I would like to take the opportunity to comment on the on-going resilience of our students in the current situation. There have been many disappointments as Open Day, Infants Shakespeare live performances and the year 5 and 6 visit to Canberra have all had to be cancelled. The children have met these disappointments with good grace and worked to make the best of the circumstances. I would particularly like to acknowledge our 6th class students who are having a very different final year at John Colet compared to normal. They set a wonderful example to the rest of the School of good humour, acceptance and equanimity.
Di Renshaw
Deputy Headmistress
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Category: Latest News from John Colet School Belrose
On the vegetarian lunch menu for Week 4
Monday Macaroni cheese
Tuesday Chickpea and sweet potato curry
Wednesday Salad rolls
Thursday Vegetable pies
Friday Bean tacos
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6th Class are considering negative numbers in Maths and the question was asked, “How can there be a number less than zero, if zero is equal to nothing?” Is there a quantity less than zero? How can we have less than nothing at all! What a conundrum to debate! We turned to real life problems to answer the question, including looking at negative temperatures and landforms beneath sea level. There is of course an infinite number of integers ‘going left’ on the number line and 6T have been investigating them all week. We will finish up today with our weekly assessment and online Kahoot quiz. It is fascinating listening to the children discuss their Mathematical understanding. Justifying their answers and reasoning with each other is an important part of their learning and is rightly included in the NSW Maths Curriculum under the strand name ‘Working Mathematically’.
Allison Tomicki
Teacher
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6th class make personal keepsakes for Art
Each year 6th class students learn the ancient art of bookbinding. They make their own hand-stitched books under the direction of professional bookbinder and artist Brigitta Gallaher. The books are a beautiful and personal keepsake for the children to collect and display their favourite drawings.
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Illustration sessions online
The NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge is hosting guided illustration sessions online and our school joined in. Here are examples of our students’ takes on the fabulous illustrations by author Mick Eliott’s Squidge Dibley series. Students from Lower 1st to 6th Class took part. The NSW PRC people were very impressed and shared our students’ work on their instagram @nswprc. Our school is in the draw for some great prize packs! Wish us luck!
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3rd class develop Geo skills
Third class are learning mapping skills and using grid references to locate places. They are also learning how to use an atlas and an
to locate the grid references of key natural features in Australia.
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Why do we need evidence and examples to support our opinions? What are the hallmarks of effective persuasive arguments? 4th Class considered this closely this week. In Grammar we learnt about intensifiers and how these boost the feelings or opinions being expressed and add strength to the description; and in comprehension we looked at understanding texts containing direct and reported speech such as discussions and transcripts.
In my Maths class we have focused on revision before taking part in the Australian Maths Competition which we all agreed was rather challenging.
In History, we began to look at post-First Fleet Australia and read some real letters from Australian colonists describing the difficulties of life in the first years of the colony for both convicts and free settlers.
In Geography, we investigated how different people’s ideas about the environment influence how we look after the environment and sustainability. We specifically looked at the Boabs
Back into a busy Third Term for 6th class
Children’s authors Jackie French, Daniela Abela and Andrew Daddo shared creative writing tips with 6th class in a Mini Writing Festival this week. The children were keen to put into practice creating vivid descriptions, building curious characters and developing plot.
In other matters, the busy-ness of school has resumed with buddies (who celebrated 101 days of school dressed as the 101 Dalmations), Shakespeare, French and debating. Congratulations to our debaters who won today’s debate against Ravenswood School for Girls! On Monday we had our Teacher’s Day assembly and the children heard several short readings about the sun, moon, Earth, sky, water and air; and contemplated what they could teach us.
For Romeo and Juliet, ‘costumes’ will be basic blacks – black tights to the ankles and black short-sleeved t-shirts. Features will be added to each child’s clothing to identify their character. 6T will be in Western style costumes for their interpretation of
5th Class settling into Term 3 nicely
In 5th class this week:
Maths – Students have been exploring fractions and decimals. We have been looking at how to plot some decimals on a number line.
English – The children have been exploring what it might be like for the early settlers of Australia. They are working on a diary entry from a picture from that time period.
Grammar – We have been exploring Pronouns and when to use them in our writing.
History – children have been exploring the difference between primary and secondary sources.
Shakespeare rehearsals have been great! The children are enjoying acting out their lines. 5I is doing Twelfth Night with a Hawaii 5-0 theme (!) and 5K are doing Julius Caesar. Performances will be held at the end of October, at Glen Street Theatre, all going according to plan.
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The week that was in Second Class
2C enjoy exploring addition and subtraction and working on problems using dice, blocks, counters and revising our number facts to ten, twenty and up to the hundreds. In Writing we are developing our understanding of persuasive writing: a point of view, arguments and reasons for those arguments. We considered the arguments for ‘A Dog is The Best Pet’. We worked collaboratively with Mr Sjoquist’s help as we investigated grouping animals into Mammals, Insects, Fish and Reptiles. The children came up with several questions – Is a shark a fish? Is a snail an insect? Is a dolphin a fish? We also began creating our own detailed map of the school in Geography, including a Key with our design for symbols to record on our maps.
Spelling has taken on a new enthusiasm for the children this week. On our Staff Development Day, we teachers updated our training in ‘Sound Waves’, our