Writing Tag

We are pleased to share with you some exciting news about a Year 6 skills lesson that took place this term. Mrs. Oosthuizen taught the students how to sew buttons on clothing, and we are thrilled to say that it was a great success.

The children were provided with needles, buttons, thread, and cloth, and were given step-by-step instructions on how to sew a button. Although some students struggled with getting the thread through the needle at first, they quickly overcame this challenge and progressed to sewing their buttons with ease. Mrs. Oosthuizen, Mrs. Kirkaldy and even Mr. O was on hand to offer extra help to those who needed it, ensuring that everyone was able to complete the task successfully.

We are particularly proud of two students, Alistair and Nivad, who went the extra mile with this lesson. Alistair brought his own pants and button that he wanted to mend, and Nivad was so inspired by the lesson that he sewed a miniature pillow the next day.

Sewing is a valuable life skill that can come in handy in many situations, and we are confident that the Year 6 students will benefit from this lesson for years to come. We are grateful to Mrs Oosthuizen for her dedication and hard work in preparing for this lesson, and we hope that the children enjoyed it as much as we did.

In one of the future lessons, we would like to teach the students how to change a plug. If parents have any extra plugs or cables they can spare, please send them to school so that we can use them for the lesson.

Vihann Oosthuizen
Year 6 Teacher

In German, the Year 4 students have been learning vocabulary related to items that we use daily and that one can buy at the shops. They then learnt simple sentences related to going shopping and asking for that specific item.

Role-playing is the perfect way to put the learning into practice.  This enhances the students’ speaking skills to make the foreign language meaningful and useful in conversation. It improves the students’ communication skills in learning a new language, and then in turn develops their interaction with one another. This also strengthens social skills including student collaboration. Role-play gives students the opportunity to experience real world/life scenarios in the classroom and learn from each other.

We first watched a short video showcasing Year 4 students from a school in Germany, who role play going on a shopping trip using the same vocabulary and sentences that the students had learnt.

This gave the students some inspiration to work on their own role-plays. They were then divided into small groups to plan and practice their own shopping trip. They chose the roles of either a shopkeeper/assistant or the person shopping and selected the items they wanted to purchase using some props in my classroom. Then the students were given the opportunity to present their role-plays.

The students were really motivated and had a lot of fun acting out the conversations and were able to put what they had learnt in theory into practice.

Looking forward to many more.

Frau K. Pani
Primary School German Teacher

https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/role-playing.shtml

The high school students have thus far completed two skills sessions with each year group, concentrating on a particular skill or skills. These range from practical, hands-on skills to discussions on mental wellbeing.

The Year 12 group have been learning financial skills, such as opening a savings account and keeping a monthly personal budget. Like many of the Year 12 students, Amber Shawe, has found this to be an eye opener since she will be responsible for managing her own expenses as a university student next year. She commented, “The skills programme has taught me to budget for the important things in life such as accommodation, medical aid and insurance. The sessions have also made me realise how important it is to budget and know how to save money. It taught me to think ahead and plan for my future as I would need to put funds aside for my retirement and take out life insurance.”

Our Year 11 students have been learning how to use various workshop tools for particular tasks such as changing a plug.

The Year 10 class topics were diverse and included learning how to complete a CV with tips on ways to make it stand out above the rest. They also learned how to do basic sewing such as repairing a garment seam.

During the last two sessions, the Year 9s have been preparing for the last public speaking session when each student will deliver a prepared speech to the class.

Year 8s are learning self-management skills. Gaby Nel shared her experience as a student, “Our teacher taught us what time management is, how to apply it every day and how we can use our time effectively to study for our exams in advance. We also learnt how to set up a study timetable to be able to fit in normal day activities such as sport and have enough time for studying.”

The Year 7 girls have been discussing how to improve their self-confidence and self-esteem while the boys have been taught basic etiquette.

We are still to complete the last two sessions, which judging by the positive feedback received thus far, should prove to be both educational and fun.

Melinda Twycross
High School Teacher

We all know that our children matter. What the Year 5s have been learning recently is that they are also MADE of matter.

We have been looking at the particle model and states of matter in Science, and the students have explored the topics in a variety of different ways. They have used their textbooks to learn independently and peer-teach each other about processes like boiling and melting, practising the skill of reading information to pick out salient points, as well as their communication skills (and producing some useful posters for the classroom walls in the process).

They observed what happens when a solid is dissolved in water and described the process on the particle level, while reminding themselves that while you may not be able to see the salt in salt water, you would definitely know it’s still there if you tasted it.

They practised their Science enquiry skills by looking at available equipment and figuring out how to test the effect of temperature on the rate of dissolving, writing a practical report to systematically record their findings.

Now they are turning their hand to some research, using the iPads to look up some information about the properties of water.

Throughout the topic, I have been impressed by the students’ willingness to jump into the world of Science and test things out, whether it be research skills, observation skills, or designing a fair test. It would be fair to say that the students have been vibrating with energy – much like their particles!

Hannah Kirkaldy
Year 5 Teacher