5 July 2024: Term 2 Week 10

Kaurna Acknowledgement

Niina Marni. As we feel the earth beneath us, the wind around us and the sun above us, we acknowledge the Kaurna people, the traditional owners of this land. We pay our respects to past Elders and will work with present and emerging Elders to protect and care for this unique land of ours. We also extend this respect to other First Nations peoples.

Principal's Report

Dear Parents, Students, and Community Members,

A litany of thanks!

As we conclude another exciting term at Linden Park Primary School, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to our wonderful volunteers, the dedicated members of our Governing Council, and those serving on various committees such as the Greening Committee, Campus Development, Finance, Sports,  Student Learning and Wellbeing, OSHC Committees and the diligent Fundraising Committee. Your unwavering support is undeniably critical to the success and vibrancy of our school programs.

A special 'thank you' to the parents who attend sporting events, the coaches who give their time and expertise, and those who volunteer for excursions, ensuring our children have enriching and enjoyable experiences beyond the classroom.

Staffing News

We also want to express our gratitude to Mr. Henry Nicholson for his contribution as Assistant Principal-Operations over the past two years. Henry’s efforts in coordinating our timetables, encompassing everything from the cake stall to sports day, has been invaluable. The fundraising on behalf of childhood cancer through the ‘Chop for Change’ typifies the ‘service leadership’ that underpins Henry’s approach to his role, constantly looking for ways to ‘do better and give more’  We wish him all the best in his future endeavours and thank him for his remarkable contribution to our school community. Mr. Kane Watkins will be backfilling in this leadership role in the near future.

I would also like to take this opportunity to give a big 'thank you' to Catherine Myers, for her expertise and guidance, initiating our Literacy improvement journey with Katelyn Link to take over this role from the beginning of Term 3.  

Furthermore, congratulations to all the students who have represented Linden Park Primary in various capacities. Our debaters, orienteers, and athletes across a range of sports – your accomplishments fill us with pride. Your dedication, perseverance, and hard work underscore the values we cherish at Linden Park; Responsibility, Respect, Creativity and Diversity.

To our educators and administrators; enjoy a well-deserved break after such a busy end of term; preparing end of financial year statements, assessing students, reviewing intervention programs, compiling portfolios and writing reports.

Thank you to everyone who has played a part in making this term a memorable and successful one. We look forward to building on our collective successes in the coming term; our IB Evaluation in September a key milestone for 2024.

Warm regards,

Fiona Voigt, Principal

Welcome

Assembly Student Awards

Congratulations to all the students listed below, who demonstrated the Learner Profile Attributes this past fortnight in R-6.

Book Week 2024

Term 3 will see our annual Book Week celebrations being held during Week 5 -  19 - 23 August.

The theme for this year’s Book Week is 'Reading is Magic'.

During the week the students will be able to participate in:

• A sustainable book swap
• Purchase items from the Scholastic Book Fair
• Whole School Assembly and Book Week Costume Parade (Friday)
• A class session with an illustrator
• Story Walk
• Colouring Competition (R-2)
• Bookmark Design Competition (3-6)
• Whole School Picnic – Sanders Oval

Students will be asked to bring to school an old book (in good condition) to swap with another student in their classroom/year level for the sustainable book swap.

If families plan to sort their child’s books out, please retain some books for your child to bring for this future book swap.

Thank you,

Russell Hanson, Teacher-Librarian

Reader's Cup Challenge

Our annual Reader's Cup Challenge for Year 6 students was held in week 9, Term 3.

Over the duration of a term the participating students read 5 pre-selected texts (either individually or as a group).

The students then gathered for a 'quiz style' format competition based on their knowledge of the read books.

The winning team - 'The Pizza Rizaz' included Genevieve, Emily, Poppy and Grace. Pizza Rizaz won by a close point and a half! 

Well done to all of the students who participated in this reading challenge! 

