|
The Oak Leaf |
|
Address: Willett Avenue, Oak Park VIC 3046
T:(03) 9306 9182 E: oak.park.ps@education.vic.gov.au |
Issue 23
August 3rd 2023 |
Oak Park Primary School will work collaboratively to provide a stimulating, safe and challenging learning environment that promotes resilient, innovative thinkers.
|
Calendar of Events
|
|
Principal's Column
NAPLAN Results – Wonderful success and Collated School Results
The collated NAPLAN results for the state have been made available to the school, I’m pleased to share a brief summary below of our students achievement in the top two proficiency bands. Below is a table collating the NAPLAN results for Reading, Writing and Numeracy. Demonstrating strong achievement for students in the top two proficiencies for Year 3 and 5 students, in comparison to other students from our school network. Our students have achieved above their network for all results. Congratulations to students and teachers on their results. This is a reflection of the robust collaboration between teams of teachers and excellent intervention practices to support and extend student understanding. 
Further information from the National Assessment Program regarding changes can also be found here.
Junior School Council - School Toilet Project Our Junior School Council are interested in a cosmetic makeover of our main school toilets, after being inspired by The School Toilet Project. This involves conducting a survey with Year 3-6 students and using this information to plan some deep cleaning, painting and wall decals to make our toilets a more hospitable place for students. The project suggests that if students are empowered to improve the appearance of these spaces, they will also reduce the amount of minor vandalism and mess caused by students. Support from the PFA or parent volunteers is required to paint and support the delivery of the student design – some of which would require weekend painting. An example from another school is included below. We’ll send further updates as we get closer to the work commencing. 
Kind regards,
Michael Gill Principal Assembly Timetable - Term 3
Foundation News
To continue our learning about community helpers, we were lucky to have Mark, one of the parents in Foundation D visit us to teach the students about paramedics. We loved looking through the ambulance and were bursting with lots of questions for Mark. Thank you Mark for your visit!
100 DAYS OF SCHOOL
On Wednesday the Foundation students celebrated our 100 Days of School. In the morning we came to school in our costumes and performed our ‘100 Days’ song for our buddies. We then got to do a polka dance together and complete some fun activities like making a 100 Day gumball machine, crown and fruit loop necklace. In the afternoon we enjoyed our hot chip lunch, a movie and a disco! Congratulations to all our Foundation students for all the amazing learning you have done in your 100 days at school. We have loved watching you grow and learn and we are so proud of your achievements so far! Check out some pictures of our celebration:
Book Week Parade
P.F.A
This year the PFA’s Father’s Day Stall is scheduled for Thursday 31st August and Friday 1st September, and we are looking for donations from the school community to augment the stock for the stall. Gifts are usually sold for between $1 and $6, so items such as key rings, socks or other small, simple handmade goodies are ideal. If you are able to make or otherwise have something to donate, please email us at 4721-PFAOPPS@schools.vic.edu.au to let us know what you would like to give and to organise drop-off details. We will need to receive donations by Friday 25 August. Thank you for your support! The PFA The Great Book Swap
On the 23rd of August 2023, Oak Park Primary School will be participating in The Great Book Swap! This event supports fundraising efforts for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, a charity that provides culturally relevant reading materials to students in rural and remote communities around Australia. This will be a fantastic opportunity for students to engage with new reading materials, whilst contributing to a worthwhile fundraising event. Over the next 3 weeks, we ask students to bring in books from home, that they are happy to donate to the cause. Students can give any book donations in the drop off box next to the office. We will then conduct our Great Book Swap during lunchtime on Wednesday the 23rd of August 2023. Students are asked to bring in some money on the day, each book will be sold for $1 each. Last year we raised $675 during The Great Book Swap! Let’s see if we can beat this fundraising target this year! Thank you in advance for supporting our efforts to promote reading in our school and contribute to the important work of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation! 
Specialist
Physical Education In class this week we have been working on our jumping skills. The juniors have been hard at work practicing their long jump while the seniors have been perfecting their high jump technique. We have Kaboom sports this Friday and we are about one week out from our annual athletics carnival. It is great to see everyone get into the spirit of track and field and embrace the challenge! In other news, the 56 Basketball teams are looking to take their talents to Broadmeadows Stadium next Thursday for the annual Glenroy District Hoop Time Tournament. We look forward to bringing you some good news week 😊 Performing Arts
It was great to watch the 100 year old Foundation and Grade 6 students dance the ‘Heel and Toe’ during their 100 Days celebration. All students learnt the dance sequences in their Performing Arts classes and it was wonderful to watch them have fun dancing with their buddies on Wednesday morning (please see the wonderful photos posted earlier in the newsletter). The Heel and Toe Polka is a classic Australian bush dance. This dance is fun and energetic and easy to learn. It is thought that the polka is a Czech dance that originated of the nineteenth century in Bohemia. The genre of dance music used is very familiar throughout all of Europe and the Americas. Next week senior students are grabbing their passports and beginning to dance around the world. Stay tuned to see what style of dance we will learn next! Science News
This week in the Science room the Grade 3/4s and 5/6s have begun a new unit of work with a biology focus. In this unit we will be learning about different life cycles, interesting animal adaptations and how plants and animals rely on one another for survival. This week we spent time learning about the life cycles of plants and animals - comparing and contrasting the different life stages. We also spent some time talking about how some organisms life cycles are simple and others are more complex and include metamorphosis. Students learnt that metamorphosis is a process some animals go through to become adults. It is a series of physical changes. Metamorphosis is especially common in insects. Many insects go through four stages of metamorphosis: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. An insect hatches from an egg into a wormlike larva. Caterpillars are examples of insect larvae. The larva eats a lot. As it grows, the larva molts, or sheds its outer covering. To begin the pupa stage, the larva often builds itself a protective covering, such as a cocoon. Inside this covering the pupa develops wings and adult body parts. It comes out of its covering as an adult. Students were enthralled by some incredible timelapse videos of the life cycles of butterflies and ladybugs. For any keen student biologists I can recommend watching the life cycle of a frog video here … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etGmCvIL014 
|
|
Visual Arts
Grade 5/6 students have started working on their ‘Illustrating the School’ unit in Visual Arts classes. We ventured outside the art room to take photographs of various exterior locations around the school, that were either favourite places for the students to spend time during their school day, or perhaps areas that they just thought would be great to try to draw and paint. Once students had selected a photo of an area of the school that they wanted to draw, they learned about perspective drawing and the use of horizon lines and vanishing points. We then focussed on the lines we could extract from the photos and use as reference points, to assist with proportion and position when drawing the various elements required. The final step in this sequence of lessons is to add watercolour paint to the sketches (similar to renderings created by architects when visualising a new development). Students have been highly engaged in creating their sketches of areas around the school, and I look forward to sharing these with the school community when they are complete. I hope to display some of the artworks in the school foyer when complete, so keep an eye out for these in the coming weeks. 
Japanese News
The junior school have made a wonderful start in Japanese this semester! The students have been very excited to be learning about Japanese language and culture and are looking forward to building on their knowledge. We have had lots of fun learning how to read and say body parts and are really enjoying learning how to sing ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ in Japanese. The students have also been matching body parts to their names in Romaji and Hiragana and are doing a great job! If you would like to practice them at home, we have been using this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aJ7dzeB3Ro. Students have also really enjoyed finding out how to say and write their names in Japanese. Students have found out that there are different sounds in Japanese language and some people’s names sound the same while others change to match the Japanese sounds. It would be great if you could ask your children and see if they can remember how to say their name in Japanese and if it changes in any way. Natalie School Contacts
|
