Post on 28-May-2020
Primary
@ Reddam
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
I hope that this past week has been an
enjoyable and fulfilling one for all our families.
The teachers and I have thoroughly enjoyed
seeing more and more familiar faces at
school and it is evident just how much the
students are relishing the opportunity to see
their friends and teachers once again.
It is a well-known saying that “absence
makes the heart grow fonder” and this is true
not just in relationships. One only has to look
at the response to the closing of beaches or
other public spaces around Sydney to see
this playing itself out in society. When things
we had often taken for granted are
removed, suddenly we desire those things all
the more.
This has been so for our students. Virtual
classrooms are an exciting and novel way of
interacting with each other for a short time
but then they have longed to see each other
face-to-face. All the rugby and netball
games which appeared each year as a
matter of course have been missed more
than ever. The many hours of practising on a
musical instrument can find an outlet on a
video feed but that is so much emptier than
performing in front of a live audience.
This has also seen itself play out in countless
homes across the country, as children have
longingly looked out of windows at much-
loved public spaces. Parks, beaches,
mountains, and even tree-lined streets, which
once saw adventures playing themselves
out, now lie largely empty. Of course, the
wildlife is only too happy with that, as has
been seen in open spaces around the world,
where animals have emerged to reclaim
their domain.
IN THIS ISSUE:
• News from the Classrooms
• Art Gallery
• Virtual Concert Hall
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Hopefully, in the new-look future into
which we are all moving we will
appreciate our public spaces all the
more. Countless research papers have
been written which explain the benefits
of play in the outdoors for children. As
one person has said, “Children still need
a childhood with dirt, mud, puddles,
trees, sticks and tadpoles.”
We live in a city with beautiful pockets
of natural beauty amongst our homes,
golden beaches, and enticing
mountains just a short ride away.
Hopefully, as a degree of normality
returns to life in the coming weeks we
will return to these wild spaces with new
eyes and with a rejuvenated
appreciation for all that they mean to
us.
There is no doubt that our children
can’t wait to run again, unconstrained
by the garden walls around their
homes. New adventures beckon from
below the trees in our parks and castles
wait to be built on our beaches. While
our children will no doubt remember
the limitations of life during the
pandemic, may it be that they will
remember with even more intense
emotions the first swim in the sea, the
first walk in the mountains, the first run in the park.
This past week we received the fantastic news that Ruby
Levitt was placed second overall across all of the Sydney
entries (for Years K - 6) for the Harmony Day Poster
Competition. The competition drew thousands of entries,
which makes Ruby’s achievement all the more impressive.
The theme for this year’s competition was ‘Picture a world in
harmony’, which is the kind of optimistic outlook the world
certainly needs right now. Our huge congratulations to Ruby
for this wonderful accolade!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Dee Pitcairn
Principal
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ART GALLERY
Reddam House
would like to wish a very happy birthday to
Claudia Green, Lou-Anh Lam, Amelia Platkov, Per Vertzayias, Brianna Chen, Andre Pal
Sarielle Goodwin, Stella Grocott, Patrick Bova, Mark Bradburn & Harry Meyerson
Who celebrated their special day during the school holidays
We hope you had a fabulous day!
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Wow, what a wonderful week we had!
In English, this week we learnt the graphemes w and x. We are nearly at the end of our
alphabet, with only two more letters to learn. Everyone was walking around humming and
singing the fabulous ‘w’ song as we practised our handwriting, wrote wonderful sentences and
looked at different ways to work on our reading skills.
Maths this week was all about subtraction. We practised taking away using all sorts of objects,
using the ten frames and jumping on the number line. The highlight of the week was playing
ten pin bowling, where we put our newly found subtraction skills into practice. It is amazing to
see how hands-on activities and concrete games such as this can help consolidate, extend
vocabulary and provide understanding of new concepts.
KINDERGARTEN
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Our classes have been immersed in finding
out and learning about Aboriginal Culture.
We had lots of fun making shelters outside
using twigs, leaves, sticks and rocks. It
proved to be much more difficult than it
looks and was a great test of teamwork
and cooperation. We learnt how to be just
like ‘Pete Persistence’ and never give up!
We also enjoyed learning about their
artwork and had a great time creating
some of our own symbolic drawings on our
cave wall in the classroom and doing some
dot printing.
Our Show and Tell topic of “An Australian
Place to visit” has taken us to some
amazing places all around Australia like
Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, Canberra and
many others. Even though travel has been
restricted, we can still dream of visiting
some of these incredible places in the
future!
KINDERGARTEN
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YEAR 1
This week in English we
started learning about the
use of question marks. The
students enjoyed the
opportunity to use the words
‘why’, ‘what’, ‘when’,
‘where’ and ‘how’ when
interviewing their friends.
