No Cross Country training or Ball n Boy will be held next Friday as it is the morning of the Year 3-6 Cross Country Carnival.

Next Week is the last week of After School Sports Training for Term 1.

Notification of changes to ICAS Competitions for Years 3-6 are explained by the Director of Studies.

The best ‘Plan B’ for your son is the use of our After School Care which is run by Extend. All families are encouraged to register their son as it is free to register and bookings can be made anytime up until 2:50pm on any given day. Please download the Enrolment information from Extend.

Mr P Derrin

Important Notification of Changes to ICAS

Parents may not be aware that ICAS has undergone significant changes in the last six months. These changes directly impact the testing we normally utilise with the boys in Years 3-6.

In short ICAS has now split into three distinct branches: ICAS, REACH and PEAK.

• What we knew as ‘ICAS’ remains being called ICAS but has stopped being a diagnostic tool for teachers and is now only a competition paper (this means we will only get a score and not diagnostic data on which outcomes they have gained mastery).

• REACH is the new diagnostic division where tests that identify curriculum strengths and weaknesses are situated.

• PEAK is diagnostic as well but measures growth as the tests are completed multiple times through the year and compared.

Historically SGS boys (Year 3 – 6) have sat the English and Maths papers. These tests have given us data on outcomes that the boys need additional support in or should be extended in.

As ICAS has become purely a competition paper this year we will not be incorporating these tests into our School.

Last year we trialed the first of the PEAK assessments – The Grammar and Punctuation Checkpoint with all boys 3 – 6. We were rapt with the data that we got through this testing. All students were tested in Term 1 and then again in Term 3 to check their growth.

This data was utilised to write the Grammar comments in both Semester 1 and 2 reports last year. As it is a diagnostic, the ‘mark’ was not used as Assessment Of Learning and therefore did not impact their grade on their report.

This year we will continue with our use of The Grammar and Punctuation Checkpoint and we are adding another diagnostic in for Years 3 – 5: The REACH Writing Diagnostic. We have not used an outside writing diagnostic before so this is very much a ‘try and see what we get’ situation. Parents should be aware that this diagnostic is a paper test and is not written or marked online.

We have recently run a trial with Year 1 – 6 for a new Maths diagnostic completed online. As a result of our trial we have signed up with Essential Assessment and your son (in Year 1 – 6) will sit multiple pre and post testing with this company throughout the year. We will be utilising this data when: forming maths groupings, looking for differentiation levelling and when writing our programmes.

As ICAS are competitions only now it is no longer useful for our teaching.

We are aware that some parents may want their son to do the ICAS English and/or Maths despite us not having any use for it.

The School has decided to do the following:

• Parents can request their son/s still sit either or both the ICAS English and Maths papers.

• They will be billed for the amount of these papers.

• The testing will be done before School hours on the day of the test nationwide.

• We will send the results paperwork/certificate home to parents. We will not acknowledge any individual high scorers in Assembly.

• If you would like to register for your son to complete either ICAS English or ICAS Maths please click on this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8RVVXTL 

The link will remain open till Friday 15 March. No boys will be added after this date.

If you do not want your son to do these competitions you do not need to do anything.

Mrs C Greenup

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.” 

Charlotte

E.B White – Charlotte’s Web

Year 1 enormous

Year 2 exhausted

Year 3 frantic

Year 4 chuckled

Year 5 valiant

Year 6 enthralled

Looking into Science: Year 1

In the last few weeksof Science lessons in Year 1, the investigations about Energy with a focus on Light and Sound have included simple circuits. We began with explorations of how light and sound travel in waves and how light is affected by the materials it has to travel through. A natural link was to the energy in batteries and how they can make something work when they are part of a loop or circuit. The boys have been collaborating on the construction of circuits using simple things like playdough and small engineering kits. This will lead us to creating sequences of code to program battery powered robots next term.

Last week’s answer (a pen tip!)

Mrs M Scott

Combined Orchestra Tour to Singapore

A reminder that our first rehearsal will be 2:00 – 5:00pm on Saturday 30 March at Edgecliff Prep.

Diary Dates

End Term 1 Concert – 6:30pm Thursday 28 March (Week 9) in the Hall

Music Timetable for Term 1 Week 7

Click here for the Week 7 Music Timetable. Parents please note this is subject to change.

Mr M Smith OAM

On Tuesday this week, 19 boys across Years 3-6 represented our School at the IPSHA Swimming Carnival. Outstanding efforts were shown by everyone! The boys swam amongst fierce competition, improved upon their times from our School Carnival and achieved Personal Best results.

