Grade 3/4

First of all, a big welcome back to school for 2026! We hope that everyone was able to have a relaxing break and prepare for the start of the school year. It is extremely important that the students consider their own organisational work habits and bring some of their independence into the classroom after the holidays. Our Respectful Relationships program will be integral in supporting this process with a focus on teamwork, resilience, coping mechanisms, help seeking and positive gender relations.
We have lots of exciting things happening this term including Polwarth Sports, House Sports, and more. This term the Year 3 students will be undertaking NAPLAN testing. The students have begun their preparations and we’re confident that they will do their very best during the testing period.

A big congratulations to all students that delivered a JSC leadership speech to their peers. They all did a wonderful job and demonstrated their ability to all be leaders of Birregurra PS. Well done to the individual students that will take on the Junior School Council roles and responsibilities this year on behalf of our class.

This term, students will practise a range of strategies to strengthen their comprehension. These include identifying sequence, recognising cause and effect, determining word meaning from context and interpreting the author’s purpose. Students will record their thinking and gradually build their reading stamina. Regular fluency practice will support improvements in pace, accuracy and expression. Students have also begun a class novel study of Brindabella by Ursula Dubosarsky.

This term in writing, students will use the writing process (i.e. planning, composing, revising, editing and publishing) to create texts related to our text study. They will take a deeper look into the structure and features of narrative and persuasive texts and work to create their own stories and arguments. Our students will also participate in spelling investigations where they will learn about different spelling patterns and rules.

This term, our focus in Maths will be on consolidating and extending number skills. Students will engage in challenging problem-solving tasks that encourage flexible thinking and consideration of multiple solution strategies. This supports the development of independence and allows each student to be appropriately challenged. Daily fluency practice will support students to improve automatic recall of times tables and number facts, supported by Times Tables Rockstars! Other topics covered this term include place value, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, perimeter and area, and interpreting and evaluating data.

In Inquiry, students are participating in a unit called ‘Launching Learners’ that incorporates several team building, cyber safety and goal setting activities, designed to set students up for success.

Throughout our ‘Respectful Relationships’ program, we have explored our personal strengths as well as personal strengths in our class friends, understanding that we are all unique. We are now focussing on our positive coping strategies and how we can act and respond when ourselves and others are showing strong emotions.

It’s been a wonderful start and we look forward to sharing more of our journey as the term progresses.

- Mrs Welsh & Mr Burrell