As Term Two nears the end, we reflect on the achievements of our students, both as individuals and as a collective. It has been a term filled with opportunities to shine—on the sports field, in the classroom, and beyond.

There have been several sporting highlights, including Cross Country, AFL 9s, and the Lightning Premiership. Many Birregurra Primary students performed exceptionally well at each stage of the Cross Country event. The AFL 9s boys' team reached the grand final, and our Lightning Premiership girls were victorious in their grand final match. These achievements not only showcase our students' athletic talents and teamwork but also their sportsmanship and pride in representing their school.

In the arts, Grades 3–6 attended a live performance of Imagine, based on the picture storybook by Alison Lester. This experience was a wonderful opportunity to extend our love for literature. Once again, students demonstrated respectful and enthusiastic behaviour, representing Birregurra Primary School with pride.

In English, we have focused on developing word recognition and morphological knowledge. Students are learning to identify prefixes, suffixes, and base morphemes, as well as understand their linguistic origins. Our Fluency Reading program has also been refreshed — students now read a new passage each day, followed by comprehension questions. Grade 5/6 students are enjoying the challenge of improving their word counts and comprehension skills during this focused and engaging part of the lesson.

Our new text study in Grade 5/6 is Waves, a nonfiction anthology centred on the experiences of refugees and migrants coming to Australian shores. Students are building their sentence fluency and experimenting with literary devices such as adverbials, similes, and metaphors to create rich, grammatically accurate writing.

In Mathematics, we continue to build fluency through Daily Review sessions and ICT platforms like Times Tables Rockstars. This term, we have explored data representation and interpretation, chance and probability, fractions, decimals, percentages, and 2D/3D shapes. During lessons, students are actively engaged through mini whiteboards and hand signals to respond to rapid-fire questions, reinforcing concepts before working independently.

Our Inquiry focus this term has been Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. Students have investigated Australia’s topography and climate and will soon compare these features with those of neighbouring countries.

In our Respectful Relationships program, students have participated in practical activities aimed at fostering positive self-talk. A class highlight has been an experiment involving plant growth and encouragement—exploring whether compliments and motivation can influence outcomes!

We are proud of all the learning and growth that has occurred this term and look forward to continuing this journey in Term 3.

- Miss Dillon