Volume 13 - 22nd August 2022
From The Principal
Mrs Bogicevic -
Principal
The last few weeks at Leichhardt State School were filled with extra-curricular activities that support student learning and engagement. Students enjoyed visits from famous children’s book authors; The Stig came by to perform his exciting show; filming a video with Aunty Sharron and our Prep students took place over two days, and our sporting teams are finally back in the footy competition. These opportunities enhance students’ experiences of school life. This week, the Book Parade is taking place in the Hall on Friday morning, and is sure to be another exciting and fun event. Parents and carers are invited to come along to help us celebrate the love of reading!
The Metropolitan Region Assistant Regional Director, Rob Mills, visited our school this month and was truly appreciative of the work done by our staff to create and maintain a beautiful school culture and a welcoming atmosphere. He commented on seeing the students who smiled and greeted him at entrance and who showed beautiful manners. We visited classrooms and he was able to see students working hard on taking notes with teacher guidance, reading in groups and writing short paragraphs. Students were very proud to show their learning.
Our focus on learning is relentless. As assessment time approaches, our students will start to consolidate the knowledge obtained over this term and hopefully show their best work when it matters most. We continue to talk about What do you need to do to get an A in English? with students in classrooms and on assembly. We believe that all students can achieve an A, and our teachers and support staff will do their best to support them to do so – one step at a time.
As we continue to navigate the impacts of the pandemic, we are finding that mental health of our students is suffering, especially amongst our younger students. The school is now investing in a full time Guidance Officer service, which means that George will now be available to our students all five days of the week. We are now in the fourth week of this additional support and the positive impact has been felt in parts of the school. We are planning to continue to fund the additional days into the future.
I hope you and your family stay well, safe and strong!
From The Head of Department - Curriculum
Mr Flaherty -
HOD Curriculum
STEAM NEWS
Last week, our Year 5 students went to the Planetarium in Mt Coot-tha as part of their science learning on the Solar System. Whilst there they got to visit the museum, which included space artefacts, engage with interactive space exhibits, listen to the sounds on different planets and learn about indigenous astronomy. After the museum, they watched a space show about the planets and visited the planets in our Solar System. The children got to have lunch in the beautiful Botanical Gardens and even saw some turtles in the lakes within the gardens. All student who attended the excursion showed exemplary behaviour and represented our school well. They showed they can be Leichhardt Learners in every setting!
From The Head of Department - Reading
Mrs Finlay -
HOD Reading
PREMIER
READING
CHALLENGE
Only 5 days left to complete the 2022 Premier’s Reading Challenge!
Bailey (5B) (pictured below) has now finished the challenge. Well done, Bailey!
Archer (Year 2) and Hunter (Prep B) have both finished the challenge twice and each read 40 books! Well done, boys!
Prep B, 5A and 6A have completed the challenge as whole classes. Well done teachers and students! All classes must complete the challenge for Leichhardt State School to enter the 2022 Hall of Fame. Come on Leichhardt! Only 10 classes to go, you can do it! If you have questions about the Premier’s Reading Challenge, please contact Mrs Finlay (HOD-Reading) at efinl9@eq.edu.au.
FUN FACT: Reading is the best exercise for your brain!
'HOME' AND 'AWAY' READING
On Friday, Year 6 and Year 3 students enjoyed spending a session reading with the Preps and Year 1s. It was lovely to see the older students share their skills and their enjoyment of reading with the younger students. It was also a great opportunity for siblings to catch up. There was definitely a strong sense of ‘family’, fun and teamwork!
READING WITH THE KINDY KIDS
On Wednesday, the Year 5 ‘Reading with the Kindy Kids’ elective group visited the day care across the road to enjoy another session of reading, writing, singing and fun. This session, the Year 5s introduced the Kindy Kids to the letter ‘a’ and practised saying the sound for this letter, modelling the Jolly Phonics action and writing the letter. The Year 5s then shared two frog nursery rhyme songs, ‘Five Speckled Frogs’ and ‘Galumph Went The Little Green Frog Last Night’ with the Kindy Kids. It was a great session and the Year 5s and the Kindy Kids are looking forward to catching up again next week. Well done, Year 5s! Well done, Kindy Kids!
