Newsletter 10 – Week 10, Term 2, 2021 – Message from Admin Team, Keen2STEAM Challenge Day, Year 1 Creative Minds Cafe, Crazy Hair Day, Canteen, Library, Mark Lee Soccer Term 3, Chess Term 3, Claremont Football Club Holiday Program

Message from the Executive Administration Team

Dear parents and caregivers

This morning, parents and caregivers will have received an email in relation to the implications of the recent announcement by the Premier on moving to Phase 5 of the WA Roadmap to Recovery. We look forward to welcoming parents and carers back into classrooms at drop off starting tomorrow. It has been a long road to get to this point and I am certainly grateful for the way our community has handled the raft of changes and restrictions that have been thrown our way by the pandemic over the past 14 months. We have worked together to keep our school safe and open for learning and for that we thank you.

Teaching and Learning

Outdoor Learning: We love seeing our students using the outdoors as their second learning environment. These Year 3 students were engaged in a fractions scavenger hunt during maths, moving around the playground to find carefully placed clues. Their challenge was to then record the fraction in its simplified form on their sheet. Great work, Year 3s!

Leadership

STEAM: Last Thursday, self-nominated STEAM student enthusiasts from Years 3-6 competed in the very first Keen2STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Churchlands Network Schools Challenge Day. Wembley teams were awarded champions in both the Year 3/4 and 5/6 category, followed by Champion School for 2021!

On the day, students competed in teams of 6, demonstrating exceptional collaboration and perseverance as they worked through the design, scientific data, and coding challenges. Dr Bruce Webber, who is an Ecologist and CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools also spoke to the students on the day, which was hosted by Churchlands Primary School. One of the challenges presented was to design a solution to address the threat of cane toads in the environment. One group of Wembley students used Micro:bits, solar panels and temperature sensors to design a trap and another used a design solution based on their knowledge of the cane toad’s behaviours and adaptations. In another challenge, students designed a vertical water garden and also tested the pH levels of soils to determine the best type for planting specific vegetation. We were very proud of the students’ ability to work together to achieve a shared goal and the creative thinking demonstrated in their designs and solutions.

A huge congratulations and thank you must go to teachers Leila Sugden, Sue Webber and Rochelle Stacey for their work leading up to event. Over several months, Leila, Sue and Rochelle have been collaborating with STEAM teacher-leaders from local schools in our network to get this event off the ground, planning their challenge for the day and working with students at lunchtimes to identify participants. It was a huge commitment!

After the STEAMing Ahead Challenge Day at St Mary’s Anglican Girls School ended, there has been a real void in our network for students to have the opportunity to extend themselves in an interschool STEAM competition. I managed to visit the event for a little while on the day and it was very exciting to see how well our Year 3-6 students were drawing on the creative habits of learning – they were being so collaborative, persistent, inquisitive, disciplined and imaginative. Well done to these students but also to all our teachers who have worked so hard over the past several years to embed a culture of STEAM learning in our school.

Learning Environment

Loose Parts Play: In 2019, we introduced Loose Parts Play for our Year 1-3 students in the junior playground. We have a dedicated storage area to house all the different items that encourage free-form, imaginative outdoor activity and enable students to be creative and engage in role play at break times.

What is Loose Parts Play, I hear you ask?

Loose Parts are materials that can be moved, carried, redesigned, lined up and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. They are materials with no specific set of instructions that can be used alone or combined with other materials. Students use pots and pans, kitchen utensils, material, tubing, crates, buckets, crates and timber to play shops, create cubbies and do digs in the sandpit.

We need your help as our stocks have become rather depleted! Over the holidays, if you are clearing out the kitchen cupboards or garage and have loose parts items and materials that you would like to donate, please save them for this play area.

The items can be dropped off before school to the loose-parts storage area opposite the junior playground and new climbing frame. Please make sure the items are safe to be used by children.

Community Engagement

World Environment Day:

On Saturday 5 June, it was World Environment Day and to mark this special day, our local Bunnings store contacted the school to donate a tree. We finally took possession of our new tree which was planted this morning by our Year 6 Eco Captains. Thank you to parent Natalie Landmann who assisted us with selecting the right tree for the location, which is now in the play area opposite the administration building. Thank you to Bunnings Subiaco for the donation. We look forward to seeing our Fuschia gum grow in its new home!

Collaborate, Connect, Communicate.

Yours in learning

Executive Admin Team

Tamara, Alan, Rachel and Melinda