Our inquiry unit 'How we organise ourselves' has almost wrapped up with the students presenting their Canberra reflections and findings on self-developed questions such as:

What systems do the places we're going to (in Canberra) have in place, and how do they operate?

If this place (in Canberra) didn't exist, would our lives be different?

How is the Crown represented in Canberra?

The final line of inquiry for the unit is, 'An inquiry into our role as leaders and citizens'. So, we are asking, 'What are our rights and responsibilities as Year 6 leaders and citizens?' and 'How can we take action on issues that we care about?'.

We started the year with an inquiry into 'Who we are' and a focus on building a sense of belonging within our community. And so, we cycle back to this unit over the next few weeks, cycle back to our rights and responsibilities within our community and how we can make a difference or how we can make the world a better place.

In the last week of term, students will be presenting their TEP Talks to an audience of peers, family and teachers in our 'studio' at school. It is a fantastic opportunity for the children to share their own stories, to share who they are. They will be speaking about one of their personal passions and how that might be used to make the world a better place. Despite some pre-game nerves, we are all looking forward to hearing many insightful and inspiring speeches.

In English:

• During Reading Groups, we have investigated what different types of visual literacy are trying to tell us – using visual and language clues to decipher inferred meanings.
• We have enjoyed stopping and getting lost in a book during personal reading time.
• We have focused on learning the protocols for punctuation dialogue, including setting out conversation correctly and using speaker tags appropriately.
• Our writing has been linked to inquiries, writing and editing reports for the Canberra reflections and drafting, writing and editing speeches for TEP Talks. We have also considered how images might help or hinder a speech.
• We have been examining what makes a good speech. How can we use body language, humour, questioning, and visual aids to help connect with our audience?
• As rehearsals for TEP Talks ramp up, we will be thinking about tone, volume, pace and expression. We will be seeking feedback from peers, family members, pets, and anyone who will listen!

In Maths:

• Our focus has been on the order of operations, and we have investigated why we follow the convention of BODMAS. What happens if we don't follow the rule? Students have challenged themselves and others by creating and proving number sentences with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or more operations. The exploration of BODMAS has highlighted the need for mathematicians to set out their work neatly and record every step of their thinking to explain and revise their work.
• Problem-solving has seen students use various strategies such as 'make a list' and 'trial and error' to solve worded and complex problems. The sessions' discussions allow students to share their thinking and talk through options for more efficient strategies.
• During Maths Goals, students have revised some of the topics from the term and undergone assessments on place value, prime & composite numbers, factors, order of operations, conversions of length and time, timetables, elapsed time, and data displays.
• Personal Maths Goals are derived from both interest and need. As such, students are all working toward a target of understanding and skill in an area identified by and for them. Some goals include converting analogue and digital times, investigating powers and indices, and working with scale and maps.

Year 6 Reporters have had their ears to the ground and followed the many varied activities over the past few weeks. Please see below for their reports.

Canberra Reflections

Before we went to Canberra, we made a question to answer about all the unique places we went to in Canberra. We also had a PowerPoint to track what we learned in reflections, and each day had its own reflection to write down things we learned about and things that could help answer our questions. Some people's questions changed during and after our Canberra trip; some questions evolved to be more complicated. When we got back, we had to answer our questions and show how we answered them in a PowerPoint, poster, video or Popplet. And now we have our Canberra assembly coming up, where we will share all our experiences with the school.

Charlie

IDAHOBIT Day

This is Gigi (They/Them), Joey (She/They) and Lenny (He/They) reporting to you about IDAHOBIT week/day at our school…

At Minimbah, we recently celebrated IDAHOBIT day, the international day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Inter-phobia and Transphobia. We put together an IDAHOBIT day assembly and all dressed up in rainbow to represent and support the LGBTQ+ community. We came together as allies and Queer community members to be ourselves and accept who we are. We did several activities related to pride or LGBTQ+ throughout the week, including meeting a real-life drag queen! She read us all story books about people who identified as part of the queer community and educated us more on this subject. Three teens also came from the senior campus who were all in the LGBTQ+ community. They came to share their stories and teach us about pronouns. At the IDAHOBIT day assembly, Gigi made a speech about their pronouns, Joey made a speech about spreading love, and Lenny asked questions to interact with the audience.