In Mathematics, we started
learning about time. The
students enjoyed learning
about the difference
between analogue and
digital clocks through a
variety of visual, auditory
and kinaesthetic activities.
In Science we spoke about the seasons and the changes they bring to nature and the way we
live. We searched for real leaves in our environment and explored them at length by drawing
them, measuring them and painting them.
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YEAR 1
In History we continue to discuss the differences between transport now and in the past. The
students are happy they live nowadays and have comfortable cars to travel in and safe bikes
to ride.
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YEAR 2
This week Year 2 continued our deep exploration
of this term’s literature study of ‘The Little
Refugee’, by Anh Do and Suzanne Do. We used
our imaginations, along with our five senses, to
write rich descriptions of the settings within this
biographical narrative. Students used their
expanding vocabularies to describe a range of
places, from the bustling streets of Vietnam to
the glistening waters of Sydney Harbour.
We continued to enrich our understanding of
Australia’s important geographical features and
created our very own 3D globes to showcase
our knowledge of the seven continents and five
oceans of the world!
In Mathematics we practised solving addition
and subtraction problems as quickly as possible
by using our knowledge of ‘ten more’ and ‘ten
less’. This is helping us become better at solving
problems mentally.
We are using nouns, proper nouns and complex
sentences to improve and enrich our writing skills,
particularly in description writing.
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This week the Year 3 Mathematicians explored
length. They worked hard at estimating,
comparing and measuring different objects
around the classroom and at home using the
metric measurements of millimetres, centimetres
and metres.
In English the Year 3 teachers were astounded
by the wonderful ideas and thoughts of their
ever-maturing and intelligent students. Should
sport be compulsory? Should homework be
banned? These are just a few of the topics that
the Year 3 students enthusiastically debated
whilst working on their ability to write a
persuasive text.
They learnt the acronym HAM (hook, argument
and main reasons) and PEEL (point, expand,
example and link), to help them structure their
writing successfully. They also learned a variety
of persuasive techniques to entice their
audience into agreeing with them: rhetorical
questions, alliteration, emotive language and
the use of personal pronouns and modal words.
According to the parents some of our students
are using their persuasive skills at home too. Do
you think that their parents are convinced?
YEAR 3
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How can we package it better? This is a
question that Year 4 have been asking
themselves over the last four weeks
during our Science lessons. As a result,
we have been doing some amazing
investigations on materials and their
properties. All materials, whether they
are natural or human-made, have
different properties that make them
unique from one another.
This week, Year 4 developed their
amazing collaboration skills to
investigate the effect of “impact”. Using
different types of padding, students
were able to witness, first-hand, how the
impact can protect fragile items. First,
students filled an envelope with either
paper, bubble wrap or cardboard.
Then they placed the fragile item (we
used a delicious cracker!) in the
envelope and dropped a weight on it.
If the cracker broke, the conclusion was
that the material did not provide the
best protection on impact. It was
fantastic to see what budding scientists
Year 4 students are!
During PDH lessons this week, we also
learnt about “Water Safety”. Did you
know that there are three main types of
rescues that you can do to help
somebody in water? The three types
are “Swim Rescue”, “Reach Rescue”
and “Throw Rescue”. Students had a
great time re-enacting the different
types of rescues in our role plays. Well
done, Year 4, on a fantastic week of
learning!
YEAR 4
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This week the Year 5 English classes continued with narrative writing. The students have made
great progress over the term exploring new and innovative ways to create imagery. Jesse
Edelstein wrote the following in response to the following image from “The Journey” by
Francesca Sanna.
We arrive at the edge of a dark gloomy forest with monkeys swinging and snakes slithering.
We trudge towards the gate which is far too high for us to climb. Guards with great big red
beards great us with yells to go away and never return. I was scarred but cuddled mum for
safety.
This week in Year 6 English students continued to refine their persuasive writing skills. The
introduction of a persuasive essay is very important as it grabs the audience’s attention, states
the writer’s view and supports their thesis with an explanation of the techniques used within an
advertisement. Below is an introduction paragraph from Ella Kirby in response to the following
advertisement.
Ding, dong. The church bells ring as a coffin is rolled into the church. Constable Ian, this is what
can happen to someone if they drink and drive. Obviously, it is clear that you an
advertisement for the drink driving campaign and I believe my advertisement will be a perfect
choice. Firstly, I have used text and font. Furthermore, I have made use of a low camera angle
and lastly, I have used Ethos to show endorsement.
YEAR 5 & 6 ENGLISH
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YEAR 5 & 6 MATHEMATICS
This week we wrote our second lot of assessments on
exam.net. Students demonstrated their knowledge and
understanding gained largely from online learning. They can
be very proud of their capacity to gain skills and apply their
grasp of concepts.
