St Rita's Year 7 Parent Information

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Year 7 Parent Information

7K – Marie Shepherd 7T – Roseanne Davies

7L– Natasha Essa

Grace and Gratitude

School Vision / School Mission

St. Rita’s Vision

St. Rita’s Primary School

is a community of faith

living and teaching Gospel values

developing excellence in individuals and relationships

providing safety, support and a sense of belonging looking to the future.

School Mission

• St Rita’s is committed to the teaching and living out of gospel values.

• St Rita’s strives to provide an environment where individual student needs are addressed in order to provide education for life.

• St Rita’s seeks to provide an open and safe environment where our sense of belonging is nurtured.

• St Rita’s endeavours to foster a vision for future growth and professional development for all our community.

The 4 worlds of the Adolescent Change

• School world-academic work, sport, study commitments, community involvement and spirituality.

• Peer world- relationships, role models, attitudes, competitiveness,

• Family world- support, jobs, relationships with siblings and parents, health and well being.

• Inner World- self-esteem, emotions, identity and self-worth

Physical

development and puberty

St Rita’s Community Behaviour Expectations

In Knowledge, Truth and Love we:

Show That we Respect everyone Inspire learning Take care or property and the environment Act safe, be safe

St Rita's Year 7 Parent Information

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Behaviour Learning

• At St Rita’s behaviour learning focuses on teaching the correct behaviours to all students from prep to Year 7.

• We believe to manage and develop a student’s behaviour at school, BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT needs to be:

– About learning appropriate behaviour through consistent consequences not punishment

– Positive/Fair/Consistent approaches.

– About making choices and understanding behaviour.

– Proactive NOT reactive.

– Flexible and able to cater for individuals

– Easily understood with clear expectations.

– Towards developing self-discipline and responsibility.

– Developing social skills of respect, courtesy and concern for others.

– About everybody keeping safe.

St Rita’s KTL Expected Behaviour Learning Matrix

Community Expectations

Community Expectation

Learning Spaces Unitas Centre Outside Play Spaces Church

Respect Everyone One person speaking Use kind words

Listen actively Use manners and be

polite

Follow instructions immediately

Hats off Inside voices

Enter and leave quietly Listen attentively (Assembly)

Respond to silent/quite signals Inside voices Understand purpose for using

centre – different codes of behaviour e.g. sport

Actively attending Hats off

Sit still and respectfully during Assembly

Stand and sit quietly for National Anthem

Follow instructions immediately

Move to lining up area straight away after bell

Use kind words

Share equipment with others

Use manners and be polite

Enter and leave quietly Inside voices

Inside behaviour Hats off Use alternate pathways

during funerals/services Follow instructions

immediately Behave reverently and

respectfully

Inspire Learning Respect the rights of others to learn

Support and encourage others

Follow instructions

Participate in learning Have a go Do your best Raise hand when you

have something to say Listen to the opinion of

others

Be involved in activ ities Have a go

Do your best Co-operate Encourage others

Raise hand when you have something to say

Listen to others Inside voices

Solve problems Discuss issues calmly

Seek help from peer mediators

Seek help from staff on

duty

Listen attentively Participate and

cooperative in responses and singing

Respect the rights of

others to learn Support and encourage

others Follow instructions

Participate in learning Raise hand when you

have something to say

Take Care of Property and the Environment

Look after all equipment All rubbish in bins

Return borrowed equipment

Take pride in classroom

environment

Leave it as you found it Return equipment

Wipe feet Respect for windows, switches,

walls, floors etc.

In correct play area Food stays in eating areas

Return equipment Only drink water from

fountains

Share equipment

Toilet use Leave the area in a better

state than when you found it

Sit on and put chairs back

correctly

Act Safe, Be Safe Walk safely Sit on your chair with 4

on the floor Hands/feet to self Ask permission to leave

Stay with your Learning Group

Running in supervised games and activ ities only

Adults operate equipment Hands/feet to self Stage access v ia stairs and only

with permission Toilets used with permission

Right place, right time Move between play areas

promptly and safely Wear hat Follow rules of the game

Hands and feet to yourself

Walking Sit quietly

Hands and feet to self Sit on your chair with 4

on the floor

Leave space around burning candles

Hands and feet to yourself

• We encourage APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR through implementing a system

of Positive Consequences such as:

– Encouragement and praise.

– Recognition of student's efforts, and expressions of appreciation.

– Giving responsibility.

– Opportunities for outside recognition.

– Student of the Week /Assembly Awards

– “Gotcha” tickets – observing right behaviours in the playground.

RESPONSE TO INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR. The aim of this process is to teach students the behaviours which ensure full participation in all learning activities in all aspects of primary school life. There are several steps in this process.

Religious Education/Program Achieve

• Throughout the year, students will explore the four strands of Religious Education: Beliefs, Morality, Scripture and Celebration and Prayer.

• This term, the students are focussing on the Morality strand. In particular, making moral and ethical decisions in a modern world.

Program Achieve • A whole school formalised approach to teaching students how

to be successful and responsible community members. • The program focuses on the ‘keys to success’ – confidence,

persistence, organisation, getting along and resilience.

Australian Curriculum Goals of the Australian Curriculum

• The Australian Curriculum sets out the core knowledge,

understanding, skills and general capabilities important for all

Australian students. The Australian Curriculum describes the

learning entitlement of students as a foundation for their future

learning, growth and active participation in the Australian

community. It makes clear what all young Australians should learn

as they progress through schooling. It is the foundation for high

quality teaching to meet the needs of all Australian students.

