Tag: welcome

A Welcome From Our Grade 5/6 Teachers

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to another exciting school year! The Year Five students have settled in effortlessly into their new learning environment in the BER with guidance from the Year Six students. We started off the Term with a bang and have been busy learning new routines, having fun at 5/6 sport and enjoying our new classes. This Term we are looking forward to 5/6 sport on Fridays, sport Gala Days, school events and more. 

Year 5/6 Teachers

5/6A – Mr Portelli

Hi, my name is Ambrose Portelli and I teach the fantastic Grade 5/6A class. It is going to be a fun and exciting year of learning. Outside Strathmore Primary School I enjoy spending time with my family. I have two children (four and a two year old). I am also a keen musician and have been playing cello in the Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra for many years.

5/6B – Ms Vasil

Hello, my name is Ms Vasil. I am looking forward to a fantastic year with 5/6B. Outside of school, I enjoy good coffee, shopping and fast cars. I enjoy spending quality time with family and friends.

5/6C – Miss Drew

Hello! My name is Liz Drew and I am looking forward to another year teaching 5/6 . Over the summer holidays I went to Port Douglas where my partner proposed to me, we spent time with family and friends and went wakeboarding. In my spare time I enjoy playing netball, baking, going to the beach and exploring new places. I recently lived and taught in London for 2 years which allowed me to travel to some incredible places!

5/6D – Ms Boyd

Hi, I am Nadene Boyd and this is my fourth year teaching 5/6s. I know some of these students very well as I taught them when they were in Prep! 5/6D have had a smooth start to the year and are really enjoying using Google Classroom to complete their work. We have welcomed two spiny leaf insects into our class and are amazed at how much they have grown in such a short time. Outside of school, I enjoy spending time out in nature – going on a bushwalk or bike riding. Luckily, my husband and I spent the summer break exploring NZ in a campervan, which meant we spent a lot of time outside!

5/6E – Mr Lyons

Hi, I am Matthew Lyons and this year I am looking forward to working with 5/6E. My passion outside of education is sport and we have an exciting year of interschool sport events planned. Outside Strathmore Primary School, I am a member of the Therry Penola Football Club. I hope to make 2020 the best year yet for our Strathmore community.

A Welcome From Our Grade 4 Teachers

Dear Parents and Carers,

The Year 4 students have had a busy start to the year as we settle into new learning spaces. We have begun to set routines and expectations in the classroom and students have made an amazing start in their learning journey this year! 

In Term 1, we will explore narrative and biographical writing. In Maths, we are revising and extending our understanding of place value, strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems and collecting, representing and interpreting data on various types of graphs. When reading, students are learning strategies to maintain fluency, find the meaning of unknown words in a text, make detailed predictions with textual evidence and make connections between a text and the world we live in. In Inquiry we are looking at Civics and Citizenship. We have been learning about rules and laws in our communities and have been practising being responsible members of our communities by participating in elections for Junior School Council.

We look forward to many great times this year including; amazing learning activities, school events, excursions, and camp!

Year 4 Teachers

4A Mrs McNiece

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Hello everyone. My name is Mrs Rochelle McNiece. I’m really excited to be teaching and coordinating the Year 4 team this year! It has been great to get to know the Year 4 cohort over the last couple of weeks. I look forward to working with the students and families to make 2020 a really positive year for everyone. I have 3 children, a son in Grade 2, a daughter in Grade 4 and a daughter in Year 7. My family love exploring the outdoors and we love caravanning with our German Shepherd, Blitz. Our favourite places to camp are Tocumwal and Echuca on the Murray River where the rest of my family go fishing and I can enjoy my other favourite pastime – reading.

4B Miss Cvek

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Hello, I’m Petrina Cvek. I hope everyone had lovely holidays and some time to relax. I’m looking forward to another great year in Grade 4, helping students grow, learn and achieve their best. I enjoy spending time with my friends and family, as well as my many pets (2 dogs, 3 cats – it’s a bit of a petting zoo, I know). I love gardening, travelling and exploring new places, as well as finding somewhere to settle with a cup of tea and a great book.

4C Mr Smith

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Hi. I am Gary Smith and have been teaching longer than I care to remember. I have been at SPS for 8 years and have enjoyed my time here working with some wonderful students and families. Apart from teaching, the main passions in my life are The Melbourne Football Club and golf. I am looking forward to continuing to provide an enjoyable educational experience for the students in my care during 2020.

A Welcome From Our Grade 3 Teachers

Grade 3 Term One Overview

Welcome Grade 3 students and parents to 2020! We have had an exciting start to Term 1! Teaching this year in 3A is Marissa Reilly, in 3B is Ashlee Zuvela and in 3C is Jodi MacDonald. We look forward to getting to know all of the Grade 3 students over the coming weeks. Below is an overview outlining what the students will be learning this term and information about the school events that are taking place.

Reading

Throughout the term, students will be continuing to develop fluency, accuracy, decoding and comprehension skills in reading. Students will explore Fountas and Pinnell reading and comprehension strategies to target their individual reading needs. Students will participate in reading activities, including Guided Reading and independent tasks to practise these skills. Students are expected to complete 15 minutes of reading at home at least 5 nights a week. 