The team showed an impressive display of sportsmanship and they represented our School with pride. A special congratulations is extended to Noah Kazal, Brian Lee, and Lucas Lin who have gained selection in the IPSHA team for the CIS Carnival on Wednesday 20 March. Noah Kazal will compete in the U9 Freestyle, Lucas Lin in the U10 Breaststroke and Freestyle and Freestyle relay and Brian Lee will represent IPSHA in the U12/13 Breaststroke. Our Junior Relay team of Felix Carrasco, Adam Nguyen, Lucas Lin and Emerson Siroky will also compete at CIS.

All boys who have involved themselves in the Swimming programme throughout this term are to be congratulated on their outstanding efforts and achievements. Well done!

This weekend marks the second last round of Saturday Sport for this term. The last game for the term, Round 6 is scheduled for next weekend, Saturday 16 March. As a result next week will be the last week for After School training and the Ball and Boy sessions.

An up-to-date Fixture List is on the Sports Fixtures website and can be viewed by clicking here.

A printable version of the Fixtures can be found by clicking here. Please note the printable version will not automatically update if there are changes during the season. Any changes will be notified through team sheets.

Team Sheets

Please access team sheets, posted on the Sports Fixtures website on Thursday, by clicking here. The password to view the team sheets is Sport2019

The Year 3-6 Cross Country Carnival will be held next week on Friday 15 March. All details for the Carnival can be found by clicking here.

From this Carnival, the first 5 runners from each age group will be selected to attend the IPSHA Cross Country Carnival to be held at the Kings School on Saturday 6 April. 

Our School Carnival is a great occasion for the boys; it is a challenge for all and there are House competitions throughout the event in which your son will be involved. I hope you are able to join us on the day.

No Cross Country training or Ball n Boy will be held next Friday as it is the morning of the Year 3-6 Cross Country Carnival

In preparation for the IPSHA Cross Country Carnival on 6 April, Friday morning sessions will continue on Friday 22 March and 5 April, 7.30-8.00am. School team runners are strongly encouraged to attend and the session remains open to interested boys in Years 2-6.

College Street is holding a Holiday Tennis Camp that boys from the St Ives Preparatory School are welcome to attend. For more information click here.

I enjoyed the opportunity to speak about reading, with parents this week. My main message was highlighting the rich benefits of reading aloud to children of all ages. How through reading together, social skills and academic progress are enhanced and vocabulary and comprehension are developed.

Creating a reading culture at both home and school, helps to encourage boys to read for pleasure. Parents, family members, teachers and librarians act as enabling adults, introducing children to books and helping to develop their passion for reading.

Children need to be connected with both fiction and nonfiction, however, they find accessing fiction more challenging. Through reading aloud, parents can discuss characters, introduce children to literature above their level of decoding and provide exposure to ‘rare’ vocabulary.

As Jim Trelease writes in his book The Read-Aloud Handbook, 

‘The eventual strength of our vocabulary is determined not by the ten thousand common words we use regularly, but by how many rare words we understand.’

There are many excellent parent reference books relating to reading in the Library. Another I have now ordered is, 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. 

Mr Palethorpe and Mrs Strothers presented interesting maths ideas and problem solving activities in the Library at lunchtime on Wednesday. Next week, the subject will be Italian introduced by Signora Matheson.

Auditions will be held in the Drama Studio this coming Tuesday 12 March from 12.00-4.00pm, instead of Monday 11 March as previously stated. Boys will be auditioning in groups of two or three and each audition should only last about 5 – 7 minutes. If your son is auditioning after 3.00pm please arrange to pick him up from Ayres Road at the completion of his audition.

In the audition boys will be required to perform audition scenes 1, 2 and 3 with one other person. The scenes consist of a Narrator expressively speaking to the audience, a dialogue between Sherlock Holmes and a member of the vampire horde and a final scene between the Woodcutter and his Wife. Boys should prepare both characters in each scene. We will watch the scenes twice, so that you can perform the two different characters. You do not need to learn the script off by heart, but you should be familiar enough with it to be able to deliver the lines confidently and with some movement and gesture as indicated in the script.

Remember, we are looking for:

• Exaggerated character movement, posture and facial expressions and good audience interaction where required 

• A contrast between the characters 

• Strong and clear speaking voices

• Confident presentation of the scenes – really ‘sell’ it to us!

The audition process will be relaxed and fun where each boy will be encouraged to present the prepared material to his best ability. Improvisation and the development of unseen dialogue may also be used to ascertain each boy’s potential for the characters. 

Mrs Grelis and I look forward to seeing you then. Good luck!

Final applications for the Interschool Chess Competition will be accepted on Monday Week 7. Please bring any remaining applications directly to Mr Palethorpe.

If you have lost the form it can be downloaded here.

Mr J Palethorpe

To ensure as many boys as possible are able to eat the selection of food available in the Tuck Shop, the cheese Turkish bread has been changed to cheese focaccia (as it does not contain sesame seeds).

Mrs C Shields