• http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

St Rita's Year 7 Parent Information

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Phase 1 subjects are: – English

• Three interrelated strands of language, literacy and literature. Together the strands focus on developing students’ knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating

– Mathematics

• The proficiency strands of Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning are developed across the three content strands of Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, Statistics and Probability

– History • The key concepts are evidence, continuity and change, cause

and effect, perspectives, empathy, significance and contestability. These concepts will be developed through Historical inquiries within these historical contexts:

– Investigating the Ancient past

– The Ancient Mediterranean world – Greece, Rome, Egypt – The Ancient Asian world – China, India

– Science • The Australian Science curriculum has three interrelated

strands of equal importance: Science Understanding, Science as a Human Endeavour and Science Inquiry Skills

The strands and substrands are introduced in Prep and build sequentially and cumulatively until year 10.

Subjects

• Health and Physical Education

• The Arts: Music, Drama, Visual Arts, Media

• LOTE: Japanese

NAPLAN Tests

• Tue 15th, Wed 16th, Thurs 17th May

• National tests based on national curriculum statements

• Tests numeracy, literacy and defensive

driving skills

Homework & Project Work Homework Expectations • Homework is due on Thursday/Friday each week. It should be completed throughout

the week as it is not entirely about content but about developing time management skills.

• To help with developing these skills each student uses their student diary to record dates and events.

• This year the homework will allow more scope for students to challenge themselves and demonstrate what they can do.

• Reading – Students at this age should be reading 20mins each day.

Homework may consist of: • Mathematics – reinforcement of mental strategies • Spelling/Grammar - This will vary dependent on student needs but will usually be 15-20

words. • Assignment/Research tasks – varies according to topics being studied. • Eventually there will be some online practice/revision activities as an option for

students to complete.

Projects\Assignments • Majority of work done at school. Students are expected to begin using a variety of sources outside

of school. E.g. community libraries, Internet etc.

Communication

Notes Home - • Use diary. Any notes sent home, please acknowledge

by signing and returning to the teacher. • Email the teacher: mshepherd@bne.catholic.edu.au rdavies1@bne.catholic.edu.au nessa@bne.catholic.edu.au

Making Appointments - • Teachers cannot meet with parents during class time.

Please give teachers notice if you would like a meeting and teachers will confirm time with you.

St Rita's Year 7 Parent Information

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Leadership Leadership Day • Thursday 16th February

Leadership Development • All students are considered leaders in our school. • Leadership activities and excursions have been organised

throughout the year. • Commissioning of school leaders during Term 1.

Leadership Duties • Throughout the year, all students will be involved in duties which

have the purpose of developing the qualities of leadership, service to others, organisation and responsibility.

Camp • Wednesday 6th- Friday 8th June (Term 2) • Camp Warawee

Allergy awareness

• Children in our school have allergies to particular foods including peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, milk and to minimise the risk with regard to these foods we all need to be allergy aware. To help minimise the risk we recommend that:

· All parents ensure that their children know not to share their food as some foods can make other children sick or are life-threatening.

· Parents check with class teacher before sending birthday cakes etc. to school.

Housekeeping

• School website (Term Overview and Calendar)

• Sports uniform: Tuesday and Friday

• Personal Development: Semester 2

Term 1 Overview

MATHS NUMBER AND ALGEBRA Large whole numbers Mental computations Review of addition, subtraction,

multiplication and division Relating common and decimal

fractions and percentages Equivalent fractions Calculating with fractions Problem solving involving

fractions STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY Data representation and

interpretation using mean, median and mode

MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY Timelines Visualisation of 3D shapes Translations, transformations and

reflections of shapes Line and rotational symmetry

NAPLAN Preparation Working with the different

questioning techniques and strategies

ENGLISH Writing process – first steps program Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Novel Study: Hitler’s Daughter Development of formal oral language

skills Reflective Speech- Inspirational Person Literacy Block:

o Listening Post o Guided Reading o Writing Tasks o Visual literacy o Critical Literacy o Grammar tasks

Reading circles

NAPLAN PREPARATION Preparing students to write an

Exposition in a specified time-frame Exposing students to a variety of

questioning techniques such as multiple choice

Revising a range of Grammar Conventions such as direct speech, commas and sentence structure

Utilising a variety of spelling strategies

INOFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOGY Nine Elements of Digital

Citizenship - Applying social and

ethical protocols and practices when using ICT

- Communicating with ICT Creating leadership

images

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Specialist Lessons Middle school sports

rotations Swimming lessons Swimming Carnival

HISTORY What is history? Primary and

Secondary Sources Historical Methods Timelines What is a Historical

Inquiry? Analyse Case Study

and identify types of sources and evidence

ARTS

Drama Music appreciation Visual art – investigating and

creating logos Exploring a range of artists and

their self-portraits Create own ‘Self-Portrait Portfolio’

Confirmed Dates

Opening School Mass 13th February Parent Information Evening 15th February

Leadership Day 16th February Swimming Carnival 5th March Cross Country 26th March

Year 7 Overview

Term 1, 2012

LOTE Japanese lessons Culture of Japan Two 40 min

lessons/week

RELIGION

Leading Classroom prayer Building notion of

leadership based on ethical behaviour

Explore Beatitudes and Ten Commandments

Making Moral and Ethical Decisions in a Modern World

Building Blocks of Leadership (Michael Grose)