We are well on our way to completing our revision booklets.
Students displayed excellent learning habits in finishing
assigned tasks which were marked together. They were able
to consolidate their knowledge of order of operations,
working backwards as well as practising the position-to-term
rule and term-to-term rule.
We began our new unit of work dealing with multiples,
factors and prime numbers. The divisibility rules were a hot
topic. Quick divisibility tests were carried out which helped to
determine factors of particular numbers.
This Term, our unit of work in Year 5 has been
'Animation', based on the theme: The Chase. Students
were required to plan a story idea, use a green screen
and inanimate objects to bring these characters to life
through stop motion animation. Check out what our
wonderful and creative Year 5 students have been
working hard on at home.
MEDIA ART
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SPORT
Over the course of this Term, The Reddam
House Sports Department has been regularly
uploading fitness videos to keep our students
active and healthy while at home.
If you're feeling energetic, click on the link
below and have a go at one of the online
classes. All sessions are designed to be
performed at home with no equipment.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PL3v8Af8Lm8PFZGSUYfpCQfNlJNQrhx6aR
Lastly, keep the photos coming in! We love
seeing our students and families working out
at home and over the coming weeks we may
even feature some student photos in our
upcoming videos.
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MUSIC
Most of Year 1 were physically back at school this week, and enjoyed being in the Music
classroom for face-to-face lessons. This week, students got their voices warmed up with an
African piece called ‘Banuwa’. Originating from Liberia in West Africa, this piece is a folk song
and it translates as ‘Don’t cry pretty girl, don’t cry’. It has a beautiful melody and can be sung
as a round.
After all of their voices were warmed up, Year 1 recapped their Orff piece ‘Bell Horses’. They
sang using the lyrics and then using solfa hand signs to show the highs and lows of the pitches.
This week, it was their performance assessment week, and so all of the Year 1s performed in
small groups of 3 or 4 for their recorded assessments.
The final part of Year 1 Music this week focused on developing those crucial xylophone skills –
playing bell horses using clear mallet technique and the correct pitches.
It was wonderful to be able to sing together and make music as a whole class again this week
and all the students look forward to a being back properly in classrooms soon.
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MUSIC PERFORMANCE
Our young musicians should be commended on the manner in which they have maintained
their practice and participation in their individual and ensemble music lessons this term. Our
online ensembles have been a great success. Many students have joined our music staff each
morning to work on their ensemble repertoire and ask questions about their instruments and
their practice. Maintaining this connection and form of rehearsal will be vital as we gradually
recommence physical rehearsals in the coming weeks. Any decision about how and when
ensembles resume will be communicated directly with parents.
Our Year 5-6 Singers have enjoyed sectional rehearsals over the last few weeks, via online
Google Meet sessions. Sectional rehearsals are when all the musicians who play or sing the
same part meet alone to work on their part without hearing the other parts around them. In
the case of this choir, students are divided into soprano and alto, as all students are treble
(unbroken) voices. The group is working on some incredible repertoire, including 'We Know the
Way' from 'Moana' and several contemporary Australian compositions. Although they did not
have the chance to defend their three-time championship achievement at the Sydney
Eisteddfod this year, we are actively seeking other opportunities that may arise to allow these
students to perform for the school and wider community when it is safe to do so.
Private music teachers have taken advantage of the recent rotational schedule to have many
more face-to-face lessons on days when students are attending school, and it has been lovely
to hear the increased level of activity and passion within the Music Terrace. Music has proved
such an important pursuit during this period of isolation and remote study.
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MUSIC PERFORMANCE
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It is our pleasure to share two performances with you this week, which we trust you will enjoy.
The first performer is Elise Siboulein Year 5. Elise performs the beautiful piece 'Heimr Árnadalr'
from the film 'Frozen'. In the film, this piece is heard during the coronation of Elsa. The text is Old
Norse, and translates to:
Worthy queen of greatness
the heart of gold shines
We crown you with hope, love and faith
Beautiful stoney land Home Arendelle
Follow queen (of) light
Queen (of) follow the worthy queen of greatness
Our queen worthy queen of light (of) light
Our second performer is Jeremy Kirkwood of Year 4. Jeremy has not been learning guitar for
very long, yet has already made incredible progress in his technique and note-reading. He has
the makings of a fine classical guitarist, and we are very proud of what he has achieved.
Please click on the screenshots below to enjoy these video performances. Please email Mr or
Mrs Bortolotti if you would like to be featured in one of our assemblies or newsletters, and we
can provide you with instructions on how to achieve this.
VIRTUAL CONCERT HALL
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