The winning team win a visit 'Pegi Williams Bookshop' where they will assist in selecting books for the senior fiction collection, choose a book for themselves and have their team name on the "Reader's Cup" trophy.

Russell Hanson, Teacher-Librarian

NAIDOC week

National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across the country in the first week of July each year. This is to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Reconciliation is everyone's business! Teaching our students about the oldest living culture in the world is our responsibility. As part of the PYP we aim to nurture peaceful, tolerant young people who are global citizens that will make a difference in the world.  Year 2 Room 3 as part of Naidoc week activities made Clapsticks. Clapsticks are a traditional percussive instrument used by Indigenous Australian communities to maintain rhythm during vocal chants.

The 2024 NAIDOC theme is ‘Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud’. This theme is about communities and standing up in solidarity and amplifying voices. The fire represents connection to the land, to each other, and to the traditions that define the culture.

If you would like more information on NAIDOC or this year’s theme please visit:-

National NAIDOC Theme | NAIDOC

Nicole Scrivener, Deputy Principal: Innovation and Inquiry

NAIDOC WEEK - Year 3 Art

As part of the Yr 3 'How We Express Ourselves' unit exploring ‘Celebrations in Cultures’, students celebrated NAIDOC week by learning about the Tjanpi Desert weavers and in particular the animal sculptures. 

Students watched videos of the desert weavers and how they use a mixture of natural local grasses and commercially dyed raffia to create animal sculptures.
Our yr 3 teacher Annie also brought in a gorgeous pink Echidna that she purchased from the Tjanpi Desert Weavers! 
Students were excited to create their own Australian animal sculptures. They used materials easily accesible to them such as newspaper, masking tape, alfoil, popsticks and coloured tissue paper to form the body. The following week, they worked over the animal shape by winding and weaving brightly coloured wool/string/yarn around the animals. 
These beautiful sculptured animals were a wonderful way to finish off our Art unit. Next term the Yr 3’s will be moving on to music!
I hope you enjoy these beautiful sculptures as much as I have!

Image below taken from the Tjanpi Desert Weavers Facebook page. Website www.tjanpi.com.au Tangki (donkey) by SA artist Madeline Marshall, pictured mid-creation in during a skills and development workshop in Pukatja (Ernabella) Image by Georgina Whigham

Kara Loan
Visual Arts Teacher

My New Gallery

Year 2 Art - Artist in Residence: Evie Hassiotis

Most students in the junior school know Evie as one of our SSO’s who works with a number of students across the Junior school. But did you know that she is also a very talented artist?
The year 2’s have been very fortunate to have had Evie join their art classes over the last few weeks as an Artist in Residence! Evie brought in several of her mixed media artworks and spoke to us about the way that she works as an intuitive artist. The Yr 2’s asked lots of wonderful questions and enjoyed seeing and ‘feeling’ Evie’s textured paintings up close!  
This experience inspired students to create their own intuitive mixed media artworks. The first week, Evie supported students to create textured backgrounds by gluing scrap paper, recycled artworks and card on paper.  In the second week, students were shown how to work intuitively over the textured backgrounds with oil pastels and inks, to create abstract artworks.  All students were highly engaged in this process and enjoyed having Evie support them through their journey as young artists.

Kara Loan
Art Teacher

My New Gallery

Wellbeing News

As this Term comes to a close, it is amazing to look back and see how much has been achieved.

Student Action Committee (SAC)

The SAC Reps have raised important issues such fixing areas around the school, how to reduce rubbish and the things they would like to see to improve recess and lunch playtimes.

It has been so pleasing to see being so active in not only raising issues they are concerned about, but the ideas and solutions they suggest.

Allowing students to have a voice in their school is one of the many aspects at LPPS that allow our students to learn and grow with confidence and pride.

Student Wellbeing Leaders

Our Student Wellbeing Leaders have also been hard at it this Term. They have been busy analysing the Wellbeing and Engagement (WEC) data and formulating questions that they feel need to be asked to improve the experience of students.

