at PHPS are invited to the Family Boardgames night.

When:  Friday 7 September 2012: 4.00 pm to 7.00 pm

Where: 5/6 Neighbourhood 1 building.

 

Come whenever you can- there’s no need to stay for the whole event. Year 5/6 students as well as former PHPS students will be available to teach the games to children and adults. There is no charge for this event. No electronic games please.

 

Angela Palombo

On behalf of Community Relations Sub-Committee, PHPS School Council

5/6 Learning Neighbourhood

Throughout out Inquiry, Alice in Wonderland, the two Year 5/6 neighbourhoods combined to use the learning spaces in a way that best supported the learning. This was a positive experience in that it ensured equitable and effective use of the spaces and resources.

We will continue in this way into the future which will ensure consistency of approach across the Year 5/6 level.

To support and assist the children with getting to workshops, targeted teaching sessions or learning agreement time promptly we will move all lockers into Neighbourhood 1. This will allow the children to sign in (with teacher supervision) when they arrive, get their belongings from their lockers and go directly to the learning area where they need to be.

Children will remain in their current home groups, programs will continue as in the past and their learning will continue to be tracked as it has to date.

The combined 5/6 office will be in Neighbourhood 1 to align with the rest of the school who share a team office.

Premiers' Reading Challenge

The deadline for submitting your Premiers' Reading Challenge (PRC) list of books is Monday 3 September.

Please enter the books eligible for the PRC, which you have read, onto your login page at the PRC website. 

Then, print a list of books with your name on it and ask a parent/guardian to sign it. Give this signed printout to your Home Group Teacher (who will deliver it to Annette for verification purposes). Enjoy the Challenge!

Alice In Wonderland Information Letter

Alice In Wonderland -

Alice in Wonderland- save the date

Our inquiry into performance has begun in earnest! We now have five departments established- Costume, Marketing and Promotion, Performance, Set Design, and Documentation. Much more to follow...
But PLEASE SAVE THESE DATES

Tuesday 28th, Wednesday 29th and Thursday 30th August.

Camp: What to bring letter

Happy Valley Homestead Camp -

Healthy Communities Reflections

healthy food reflection -

Race to Pompeii

For the last four weeks we have been doing a project where we have to plan a trip to Rome and Pompeii, stopping over in Naples. We have to plan accommodation, flights and accessories.
We have to stay in Italy for fifteen days with a travel buddy. Together you have a total of $20,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are looking at all the maths involved in planning a holiday to Italy. Part of the project is to collect information and present our projects to the class in a creative way. The deadline for the project is yet to be decided and draws on a range of skills such as researching, organisation, reading and writing.
Otis and Jordi


Race to Pompeii -

Interschool Sport: Football

Interschool Sports Report- Football -

Inquiry Peer Assessment

Last week we did a peer assessment for our projects on healthy communities
We developed a rubric during a workshop, where we made decisions as to what would be assessed (guiding questions, guiding activities, organisation and documentation) and the criteria we would use to assess it. Each project group was assessed on a scale of one to three; for example, if all of your guiding questions link to the topic then you will get top marks but if only few did you would get fewer marks. Each project group was assigned to another project group to assess how well they reached the criteria.
Otis and Jordi


Healthy Communities Inquiry Rubric -

Interschool Sports Starts this Week

This week and for the next five weeks, the 5/6’s will be taking part in interschool sports. There will be soccer, football, t-ball and net ball. All teams except for netball travel to Princes Park to play while the netballers travel to the State Netball and Hockey Centre. We hope all the teams will be good spirited and have fun. We wish all the teams the best of luck. Each week we will post the results on the blog.
Jack P

Literature Group PMI

In the final week of literature groups students were required to evaluate the books they were reading.  Working in their groups, students completed a PMI: the plus, minus and intersting aspects of their book.  To help the neighbourhood with the selection of their next literature book, the PMIs were presented to the class. 

Audio Conference

http://www.box.com/s/e023b3bd6377ec88de71

Parent Information Night: Inquiry

An inquiry approach helps foster and develop our students’ natural curiosity for the social, biological and physical worlds in which they live. When planning units of inquiry, we need to consider in depth ‘What are the concepts we want to develop in our students about these worlds. How are these worlds organised? How do they change? How do they interrelate? How do we communicate about, within and across these worlds? From the big concepts we move to an essential question that gives our inquiry a specific direction. For example, we are looking at the big idea of healthly communities. Our essential question focuses on choices relating to our health and its impact on the overall health of our community. Engaging the students in the inquiry is an essential part of the process, provoking their thinking and ascertaining prior knowledge and values they bring to the inquiry. The essential question gives rise to a problem or challenge that needs to be solved. Students generate guiding questions that they will need answered in order for them to complete their challenge. Through the process both the students and teachers work together as collaborators and co-constructors of knowledge. Students in this process have a voice in their learning journey, negotiating possible pathways for their learning.

The integrated and seamless nature of learning is embedded through the process. Students are given explicit opportunities to use language, mathematics, the arts and technology to inquire about, analyse and communicate their understandings. Simultaneously, students are learning about and mastering the processes and conventions for each particular discipline area and seeing the relationship of learning across each area.

Premiers Active Family Challenge

The Premiers Active Families Challenge is on again -

Parent info meeting

Thanks to all the parents who were able to attend our parent information session last week. As a courtesy to parents who were unable to attend the session, we will be uploading a text version of what we spoke about on the night. Please watch for additions to the blog.

Mathematics in 5/6:

Numeracy is a whole school focus for 2012 and is central to all learning.

‘Numeracy is an individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgements and to use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen.’ (OECD 2004)

‘To be truly numerate, involves more than the acquisition of mathematical routines and algorithms, no matter how well they are learned. Students need to learn mathematics in ways that enable them to recognise when mathematics might help to interpret information or solve practical problems, apply their knowledge appropriately in contexts where they will have to use mathematical reasoning processes and choose mathematics that makes sense in the circumstances.’  (National Numeracy Review, 2008)

We work within the meaningful context of inquiry wherever possible. Alongside this is a diagnosis and intervention program delivered through targeted sessions which are differentiated depending on need.  These targeted sessions combine the balance of deep understanding and the development of efficient methods.

Running alongside this targeted approach is a maths investigation which supports our inquiry.

One example of this was our inquiry into identity where students were asked to get into groups of 4-5 and calculate their “average group member” based on a number of open-ended criteria. (For example hair colour, length of arm, hand-span). The students then created life-size images of their average group member which helped us come to a better understanding of a shared identity.

Another example of embedded mathematics stemmed from a targeted session on ratio. As a result of some thorough maths investigation, a group of students found some misleading advertising in a Woolworths brochure. We decided action needed to be taken and sent a letter to the ACCC, Woolworths and Yakult, asking for an explanation. Sadly, we did not receive a reply from Woolworths, but the ACCC and Yakult did reply in writing. 

Yakult offered a group of students the opportunity of a tour of their factory (at no charge), which related strongly to our unit on technology and mass production.