Month: June 2014

We have spent time looking at ‘How we teach @ Kunyung’………using an INQUIRY approach. Check!

We have spent time looking at how we PERSONALISE the learning for our students in the classroom. Check!

We have spent time looking at how we encourage our students to TAKE ACTION. Check!

We have spent time looking at the LEARNER PROFILE attributes we want to sdvelop and nurture in our students. Check!

So let’s look at the WHAT we teach the children that falls outside Literacy and Numeracy…………it’s called our Programme Of Inquiry! (Even though we still use Literacy and Numeracy when inquiring!)

It is organised into 6 Transdisciplinary Themes with each Year Level of students completing a Unit of Inquiry into each one of these 6 themes every year!

Are you still with me? 🙂

The 6 Themes are:

How we express ourselves (In our day- well my day as I’m a little older than most of you- it was our personal/social development)

Where we are in place and time (This was our History and Geography)

How the world works (Physical and Chemical Science)

How we express ourselves (The Arts)

How we organise ourselves (Social Studies)

How we share the planet (Environmental Science)

We have one inquiry into each of these themes every year which is our horizontal planning……………………..so our next job is to develop the ideas for these inquiries which forms the vertical development of the Programme of Inquiry. This should stop students learning about FORCES every year- for example!

The next step is to work out what the BIG IDEA might be for each Unit of Inquiry. It’s not good enough in our school, to say we are going to be ‘doing GOLD’ in Year 6 for example! We don’t just want our children finding out facts and, gaining knowledge, about GOLD………………a better BIG IDEA (Which we call a central idea) might be ‘We learn about our present by looking at past events that shaped us’…..this would give students a chance to look at how events in the past have affected us today- one of which might be the GOLD RUSH and it’s impact on multicultural Australia. This would NOT be a Prep Unit of Inquiry but if the Preps started with a Unit about their own families and the Juniors started to look into the histories in our community and the Middles looked into early explorers- you can easily see how these Where we are in Place and Time Units evolve into the Senior one.

This may be a messy example but it highlights the need for us to plan out our curriculum. We also take into account:

• The Australian Curriculum outcomes (We audit our Programme of Inquiry against AusVELS. We are currently doing just that!)
• Student questions and interests that might help shape the unit (There’s no point us decding everything when, given the opportunity, students will ask questions that lead them to the same understanding!)

So….are we organised with our curriculum? Absolutely….just have a look in our office area to see the Whole School Programme of Inquiry….I’ll also try to put a copy onto the BLOG!

Over the next 6 weeks we will ‘pull apart’ each Transdisciplinary Theme and see what it really means or can mean!

When people say to you things like ‘Children aren’t taught history and geography anymore’, ‘Science is nowhere to be seen in schools’, well that’s actually not true BUT instead of filling our children’s heads with what knowledge we think they should possess, we provide a BIG IDEA that they can inquire into with teacher guidance, learn a lot from and have the added benefit of developing communication, research, social and thinking skills at the same time- that’s something I wish I had had growing up!

In conclusion (My SO WHAT!)………….

• Our students are involved in 6 Units of Inquiry each year that support them to be learners who demonstrate the Attributes of the Learner profile
• Each one of these 6 Units of Inquiry are centred around one of the 6 Transdisciplinary Themes (See above).
• Each Unit of Inquiry has a BIG or CENTRAL IDEA
• Asking questions, and discussing, at home the latest Unit of Inquiry will support the understanding of the central idea.
• The knowledge gained when inquiring into a Unit of Inquiry doesn’t have to be the same for all students- it’s the understanding of the transferrable concept and central idea that is more important!

Next time we pull apart ‘Who we are!’ 🙂

 

 

Good Day Kunyung Families!

You know……..when you try to explain to people that schools are busy places…..it?s hard to put into words just exactly what can be going on at the same time in the one school!

If it’s the Learner Profile we are trying to develop in each and every one of our students (Remembering that the attributes of the Learner Profile include being: Thinkers, courageous, inquirers, balanced, reflective, knowledgeable, principled and caring!) then please have a look at what’s been going on @ Kunyung this week AND see how many Learner Profile Attributes are in Action……Oh! and add to the following our Student Led Tours, Cross Country and Interschool Sport……WOW!

CURRENT UNITS OF INQUIRY! 🙂

Preps-

People use symbols to be expressive and to communicate.

Some Prep Questions about their Unit of Inquiry!

‘What do signs do?’

‘How do signs work?’

‘Where else can I find these signs?’

‘Does Jeff use a sign at the crossing?’

‘What would happen if we didn’t have signs?’

Juniors-

People recognise important events through celebrations and traditions.

‘We had lots of questions about celebrations all over the world. We wrote down our questions. We talked about our questions with our friends and our mums and dads. Now we are making a celebration in our classroom. We are sharing what we find out with our friends. We recognise important events with celebrations and traditions. Some examples are Christmas, Birthdays, Anzac Day, and New babies being born. (April and Paul)

Middles-

Technology impacts on the world of work and leisure.

We asked lots of questions and our teachers helped us to make our ‘skinny’ questions a bit ‘fatter’.

Once we had our questions we used books, computers, our friends, teachers and parents to help find some information to help answer our questions.

Now we are going to share our learning with our class in any way we choose. We are doing a 2 minute talk. (Mira and Ben)

Seniors-

Governmental systems and decisions can promote or deny equal opportunities and social justice.

To find out how Governments make decisions and the impact of these decisions we chose small groups and formed our party! We were asked what we would do if we were in charge of the school. We worked in teams to make decisions and realised it’s not that easy to all agree. We are presenting our policies to the other Year 6 Students and then analysing how each of our policies promoted or denied equal opportunity and social justice! We will be reflecting on how we worked as a team as well as the decisions we made. (Aria and Megan)

 

Dear Kunyung Parents

Could you be so kind as to pick up a few extra pens and pencils when you are out shopping to donate towards The Sail Programme.

The Sail Programme is where Refugee children are assisted with their learning so as you can imagine lots of pens and pencils are needed.

There will be a donation box in the office.

Thank you

From Michaela (Year 6)

On behalf of The KEAST and ACTION Teams

Nude Food is here again so please could you put foods that don?t require wrappings in your children?s lunch boxes. This will help our environment heaps! Nude Food will be every Wednesday. On Fridays we will show a tally of the winning class and they will receive an amazing trophy to keep for the week.

(Thanks to Mr Eckerman for helping us to design our Nude Food Poster)

From the KEAST and ACTION Teams

NUTRITION PRESENTATION 😉

Parents from Kunyung and surrounding Kindergartens attended an informative and interestingly presented session on packing a healthy lunch for your children! The session was run by a Kunyung Parent, Alison Miles, who is also a qualified dietician (Bachelor of Science) who has spent many years working with Elite Athletes focussing on their diets and eating habits. The session was well attended and all parents who participated loved the practical tips shared by Alison and the ideas that are actually manageable by the ?normal? parent packing a daily lunch!

Many Thanks Alison and we are already working on a follow up session! Stay Tuned!

PUBLIC SPEAKING

Over the past 2 weeks I have had the privilege of working with all the Senior School Students on developing their Public Speaking skills. We worked through ‘Mrs Jackson’s 10 Public Speaking Tips’ and then every student had to write and give a 30 second presentation using these tips! The students were awesome and overcome ‘butterflies in the tummy’ to deliver their speeches!

Year 5 Aspirant Leaders Day

Last Monday Mrs Jay and 8 Year 5 Students attending Mt Eliza Secondary College for an Aspirant Leaders Day with other Local Primary Schools. The children focussed on developing their Leadership Skills and came back to school ready to implement those skills straight away! 