They also worked together with Year 7 students at Glenunga International High School and helped them learn how to interpret their data and compare it to the data form our school. The feedback that they provide showed that they felt that it was a worthwhile experience and they gained a lot from the day.

The recent Areas of Impact Forum attended by the Student Wellbeing Leaders, Student Ambassadors and Inquiry Ambassadors was the first time all these students had been together. It was fantastic to see them working together and gaining an insight into how much their voice is important to planning the future of education in this state.

Did you know?

Sugar is a term that includes all sweet carbohydrates, although the term is most often used to describe sucrose or table sugar, a ‘double sugar’. The body breaks down carbohydrates into simple sugars such as glucose that can be readily used in the body.

There are several different sugars. Sugars occur naturally in some foods, such as fruit and dairy products, and are also added to a wide variety of foods. Sugar can take many different forms, including white, raw or brown sugar, honey or corn syrup.

Too much sugar in your diet can make your diet high in kilojoules or 'energy dense' and can contribute to health problems like obesity, diabetes and tooth decay. 

The standard serving size for soft drink has increased. Previously, soft drink was available in 375ml cans. Soft drinks are now commonly sold in 600ml bottles, which provide up to 16 teaspoons of sugar.

For an average 14-year-old girl, a 600ml bottle of soft drink alone will provide more than 12% of her daily energy needs. This means she would exceed the recommended energy intake from refined sugar with just one drink.

Studies of children in Australia have found that consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages was associated with an obesity risk. Participants who consumed more than one serving (more than 250g) were 26% more likely to be overweight or obese.

www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/sugar#about-sugar

David Molloy, Student Wellbeing Leader and Autism Inclusion Teacher

Did you know that teachers are learners too?

On Tuesday in Week 9 the teaching staff from Linden Park met with other teachers from our neighbouring IB schools of Rose Park, Highgate and Stradbroke primary school to network and participate in professional conversations around the IB PYP and assessment. Teachers brought along an exemplar student portfolio or assessment task that included effective feedback such as rubrics and evidence of how they support students to develop next steps in learning and future goals. Staff met in year level teams and specialist team groups;

• Receptions, Year 1s and Year 2s met at Linden Park Primary School
• Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 met at Rose Park Primary School
• Specialists met at Linden Park Primary School, except PE and TEACHER LIBRARIANS who met at Rose Park Primary

Guiding questions/points of discussion included;

1. How do you generate rubrics for your assessment tasks? Are they co-constructed with students and if so, how do you do so? What do your rubrics look like?
2. Share different assessment tools featured in your portfolios (eg. rubrics, checklists).
3. Share and discuss how peer feedback features in your students’ portfolios.
4. Share and discuss examples of feedback from teachers to facilitate learning/skill/concept development.
5. How do portfolios document goal setting and celebrate the achievement of goals?
6. Share and discuss how parents/carers get involved with providing feedback to support student learning.
7. Share and discuss how your team collaborates to generate and teach based on feedback.
8. Share how you use the feedback to form next steps/ learning goals with students.

We look forward to meeting up with the teachers from these schools next term for further PYP combined staff meetings.

Nicole Scrivener, Deputy Principal: Innovation and Inquiry

“What is there to know about the PYP” Parent Workshop

On Wednesday 27 June 2024 parents were invited to attend a workshop about ‘What is there to know about the PYP?’

The turnout of parents was pleasing with more than 100 parents in attendance. The workshop introduced the philosophy behind the PYP and how the programme is rigorous in preparing students to be internally minded, lifelong learners that are global citizens. We touched on the essential elements of the programme including the program of inquiry, the transdisciplinary themes, the fact that it is a concept-driven curriculum, the learner profile attributes and the explicit skills that are taught, known as ‘approaches to learning’. Thank you to the parents who were able to attend the session.

