22.3.19 Bridge Road School 127 Parramatta Rd Camperdown 2050 Phone: 9519 8389 email: bridgerd-s.school@det.nsw.edu.au

BRIDGE ROAD BULLETIN

A message from the Principal

WOW, it is definitely a unique time. I hope you are all well and are remembering to monitor your own mental health and wellbeing. Staff at Bridge Road School are working extremely hard in developing learning packs for our students. To date we have sent home three packages of work. One via email and two via post. Bridge Road staff have decided that hard copies of work is the best option for our students. We understand that the email package may have been difficult to access, so we are sending this out in the post today. In addition, all families were sent details of Reading Eggs and Matific, website

link, logins and passwords. We know our students and how they learn and as such believe this is the best method for engaging them. Teachers are working hard to make sure our students have lots to keep them busy. The work we are providing may seem overwhelming for both parents and students. We do not want to add an additional stress point to an already stressful situation. Our only expectation is that students do what they can. So please do not feel compelled to do everything we send. Let students complete the activities of their choice at a time they choose. Just suggest they do at least 3 activities a day before they go to bed.

We are available for phone calls with students or families anytime between 8.30am and 2.30pm. We only have a skeleton staff on site, but someone will be available to chat. The Bridge Road School Face Book page and the school website are a great resource to ensure learning is fun and engaging. It is important that families remember that it is not an expectation that you are Home Schooling your child. We are in a situation that requires an alternate platform for learning. The social, emotional and academic benefits from playing cards, reading a book or a game of Monopoly with your children is just as beneficial as writing a one page story.

Please know we are here to help anyway we can. Should you require any resource to assist with your child’s learning at home let us know. We may be able to provide you with the resource you need. Don’t forget to access the learning platform from your child’s Home School as an alternate mode of learning. Don’t forget you can not look after anyone else if you are first not taking care of yourself.

Michelle Gomes

Orange Class

The 2020 version of ‘orange’ has become a cooperative group. We’ve worked on

developing Literacy skills by communicating through speaking, listening, reading, writing

and viewing. In daily journal writing students’ benefit from close supervision and tuition to

enhance the conventions of language eg forming upper/lower case letters, using capitals/

full stops, extending content using what, when, where, why. Guided reading is enjoyed as

one on one time to learn specific skills. The students have been listening to the ‘Weirdo’

and/or ‘Bad Guys’ chapter books depending on which days they integrate in mainstream

and viewed informative texts about the awesome features of frogs. Their ability to focus,

comprehend and ask/answer questions has improved. The class browses and borrows

books from the Library each Friday. Our behavioural discussions have targeted ‘owning

behaviour’ so that personal responsibility is reinforced. Many thanks to team members

Natalia, Brenda, Danielle and Annalese.

Blue Class

This term in Blue class we have been focusing on our handwriting because many of the

students find it frustrating. We have been sitting with both feet on the floor, positioning our

paper at an angle and correcting our pencil grip. I found that many students were gripping

the pencil very tightly so we practised relaxing our hands. The students participated in

modelled lessons and then practised independently. The students are now writing more

lower case and upper case letters proportionately and are taking great pride in their work.

They particularly love showing Mrs Gomes their handwriting. I can see a huge

improvement in their work and in their attitude towards writing.

We have looked at mini beasts this term and discovered that a worm has 5 hearts! The

children really enjoyed looking in the ‘forest’ area for as many mini beasts as they could

find. We have written information reports on what we have learnt.

MATHS with ORANGE AND BLUE CLASS

Orange and Blue class have been working with me on their maths. During this term, the students have been learning the following topics:

Whole number

Addition and subtraction

2D shapes and Lines

Time

Fractions

Within each of those topics the students have been consolidating our friends of ten, learning different strategies to add and subtract, exploring the properties of 2D shapes like the vertices, corners, sides and angles, lines of symmetry, horizontal, vertical, parallel and perpendicular lines. We have worked very hard learning to read an ana-logue clock with the focus on o’clock, half past. Some students became very confident, so we began to focus on learning quarter to and past.

We have improved the way we can count in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s, by counting forwards and backwards and starting on higher numbers, starting on both even and odd numbers to make things a little more challenging.

We had only just begun working on fractions, and my favourite moment in class was when I began to revise the fraction half and one of the students said, “that’s also a line of symmetry!” What a wonderful moment for me!

