PRIMARY PRESS SEPTEMBER 2015
Issue 6
Primary Press
YEAR FIVE AT THE CONCLUSION OF THEIR SENSATIONAL EXHIBITION ASSEMBLY
From the Head of Primary What a fantastic past two weeks in Primary. We have had a very successful athletics day and a literacy week full of super reading and writing challenges. None of these events can happen without the hard work and dedication of our terrific teaching staff and of course our parents and community. Even the best laid plans mean nothing if there is not a committed and dedicated force of people behind it to make it happen. We salute you all! Vinaka Vakalevu. Over the past few weeks we have also witnessed our Year 5 students in action at their exhibition assembly and the exhibition itself, hosted just this week in the new outside library space. How very proud we are of our students and teachers as they showcase and celebrate their term’s learning through an extended, collaborative inquiry that marks the culmination of their PYP learning experience. This is an important part of the PYP curriculum and demonstrates the students’ abilities to conduct in-depth research using key concept questions to drive their inquiry and apply the transdisciplinary skills and demonstrate attitudes and attributes of the Learner Profile to understand the
knowledge they have acquired through the research. As a result, students are expected to respond, choose and reflect how best they can take action to address or raise awareness within the community about their findings. Bravo Year 5’s! Early next term, in fact, the first three days of Term 4, all students in Year 3 – 5 will participate in the annual ISA assessment at school. In this edition, we have included some information for those of you who are not aware of what ISA is and why we participate in this international assessment. All results will be available for these assessments at the beginning of the next school year. Our Literacy assembly was ably hosted today by our Reception and Year 6 students. It was a great finish to the term and to our literacy week last week. A job well done! Thank you to all those parents who attended the student-led conferences this week with their children. We continue to find that these conferences are most beneficial in that they actively engage students in their own learning process. Through the conferences, students also learn the process of selfevaluation and develop organizational and oral communication skills.
September 2015 Being inquirers
has been our focus learner profile attribute these past few weeks. An inquirer is someone who asks questions to learn new ideas. Congratulations to all those students who were recognized by their teachers and classmates for demonstrating this attribute throughout their learning. We are eager to being our new focus attribute next term. Stay tuned to find out what it is! Our ‘Stop, Think, Do’ social skills program continues in the Year 2 and Year 3 classrooms with Ms. Passin, our Primary Counsellor, on Thursdays. We hope to include other year levels before the end of the year and into the new school year. This program has been discussed in earlier editions of Primary Press. If you would like further information, please contact Ms. Passin or Ms. Whittaker. Next term we celebrate with the whole school, Fiji Day at our Fiji Day Whole School assembly. This has now been postponed to the following Friday, October 16. We wish you all a safe and happy holiday. We are excited for the last term of our school year which begins on Tuesday, October 6. See you all then! Karen and the Primary Team