Nicole Scrivener, Deputy Principal: Innovation and Inquiry

Our whole school program of inquiry (POI)

In the PYP (Primary Years Program) the teachers and students are designers of the curriculum. Each school creates their own unique programme based on the needs of their students, their local context, and their chosen curriculum. Linden Park Primary School uses the Australian Curriculum as this is our national mandated curriculum. Each year, students study six transdisciplinary units of inquiry across the different year levels (four units of inquiry for Reception students). These units of inquiry address globally significant issues or big ideas through the lens of a transdisciplinary theme. There are six transdisciplinary themes. These are;

• Who we are
• Where we are in place and time
• How we express ourselves
• How the world works
• Sharing the planet
• How we organise ourselves

The themes help the teacher to develop investigations into important ideas that are authentic to real world situations, which require high levels of involvement on the part of the students. The students use these connections to develop deeper understandings. The themes are transdisciplinary because they focus on issues that are integrated across all learning areas, not just as subjects taught in isolation. By not separating subjects, each discipline becomes a tool for solving a big, real-world problem. Students learn not only the content or knowledge, but also the concepts and skills in away that empowers connection making and problem solving.

The units of inquiry are mapped out across each year level in a program of inquiry (POI). The POI serves as a framework for our curriculum. It outlines the scope and sequence of learning; providing information about what will be taught and when. It provides a map of what units will be taught by each year level, including the central idea, key concepts, learner profile attributes, the skills students will learn and the subject learning areas that student will explore around the transdisciplinary themes. A copy of the school’s POI can be found on EMS under the parent portal. There are copies that can be observed around the school including in the front office. Attached is a copy of the POI.

Nicole Scrivener, Deputy Principal: Innovation and Inquiry

Student Portfolios

The PYP portfolio is one way we monitor, document and report on student progress to parents. Other ways include the Learning Journey or Exhibition, written reports and the student led conference. The learning portfolio is shared with parents at the end of every term.

A portfolio is a record of students’ involvement in learning which is designed to demonstrate;

• Success
• Growth
• Higher order thinking
• Creativity
• Assessment strategies
• Reflection

Portfolios demonstrate both the process and the product of learning in the units of inquiry. It is more than just a collection tasks to be completed at the end of a unit as a formal ‘finished product’. It is an ongoing working document that communicates students’ thinking, understanding and their journey of inquiry. Work samples are chosen by teachers and students to demonstrate learning both during and at the conclusion of the units of inquiry. Students participate in the portfolio creation, encouraging voice and choice in the process. The portfolio enables students to reflect with teachers, parents and peers to identify their strengths, growth and areas for improvement.

Portfolios may contain many different examples of learning including;

• Photos
• Work samples
• Certificates
• Assessments of prior knowledge
• Self-assessments
• End of unit assessments
• Rubrics
• Checklists
• Reflections

Documentation of a portfolio can be physical (folder or book form) or digital (online sharing tools such as SeeSaw, and can be displayed or recorded in a variety of media forms. Portfolios help to make learning visible.

The aim of the portfolio provides an opportunity for parent and child to talk and share about the learning journey. Parents are encouraged to provide feedback and document comments or thoughts in the portfolios. Keep a look out for your child’s portfolio coming home soon!

Nicole Scrivener, Deputy Principal: Innovation and Inquiry

Community News

Headspace - Be You

Tips for adults supporting children:  

• Encourage them to stay connected: Social relationships are an important aspect of children’s general wellbeing. Friends can provide both play and support, and spending time with friends is also important for keeping and building existing friendships.  
  
• Encourage them to stay involved: Whether it is hobbies, clubs, or sports – involvement with these can help a child feel connected to their wider community.    
• Partake in physical activity: If a child is feeling down or finding things difficult, physical activities such as walking around the block can help relieve stress and frustration.  
• Keeping to a regular routine: Getting a good sleep each night helps children feel energised, focused and motivated. Getting up and going to bed at the same time each day can help normalise their body clock.  
• Help-seeking & support: Ensure that children have access to support numbers, locally and nationally; and that parents/carers also are provided with these details.