Term 3 Information for Year 1/2 TK Thursday, 01 August 2013 Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to term 3, 2013,

we would really like to thank you for your support to date and look forward to continuing to work with you and your child. It is with great pleasure that I write to you, for the first time, to introduce myself. I have been teaching for over 15 years and this has included teaching in the ACT, Victoria, and Japan. Before becoming a teacher, I worked in the wine industry and prior to that in production horticulture. My family is not originally from Canberra, my wife and daughter are from Japan and I am originally from Melbourne. Yoko is a plant researcher with the CSIRO and Erika is in year 2 at a public primary school. I am interested in cooking, cycling, photography, drama, leather-craft, hiking, and camping. I am also active in community service being a member of the Lions Club of Canberra Belconnen and parent-helper with the Mount Rogers Scouts. For the first two weeks of this term, we are hosting Student-led Conferences in our classrooms. It has been great to catch up with many of you and to learn more about your family and your child. The Integrated Inquiry question for the first half of term is a geography themed unit and we are exploring two questions, which are How am I connected to other place? and How can I find out what these places are like? For the second half of term 3 and term 4, we will be investigating Scientifically looking at the question How do I use Science Inquiry Skills to investigate Earths resources? As 10 18 August is National Science Week, we will be hosting our first Science Fair at Harrison School during week 4. Individual students and classes are asked to work on a Science activity and to enter the Science Fair. As a result, we have begun looking at Soil so that we can enter the Science Fair, whilst adding further to our Integrated Inquiry units. Home learning is an important part of our program. The home learning program recommends that students in year 1 should undertake 10-15 minutes of home learning each day and students in year 2 should undertake20-30 minutes each day. Home learning is sent out on Tuesdays of odd weeks and is due on Thursdays of even weeks. Home learning distributed Week 1 Tuesday, 23 July Week 3 Tuesday, 06 August Week 5 Tuesday, 20 August Week 7 Tuesday, 03 September Week 10 Tuesday, 17 September Home learning due Week 2 Thursday, 01 August Week 4 Thursday, 15 August Week 6 Thursday, 29 August Week 8 Thursday, 12 September Week 10 Thursday, 26 September

Specialist Programs Program Japanese Music Environmental Science Library Personal development Health / Phys Ed

Day & Time Tuesdays 12:15 13:00 Thursdays 08:55 09:50 Wednesdays 11:20 12:15 (even weeks) Tuesdays 11:20 11:40 / Friday 12:15 13:00

Teacher Phoebe Gilligan Kieryn Brown Fiona Vogt Tony Kennedy Tony Kennedy & Kirrily Burnett

Learning Assistance (LA) and English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EALD) At Harrison School, we cater for the needs of all students by providing in class support or withdrawal. This support may include extension or consolidation. Rosie Hurley provides LA support for Step Up extension. Rosemary Radford provides support for EALD students. Parent Helpers We would most welcome any assistance from parents who have a little time to spare. Parent help would be most welcome during our morning literacy sessions, especially to assist students with reading and writing. Also from week 6 onwards, assistance would be greatly appreciated during our Integrated Inquiry sessions as we will be doing some Science experiments. Ideal days and times will be Monday, Tuesday, and Friday mornings from 08:50 until 10:00, as well as Monday and Tuesday afternoons, from week 6, from 1:50pm until 2:50pm. If you can assist during any of these times, please advise me by e-mail on anthony.kennedy@ed.act.edu.au. Request to be able to contact you by e-mail In an attempt to make correspondence between us easier, I would like to request an e-mail contact for all parents and carers of students in my class. I assure you that when a class email is sent that I will use the Bcc: field. Could you please supply me with an e-mail address that you check regularly by either completing the form below or by sending me an e-mail. My e-mail address is anthony.kennedy@ed.act.edu.au. We thank you for your ongoing support of your childs learning at Harrison School. Please feel welcome to contact me via e-mail (anthony.kennedy@ed.act.edu.au) if you would like to discuss any aspect of your childs learning. Yours sincerely,

Tony Kennedy

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Childs name: _______________________ Parents name: ______________________ E-mail address: _______________________________________