Writing

This term, students will be students will be writing recounts and narratives. They will continue to develop strategies to engage their readers and develop correct sentence structure and punctuation. Students will complete weekly Home Talk in preparation for their Big Write on Thursdays and will be completing weekly Spellodrome homework. 

Numeracy

This term in Maths, students will be continuing to develop their place value number knowledge. The Grade 3s will also be exploring statistics and probability. They will be completing learning tasks that collect data and they will be creating displays using lists, tables, picture graphs and column graphs. Students will complete weekly homework tasks on Mathletics. 

Inquiry

Throughout the term, students will be exploring new concepts in Inquiry about Civics and Citizenship. Students will be learning about how and why rules and laws are made and they will be exploring features of government and democracy. 

School events

Term 1 has lots of exciting events for the Grade 3 students. On the 11th of March students will participate in Multicultural Day. On the 20th of March students will run in the school’s Cross Country. On the 25th of March the Grade 3s will be watching the performance called ‘Bully Zero’ in the hall. 

Kind regards,

Grade 3 Team

Welcome From Our Grade 1 Teachers

Hi Everyone! 

In Term 1, the Year 1 students will be focusing on developing learning routines and setting expectations in the Year One learning space.

Year 1 Teachers

1A Ms Brown 

Hello everyone, I’m Ms Brown and I’m thrilled to be teaching and coordinating the Year 1 team this year! It has been fantastic to get to know the Year 1 cohort over the last couple of weeks. I look forward to working with the students and families to make 2020 a great year for everyone. Here are a few things about me: I went on a holiday to Brisbane over the summer break and enjoyed watching the Australian Open. I love gardening and growing my own veggies. I am an avid animal lover and I have 2 very naughty poodles called Coco and Chanel.

1B Ms Buckley

Hello everyone, I’m Ms Buckley. I hope you all had a lovely holiday with your family and friends. I am really looking forward to teaching you all this year and I have many great activities planned for you. I enjoy playing netball, shopping, watching TV and fashion. I love spending time with my family especially paw-sitting my brother’s dogs Jersey and Marlo. I barrack for the mighty North Melbourne Kangaroos and look forward to watching both the ladies’ and men’s team win lots of games in 2020.

1C Mrs McKendry

Hello! I am thrilled to be a Year 1 teacher this year! My name is Nadia McKendry. I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable summer break. I am really excited to get to know you and your families this year. In my spare time I enjoy making jewellery, cooking, shopping, going for walks and spending time with friends and family. I have a Rhodesian Ridgeback called Hunter, don’t mind his name, he is a big baby. I also have a cat named Ronnie, she is a rescue cat and loves to live an independent life with a few cuddles here and there.        

A Welcome From Our Music Teacher

Hi Strathmore Primary School Community,

It’s been a great start to the year in the music room with all students learning ukulele and playing chords.

The Foundation students, have been introduced to the ukulele and have been strumming chords. The grades 1s and 2s, have been working on changing chords and playing songs with that change between the C, F and G chords. The 3s and 4s, have been learning about Verses, Chorus and Bridges in songs as they try to play and sing at the same time. The grades 5s and 6s, have also been trying to play and sing at the same time with some of the students playing guitar to accompany us while we sing. 

The ukulele is a great fun instrument that is a great start for someone wanting to learn guitar. A new feature in our music room is the uke wall which hangs some of our ukuleles and also has lots of interesting vintage ukulele newspaper articles and photos of people playing the ukulele.

 If you are interested in buying a Ukulele for your child to play at home, I would recommend the basic Mahalo Uke which can be found on ebay for around $35. I can help with putting the stickers on, if any students would like to have them so their ukulele is the same as the ones at school. 

If you are after an app to play along with and to help tune your ukulele, I would recommend ‘Ukeoke’ from the app store. It has 109 free songs and yearly subscription is around $50 which will unlock all of the songs. 

I am looking forward to another wonderful year teaching music at Strathmore Primary School. 

Mr. Gribben

A Welcome From Our Italian Teacher

Benvenuti! Mi chiamo Signorina Pane. Welcome!

My name is Miss Pane and I am teaching Italian this year! This is my fifth year of teaching Italian and I am excited to be able to teach all the students at Strathmore Primary School. 

The Italian program will focus on speaking and listening activities as well as written work. Songs, games and interactive tasks will be included in a fun and interactive way.

I am looking forward to a wonderful Multicultural Day on Wednesday 11th March and have already loved learning and hearing about the students’ backgrounds and cultures.  Please make sure permission and payment is made by 2nd March for this wonderful multicultural experience. 

Looking forward to another wonderful year in Italian!

Ciao per adesso (bye for now)

A Welcome From Our Art Teacher

Hello! My name is Sandra Damoulakis and I teach Visual Art to every student in the school! I love teaching Art and helping all my students be creative. I love all kinds of Art but my favourite artist is Frida Kahlo.

You might notice that I have lots of Frida Kahlo things like my phone cover, shopping bag, earrings and even my car air freshener is of Frida Kahlo! I love going camping, seeing bands, having meals with friends and hanging out with my husband and two children.

I can’t wait to get messy in the art room with you this year, it’s going to be lots of fun!!