Reconciliation Week

This Reconciliation Week, we had multiple different people and events to celebrate it. One of which was the special Reconciliation Assembly. We had numerous guests, one of them – Brian Walker - focusing on the Stolen Generation, a time between 1910 and 1970. It is still going on today but in less frequent numbers. It was fascinating and was a good way to celebrate Reconciliation.

The next event was a visit from a man named AJ, who taught us through a game show-like activity about different aboriginal facts and questions. I was the scorer, but even though my team came 3rd (out of 4), it was loads of fun, and we even got to hold some ancient aboriginal artefacts!

The last activity involved a woman called Eva Jo, who told us about the Stolen Generations. She was really funny and taught us how to preserve our culture and language. She also told us how she was part of the Stolen Generation; she taught us what it was like to be raised in white households. The Stolen Generations were horrible, and I'm glad I know about the horrors that happened. It was very interesting and, overall, a great experience.

James

Interschool Sport

Soccer

The soccer girls are doing very well this Winter. In the first game, we won with a score of 8-0. Poppy R also did an amazing kick all the way up the oval! The next game was a lot more, even with the scores. The score was 0-0, but we played amazingly. Inter school soccer is a fun way to keep active during the Winter at school.

Gabby

For Inter-school Sports, some of the boys in 5/6 have been playing soccer. We have had two games against other schools. Before each game, the three team captains had to decide where people had to go on the field. This was important so that the team could pass to people, and so the goalie had help defending. The first game we had was against Frankston Primary school. We had no information on what positions people would be most effective in, so we had to make an educated guess. It was a close match, but in the end, it was a tie with the scores being one all. During the match, we learnt about where people would be most effective. As an example, in the first match, we thought Ethan B would be good in defence, but he was an outstanding shooter in reality. We learnt this and were prepared for the next match. However, one of our best shooters had to fill in for footy on the day of the second match. This match was where we had to work together more effectively. We lost the game; however, we have learnt from the experience and hope that we might win the next game.

Lenny and Jo

AFL

School footy is excellent! It is so much fun to have the opportunity to do school footy. The experience has been great. So far, we are 0-2 but really making progress. We lost our first game by 2 points. It was so close the whole game, and they got us in the last quarter. I took lots of positives out of the game and went into the next game with a really positive attitude, and then we started really well and just couldn't keep the effort up, and, in the end, we lost 28-50.

Cooper

Netball

In Netball, everyone has been playing super well. In the first game, the mixed team and the other team won… The second time, both teams won again… Everyone has learnt so much from each other. We have been working as a team, listening to each other, and being very cooperative. We are so lucky to have this great opportunity and have had so much fun!!!

Ruby and Ruby

TEP Talks

This year in Year 6, we have been working on TEP talks. They are a version of TED talks but not copyrighted. The first stage of our TEP talks was the idea stage, where we brainstormed what we are passionate about; the only catch was that it had to change the world, big or small; it didn't matter, as long as it made a difference. The next step was planning, where we would make a draft and plan out which statement would go where and which facts were relevant. Then came scripting. This was the hard part and probably the most time-consuming. Next was the slides where we found pictures, graphs and other relevant images to our TEP talks for the screen behind us when we were presenting. We found out about writers' notes, where we can see small notes for our TEP talks where the audience can't. This is all we have completed or started for our TEP talks. We have not presented them yet, but all of them sound amazing so far.

Claudia

Please note that some exciting things are coming up, with our Canberra Reflections Assembly on Thursday, 16 June, TEP Talks beginning on Monday, 20 June, and our excursion to see Cinderella at the Regent Theatre on Wednesday, 23 June. Events are outlined in the weekly schedule, which appears on SeeSaw.

Below are some photos from one of the lovely Buddy Reading sessions that we have enjoyed across the term and Reconciliation Week Assembly. Thank you to Mrs Murdoch for taking such great shots.

Thank you for your continued support of us and the children.

JACQUI and JONNO
Year 6 Teachers