Bradshaw Primary School eNewsletter

Leadership Update

Werte Bradshaw families,

It’s half way through Term 1 and our school community is working hard to live up to our 3 school values: Challenging Ourselves, Learning with Others and Being Responsible.

This week all our students will Challenge Themselves and join in on The Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge. The Challenge is simple: they commit to reading (at least) 12 books over the term and record their reading on a log. The school will send all the logs to The Department of Education, and by Term 4 all participating students who rose to the challenge and conquered the goal will receive certificates and lapel pins in a special school presentation. Promoting a love of reading is crucial to students’ literacy and general knowledge capabilities and at our school we take pride in providing our students with a variety of formal and informal opportunities to nurture this love. Did you know that once a month at 7am on Thursday you will see a table full of Bradshaw teachers sitting at a local café taking part in their very own book club?! These committed teachers are currently reading a book about explicit vocabulary instruction and are implementing a range of strategies to enhance learning activities during whole class and small group reading sessions. At Bradshaw both teachers and students are committed to their own ongoing reading challenges!

Next week our school community will demonstrate how they Learn Together by taking part in an important cultural festival. Next Friday the 18th of March is the Holi Festival. This is a Hindu festival that is celebrated by many of our Bradshaw Families, making up our 4th largest cultural group in the school. This year we plan to recognise it as a whole school to acknowledge the diverse cultures that make up our Bradshaw Community. Holi Festival is also known as the Festival of Colours and originated in North India—it marks the beginning of spring.

In the lead up to the Friday, students will draw a self-portrait. On the Friday, the students will then add colour to their self-portraits, representing the coloured sand that is thrown during the festival onto people. To this end, we will have a special ‘spray station’ set up and each class will get to visit the station and colour their self-portrait. This event will provide us with a great opportunity to start conversations about different cultural events and promote a deep sense of belonging for all our students. Watch this space!

As you know, our students work hard to be Bradshaw Learners, and we celebrate their achievements of following our school spirit and values by awarding them with ‘bubbles’ on their Learner Cards. Most students have finished their first Learner Card, many have finished their third and a couple are close to finishing their fifth! This fifth card is a ‘milestone’ card and students who reach it get a special opportunity to show the Responsible spirit of Bradshaw. This card represents our Act of Kindness. When students achieve this card, they get a token which they take to the front office and place in their chosen charity (a selection of 4) token-box. Special Facebook photo and post coming up next week to feature the first student to put their token in the box—come to school and check out the amazing Act of Kindness display at the foyer. When the first token box is full, we will have a special dress up day with a gold coin donation and all the money will go to the winning charity.

This weekend promises to be a true desert gem with perfect outdoor weather—blue skies and cool nights. We hope our families enjoy the great outdoors and have a fantastic and relaxing weekend! See you back for a cracker of a week 7!

Cheers,

Ioana Suciu

Assistant Principal

Whats been happening at Bradshaw...

Year 2 Liddle

We LOVE readings groups in 2L. We love hearing each other read, working together, and supporting each other. We have reading groups 3 times a week and we are blessed to have Miss Hannah taking a group, which usually do word work. One group works with Miss Liddle and the other does reading eggs. 2L have really embraced reading groups and hopefully when everyone is back we can add another day to the program.

Year 1 Haigh

1H has had a busy start to Term 1 and I can't believe it's almost holidays again. Students have settled well into their new classroom and have enjoyed getting to know their new classmates and class pets (the fish!).

In Maths this term 1H have been working on their number order. We've been practicing writing our number sequence forwards and backwards from zero in several fun hands-on activities. Students have used calculators to count, created rocket ships to count down and played dice games to find numbers before and after.

In English this term 1H have been participating in literacy reading rotations as well as writing lessons with 1G. Students have been reading to their teacher, playing letter and sound games, and practicing their spelling words.

Year 5 Usher

We've been learning about famous and infamous people and events, including learning about Jandamarra and Ned Kelly.

This week in Maths we are learning about probability as a number between 1 (certain) and zero (impossible)

Year 6 AFL Gala Day

It was a fantastic day at the Interschools AFL Gala Day on Friday 4th March. 12 Year 6 students participated as a mixed team and were outstanding representatives of Bradshaw on and off the field.

All students are to be commended on their sportsmanship, great attitudes, and willingness to all help out throughout the day. We are very proud of the way all students conducted themselves!

Big shout outs go to Scotty for being awarded Best on Ground for the Boys across the entire competition and to Jahna who took home a football and the Sportsmanship Award for Bradshaw team.