A massive welcome back to our 2021 school year. I hope you all had a wonderfully restful break and you are looking forward to an amazing year at Hills College. Gosh, I love our school! I have been so proud to walk around the College grounds and pop into our student classrooms and see positivity at play. Our classroom teachers have worked hard to ensure that the moment your child walked into their room they felt welcomed, supported and had a strong sense of belonging. Essential agreements have been established to importantly develop rapport and foster respect. Ultimately we aim to promote positive relationships where everyone feels valued and supported and celebrate this as a success. We establish learning environments where students are challenged to take risks and are supported and guided by goal-setting and feedback. This is your school and we want our students to have a sense of ownership, cherishing their time and taking great pride in their learning environment.
At our welcome back assembly last Thursday I felt a great sense of relief, relief that we were all able to gather as one! It was wonderful welcoming our new staff to the students. Miss Apps (Prep A), Miss West (2W), Miss Timmins (5T), and Educational Support staff, Mrs Oldham and Miss Lubach. As you are aware, our little Primary school has grown quite considerably. A huge welcome to all of our new students, from Prep through to Year 6. It is fabulous having you join our community.
Assemblies commence on 12th February and run every fortnight thereafter at the top of the Resource Centre. Teachers will email you if your child is receiving a L.A.W.S. award and will invite you to attend. Please note, our assemblies our strictly invitational only, and we will be hoping to see restrictions ease as the year progresses.
Congratulations to our Primary Captains, Vice Captains and House Captains who were selected to represent the College in 2021. These wonderful students have been chosen on their merits to do what is right and to model and support others within our community with their positive influence. I will be meeting with them regularly to discuss student matters and allow them to feedback on how we can support our students with their endeavours. Our Primary & Vice Captains are also responsible for setting up and running our fortnightly assemblies and we look forward to seeing them in action at next Friday’s 2:30 pm assembly. Our House Captains will assist by involving themselves in initiatives which promote student wellness. This may be the running of lunch clubs, participation in the Better Buddy System or raising awareness of issues which are important to the student body they support. Well done, in advance, Captains!
I deeply value you and your child so please let our staff know if you have any concerns. It is by working together, not against, that we can achieve so much.
Thank you all for an amazing start to our 2021 school year and I look forward to working so positively with you all.
Kind regards
Matt Noel
Head of Primary
matt.noel@hills.qld.edu.au
Student Wellbeing
During this week we also had a visit from Life Education and of course Harold the giraffe. Each stage level had a health and wellbeing focus. It was such a privilege to have professionals work with our students to equip them with knowledge and to provide skills to assist them in their decision making concerning health, cybersafety and well being.
Next Monday our Year 5 & 6 students will be involved in a cyber safety course with a Digital Thumbprint. students will be led through the skills of creating strong passwords, enabling privacy settings on social media, and understanding just how easily and far things can spread when shared on the internet. They will also understand the impact that cyberbullying can have on someone and how it can make them feel. Students will also be involved in a detective game to understand the power and the danger of what is shared online. The session is aimed at empowering our learners and equipping them in this highly digitized world. Families you will also have the opportunity to be engaged in a digital literacy workshop on Thursday 11th February at 6pm. We hope you can make this invaluable presentation which will be held in the Resource Centre.
Connecting
Meet the Teacher Evening was another big success. I always talk with great joy about our wonderful staff. They are amazing and highly dedicated in their approach, taking great pride in getting to know each and every individual in their care. This evening was a wonderful opportunity to hear about the learning taking place and the strategies and programmes they utilise to support your child to achieve their highest possible success. Sorry about the wet weather!
Parent Engagement
In the upcoming weeks, we will be looking to hold several parent engagement sessions focusing on our Literacy Priority plan and what the PYP is. These sessions are an invaluable way to understand more about our priorities and translate interest and skills towards your child's learning. Specific dates and times will be made available via the College App in the coming weeks.
Pick up and drop off
You are most welcome to drop your child at their classroom. As we are guided by Health Regulations and our College COVID-19 plan, please practice social distancing and avoid gathering in large groups, especially on campus. If you can kindly arrive after 3:10 pm and then promptly depart when your child is ready, that would be wonderful. To also minimize classroom drop-ins, please arrange an appointment with your child’s teacher if you wish to meet. Many thanks for your continued cooperation- it is much appreciated.
Out and about in Primary.
Stage 2 (Years 3 & 4) Incursion How we express ourselves
The Year 3 and 4 students dived straight into their first unit of inquiry, How We Express Ourselves, with an incursion from the Ngutana-Lui Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Studies Centre. During the incursion, students learnt about the Kuku Yalanji peoples’ Rainbow Serpent creation story explaining how all the rivers and mountains of Cape York were created as well as the Great Barrier Reef. This included participating in the Rainbow Serpent dance and creating their own dot-painting. We were all fascinated to see how Torres Strait Islanders can create animals so quickly using coconut palm leaves and to hear how they use the stars to predict the weather. Finally, students were excited to get an opportunity to throw a boomerang and were stunned to hear a didgeridoo make kookaburra’s noises, mimic the sound of a kangaroo hopping as well as say its own name! What an amazing provocation for their first unit of inquiry for the year!
Written by the Year 3 & 4 teachers
Taking action
Each and every one of our students are encouraged to make a positive difference in the environment around them, local or global. This is the true meaning of taking action. Erin Waters is an example of this as her actions demonstrate motivation, commitment and is directly connected to her student self-efficacy. Erin has begun an initiative which encourages her community to bring in bread tags. These bread tags will then be sent to Robe, South Africa, where they will be turned into wheelchairs. Erin was inspired by a media presentation which showed African families carrying their children long distances and through her compassion was compelled to act. Students and parents, if you have any bread tags, please drop these off at either the Primary Office or College Reception. Well done Erin on making our world a better place!
World Read Aloud Day
At Hills we deeply value connections. World Read Aloud Day was an opportunity for all of our classes to choose a book and share the joy and power of reading simultaneously. We hope you enjoyed this time together and feel inspired to pick up a book every day!
PYP CORNER
Essential Agreements
A new school year brings new adventures, environments and routines to learn for our Primary students. At Hills, one element that remains the same at the beginning of each year is the ‘Essential Agreement’. Rather than imposing traditional classroom Rules, our teachers work collaboratively, with their students, to establish an agreement on how they all want the classroom to work and feel. When we explore the meaning behind both words, we see that the word ‘essential’, means to not live without, and the word 'agreement' means to agree in opinion or feeling. This is exactly what our students and teachers are doing - They are agreeing to a set of behaviours that they value and can not live without. When our teachers begin this process with the students, they ask the students to consider many aspects of the learning environment. These aspects could be: ‘What helps you learn?’ ‘What hinders your learning?’ ‘How should we interact with others?’ Over the last week, our Primary team have worked hard with their students to establish these Essential Agreements in their classrooms, with each one looking uniquely different. Each one is age-appropriate and incorporates the Learner Profile Attributes as the core of everything that we do here at Hills. Please take the time to talk to your child about their Essential Agreement and its role in their learning journey.
Mr Stuart Ablitt
Assistant Head of Primary & IB PYP Coordinator
stuart.ablitt@hills.qld.edu.au