AUTHOR VISITS
Leichhardt State School had two authors visit in Week 4. The first author who visited was Tim Harris. He told us about losing his drone when he was a child and how such experiences inspire his story writing. We also got to learn about the series of books that he writes. These include Exploding Endings, Toffle Towers and Mr Bambuckle’s Remarkables. The next day, we met Andrew McDonald, who is the author of Real Pigeons. Andrew McDonald revealed the book cover of the tenth Real Pigeons book, which will be released in November 2022. With his guidance we also came up with a plan for a story, which was about a dog getting chased by bones. He told us that he was always looking for ideas that he can use in a book. It was really exciting to meet the two authors and do activities with them. By L.J. (6B)
Author , Tim Harris
Jharal (6A) (pictured below) was excited to meet his favourite author, Andrew McDonald. Last year, during a ‘Pick of the Week’ presentation, Jharal reviewed Andrew’s Real Pigeon Series and highly recommended it to the students as it was, and still is, his favourite series.
Author, Andrew McDonald and Jharal (6A)
Maci (5B) pictured below was inspired by Andrew’s presentation and created another pigeon for his pigeon crime-fighting team. Andrew was very impressed with Maci’s new character and awarded her a toy pigeon and bookmark! Well done, Maci!
SPELLING
It was amazing to see, Noah (Prep B) (pictured below), spell the below popular children’s book character’s name on Assembly on Monday. Noah confidently used the spelling approach that is taught at Leichhardt State School to spell, ‘Spot’.
- Hear the word: Noah listened carefully to the word that he was asked to spell.
- Say the word: He repeated the word and then broke the word into its individual sounds.
- Write the word: He didn’t get to write the word on Assembly, but he told the audience the individual letters that matched each sound. These were then put on the screen so everyone could see.
- Read the word: Noah then read the word on the screen to ensure that he had spelt the word correctly.
Well done, Noah!
READING AWARDS
At Monday’s Assembly we celebrated the July Reading Eggs awards. It is great to see students engaging so strongly with this online reading resource. Leichhardt State School even got a ‘shout out’ from the Reading Eggs company for our incredible student engagement. In 2020, our student engagement was impressive, but now, as you can see from the data below, we have moved to amazing! Well done, teachers and well done, students!
Reading Eggs Use Over The First half of 2022 (Jan – June):
- 1,590 lessons completed
- 2,027 books read
- 272 driving tests completed (practising letters and sounds)
- 58,275 minutes learning with Reading Eggs (971.25 hours)
Reading Eggs Use Over The First half of 2021 (Jan – June):
- 1,312 lessons completed
- 1,478 books read
- 28 driving tests completed (practising letters and sounds)
- 49,698 minutes learning with Reading Eggs (828.3 hours)
Let’s now celebrate the students and teacher who received Reading Eggs gold awards for the month of July!
This is the fifth month running that Ms Simonds (Prep B) has won the Reading Eggs Teacher Engagement Award!
THE STIG
On Wednesday, the Leichhardt State School Students enjoyed a presentation by The Stig. Stig Wemyss is an actor who narrates the Andy Griffiths’ Treehouse Series. The Stig spoke about what it is like to be an actor and gave students opportunities to act out scenarios. It was great to see the students engage with the session. Below is a picture of Jarahn (6A), who was one of the actors in today’s session, and some Year 5 students who got autographs from The Stig after the session.
BOOK WEEK
Only 4 sleeps to go! The Leichhardt State School annual ‘Book Week’ parade is scheduled for Friday 8:45am in the Hall! Local Children's author/illustrator Jennifer Horn is also coming along. Please encourage your child to come in costume for this special day.