Natalia Feiner

Green Class

In Green Class we have all particularly enjoyed Science work, such as: How does your

heart pump blood? Where we took a journey into the body and found that the heart is a

muscle, moving blood through blood vessels by contracting and expanding. We

incorporated this lesson with a Valentines heart activity. We made observations about

our pulse and heart rate, and then we completed an artwork project to show our

appreciation to those hard-working hearts in our lives. Another interesting and very

relevant topic was: How do germs get into our bodies. We learnt why it is necessary to

wash our hands, and to not touch our eyes, mouth and nose or chew on our pencils.

We also looked at the journey that eggs take, before they arrive at our local shop. The

life cycle of chickens and investigated what makes up an egg.

I was very proud that the class was able to grasp the concept of fractions; they are

equal parts of a whole. We explored this concept in relation to making pizzas in a pizza

shop for very particular customers on the interactive whiteboard. I was also happy to

see improvements in students’ handwriting.

Purple Class

It’s been a super busy term in Purple class and all the students should be

congratulated for their hard work and achievements. Everyone has been working

really hard on their personal goals and across all Key Learning Areas especially in

Literacy and Numeracy. We have been enjoying learning about Australian Animals as

a Literacy theme and in Project Based Learning doing lots of fun experiments plus

learning about space. We have enjoyed art, music and dance as an extension of

these learning programs. Wishing you all a happy and safe break and looking forward

to seeing you all next term.

Yellow Class Yellow class has settled into the first term, with students from last year gaining extra days at their home school. We have welcomed new students to the class and one student has graduated, returning full time to his school. Our morning routine of completing all the Maths and English before working on individual projects has allowed each student to improve as they follow their individual program. The projects have been many and varied, story writing, a history of the Xbox, slides from Minecraft, reading to younger students, and are something that students look forward to working on after they have ticked off the tasks to complete. We have been investigating rhymes and have made limericks that use the Bridge Road Buddies to help students with their strategies to manage their emotions. Yellow class ran a whole school assembly, the class did the acknowledgment of country and performed the rhymes in front of everybody. A fantastic achievement! Students have been enjoying using the calligraphy pens, old school with nibs with ink cartridges! This has seen a noticeable improvement in handwriting as it encourages you to slow down and take care (the adults have been enjoying them too!). We have combined with the other upper primary classes for end of day rewards for the students that have completed the set tasks and had green days. There have been some fun times in the park just behind the school.

Yellow class has continued to map the outside area, investigating the types of trees, using compasses to orientate and binoculars to observe and identify birds. This area is about to be landscaped and Yellow class will be looking at this and documenting the changes. It has been wonderful to see the growth of all the students in the class over the last 10 weeks. They have taken pride in their work, risen to challenges, shown

resilience and had a few laughs on the way! I am looking forward to the next term, in between times please look after yourselves and do the things that make you happy! All the best, Alan.

Pink Class

Pink Class had a busy term while we were at school this term.

Our theme, which many learning experiences were based on, was “Australia is my home”.

Students worked very hard learning the states and capital cities of Australia, studying maps of the

rivers and oceans and looking at geographical, man made and physical features of Australia.

We did a mini project on Uluru. We looked at dot painting from Papunya in the western desert,

Yolngu drawings from Yirrakala in Arnhem Land and read stories by Ian Abdulla about his beloved

Murray Dowling River.

The students watched BTN to keep up to date with current affairs.

They participated in writing activities each day, building each week on the skills being taught to

either write independently or to begin to write more interesting and complex sentences. All students

were constantly encouraged to have a go themselves before asking for help. They were encouraged

to use strategies to spell and scaffolds to write so as to work independently more often.

Students all moved up levels in reading and cooperated in guided reading activities in groups.

Maths activities were consolidated and taught each day. Students learnt about aspects of time,

multiplication, addition and subtraction strategies, position, fractions and chance. We enjoyed

playing dice and card games.

As always we were constantly in discussion about our behaviour goals and useful strategies for

managing challenging moments. Students were reminded to use the Bridge Road Buddies to assist

them when the need arises throughout each day.

Forest Project

Our forest project is underway, with

works commencing last Wednesday.

The crew from Urban Landscape will

continue to work over the holiday break

and into Term 2. We can’t wait to see

the end result!

Reminder: Any change of details please contact the school, this is our way of keeping in touch with you.

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IMPORTANT

Tuesday 28th April - Students return to school

The current guidelines from the NSW Government are that

schools are open. However, parents are encouraged to

keep their children at home