Welcome back to all members of our Augustinian community; students, parents and teachers. The opportunity to spend time as a family away from the routine of homework, lunches, checking SEQTA and washing uniforms has hopefully provided you with more time to share meals, stories, games and reconnect with each other.
Term 3 promises to be one where interruptions are at a minimum, allowing for quality learning opportunities. The quality of teaching at St Augustine’s College allows boys to learn and have ‘fun’ at the same time. At the end of last term, the entire Year 5 cohort combined to complete a STEM activity where boys designed, made, tested, retested and explained their ‘marble tracks’. In this environment the boys are both ‘on task’ and ‘in task’ and this is where ‘time flies’. Observing 84 boys ‘in task’ collaborating, problem predicting and solving, using technology, communicating, hypothesising, generalising and then explaining are the Higher Order Thinking Skills that are a central part of curriculum in the Primary School at the College. In such a setting, boys self and peer assess, allowing teachers to ‘stop, listen and look’ at the skills the boys are using as well as the knowledge they have gained and ‘put into practice’. The professional judgement of the teacher is still one of the most important tools when providing feedback and assessing mastery of both skills and content.
This term I look forward to observing the boys engaged in other PBL (Project Based Learning) and STEM activities. The Year 6 classes, as part of the practical laboratory lessons, will be investigating ‘Change of States’. They will be making ‘slime’ as well as using dry ice to observe ‘sublimation’ in action.
The Year 5 classes, as part of their laboratory lessons, will be exploring how light can reflect and refract as well as changing light to heat energy. Their STEM activity involves designing and making solar heaters.
As you can see, Science and Technology is ‘alive’ in the Primary School.
