Mathematics Science and Language
This term in Maths our students in Year 6 – 10 will be involved in a diverse program aimed at evaluating student progress and developing skill levels in specific Mathematical topics. This will start with a topic on Units of Measurement where students will be planning a Sports Day, complete with a variety of events. They will need to calculate the area for each event, which will require some research into the rules for each event, along the terminology associated that comes from Units of Measurement itself, including centimetres, centimetres2, kilometres3 including units of length, area and volume. Concepts of Geometry will also be investigated with students identifying and applying knowledge such as Parallel Lines, Relationships between angles and the calculation of the area, surface area and volume of different shapes.
Students will build their theoretical knowledge and practice their fluency using exercises and tutorials in the ‘Smartlab’ program. The program is designed to allow teachers to differentiate on student learning, with the software designed to respond to students needs evident in their responses to Mathematical challenges. This program will happen once or twice a week. The whole class at the beginning of term completed a ‘Learning Assessment Framework’ which tested on ‘Multiple Thinking Strategies’. The majority of our students were classed within one zone, with a few students exceeding this. The follow up to this test will be lessons delivered to each Zone Group, building their strategical and analytical thinking.
Scientific thinking in formulating a scientific question to solve, identifying and formulating key words or vocabulary from the topic. Then from here students will complete background research to build their understanding of the topic and help them to construct a hypothesis, which is formed to prove or disprove the question. From here students will test the hypothesis through an experiment of their creation, to find out if their procedure for the testing experiment works. This can be a circular process for if the procedure doesn’t work (ie the hypothesis doesn’t get tested effectively), we go back to the test! If the procedure works, then the students will analyse the data present, draw conclusions and decide whether the result aligns with the hypothesis.
For the rest of the term, our students will be studying Aboriginal approaches to Astronomy. They will learn about the ways in which Aboriginal people used their knowledge of Astronomy in their everyday lifestyle. This will includes concepts such as understanding of seasons, foods in seasons and the weather and it’s prediction.