Welcome back
Welcome back to Term 4 on-site! This week has been a huge adjustment for many of us moving from a set working space we share with our immediate families, compared with moving into a variety of learning spaces along with 135 others. We discussed the happy and sad of change. We had some very early nights falling into bed exhausted. No doubt your children were feeling much the same! Many found the need to remember water bottles, hats, laptop charging, etc. challenging, so a little support in the first few weeks may be needed to help reform these habits.
Special Warm Welcome
A special welcome to our new students and families in Year 5. We met both Grover and Shiloh this week and look forward to sharing more of PHPS with them during Term 4.
Hot Desk
Steve continued Hot Desk this week, with discussions around the statements:
‘All animals should be treated equally’ and ‘Children under 15 years of age should not be able to use social media without parent supervision’.
It was great to be back in the neighbourhood to overhear the continued discussions between students after the session had finished. Families may also be interested in hearing the perspectives discussed or add to the discussion, by following up with a podcast: But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids- why are some animals pets and others are lunch? or, an interesting documentary for parents to view is The Social Dilemma. This documentary is currently on Netflix and well worth viewing as a provocation of your own families’ use of social media.
Inquiry
This week was about drawing together our understanding from remote learning and forming inquiry groups’ hypotheses. For example, the Natural and Human-made Disasters group have suggested
It is our responsibility to care for others (humans & animals). When we care for others, they care for us in return– Hendrix
Things happen (disasters). We are not in control of it, but we can respond positively and learn from it -Opal
Mistakes are a learning experience– Siena M
Cycles are an inevitable part of life to be experienced together-Poppy K
Change is inevitable. Some of our change is random events, however, some change is part of a cycle or progression– Opal, Poppy K , Hendrix, Anouk
It is our responsibility to actively prepare, research, maintain or sustain our actions, behaviors, etc.- collaborative idea – Hendrix, Anisa
The environment changes and we need to change with it. We can not control natural elements, but we do have a choice about how we respond – Anisa
We have begun to consider what five items could symbolically represent our remote learning experience. We have begun sharing ideas such as afternoon walks around Princess Park, baking, sleeping in, working with siblings…we look forward to a growing collection and display in our neighbourhood over the coming weeks.
Project Curiosita
Being back at school, offered us a chance to ‘spark’ new learning curiosities, develop individual inquiry questions or statements; and then look to others for possible collaborations. Students are in the process of developing a mind map for an area of interest and formulating an inquiry around this that can be unpacked and further investigated. Some beginning ideas are related to health, geology, revolutions, indigenous foods, archeology, animal rights, nutrition, the experiences of medical professionals, the evolution of cultural games, including soccer and AFL…it promises to be a busy term!
Well being
As we start back at school, it is a perfect time to review the PHPS Capabilities and revise our school values. As we have drafted our autobiographies and memoirs, we have revisited our personal character strengths and how these strengths have developed as a result of our experiences.
For Year 6’s this is an especially important conversation as they potentially shift out of their known friendships and security of the PHPS community and into new secondary school environments. Feeling assured of our capabilities and character strengths support us to develop constructive relationships.
Book Week
Next week we are excited to celebrate our love of literature with this year’s book week theme, ‘Curious Creatures, wild Minds’. The Year 5/6 team are excited and busily preparing our costumes. We are encouraging children to get creative and join in the event by dressing up. We are really looking forward to celebrating together for the first time in months and sharing this with you at home.