If you have any questions regarding Book Week or the Book Week Parade, please contact Mrs Elena Finlay (Head of Department – Reading) efinl9@eq.edu.au.
From The Head of Department - Teaching and Learning
Miss O'Connor -
HOD Teaching and Learning
YEAR 6 ARTS
Year 6 have continued to build their skills in creating a movie trailer. They are now working on creating story boards for their ideas in preparation to film and create their very own!
They have watched many examples and are excited to create a dramatic plot and add in music with suspense, dramatic sounds and a variety of camera angles.
MATHS
Well done to Year 6 for working hard on the pride they have in their learning. In Maths, they have been developing their understanding of equivalent fractions to solve a number of problems. Year 6B enjoyed creating a "human number line" to establish their understanding of where fractions should be placed along the line.
TEACHING AND LEARNING
As we prepare for our assessments our teachers have been working hard to continue to provide quality feedback to our students. Some of the feedback we have spotted this week includes in books, checking in throughout the lesson as well as written and verbal feedback on sample pieces of students' work.
It has also been wonderful to see our classes work on organising their learning in their books by using notetaking relevant to their year level. For example, the Year 1's are seen using 3 column organiser, Year 5's have been using a Venn Diagram to compare information. Keep up the amazing learning, Leichhardt!
From The Early Years Coordinator
Miss Simonds -
Early Years Coordinator
FUN IN PREP
Last Thursday the Preps were invited to be a part of the filming for Aunty Sharron mirii Bell’s video project: Mawang Bawhna.
Throughout the term the Preps have been practicing the dance and songs with Aunty Marly and Miss Emma to get ready for this day. The filming first took place over at the Forest where they sang and danced to ‘Stomp.’ The Preps were very excited by all the cameras and lights. We then moved to the Deadly room where Aunty Sharron performed ‘Mamaba Dyan Lived Out in The Bush’ to the Preps. This was a wonderful experience for the Preps to be a part of, not only was it Culturally enlightening, it also was fun and entertaining. What an amazing experience to be a part of!
From Our Teachers
PREP A
Last week in Prep A we got a special visit from Mrs Finlay and the year 6 students who helped us practice our reading. We got to read a book and practice our sight words with a year 6 buddy. At the end of the visit one of the older kids read us a funny story about a monster who farts.
YEAR 1A
1A students are engaged with lots of learning both inside and outside the classroom. We learnt how to count numbers in multiples of 2s, 5s and 10s using counters. The students practised sorting them and counting in multiples of 2s,5s and 10s.
The students also demonstrated appropriate measuring strategies while learning capacity. The students worked in groups in the sandpit and showed how to measure sand using measuring scoops and record them effectively. The students got great practical experience to understand the concept better.
YEAR 1B
1B enjoyed learning outside over the past week. We had a HASS lesson outside where we walked around the school identifying natural, managed and constructed features in various locations. We then had a maths lesson outside exploring the concept of capacity as part of our measurement unit.
YEAR 6 TECHNOLOGY
This term, year 6 students have been learning about food preparation in their technology lessons. Last week they made Yoghurt & Muesli cups, and this week we made Chicken & Lettuce wraps. The students have loved learning new skills and can’t wait to experiment with new foods each week.
EMU PARADE
Last week our students learnt about keeping our school clean and working together to look after our environment. On Friday all year levels participated in an Emu parade. The Preps enjoyed using their emu beaks to pick up rubbish!
Extra-Curricular
SPORT AT LEICHHARDT
Our Leichhardt lions touch football teams had their first game in the interschool touch football competition on Friday 4th August. Our boys and girls have been training most lunch breaks to prepare themselves for these games and all their hard work showed on the field.
Our teams consisted of 2 junior teams and 2 senior teams, which all teams showing great sportsmanship and determination on the field.
Misson Australia Playgroup
Leichhardt Play and Learn Discovery group is held every Thursday during the school term, in the hall at Leichhardt State School from 9-11am. Free group with morning tea included. For more information call or text Channon on 0475 798 198.
