Partnerships with Swinburne University
Belle Vue Park, Aberfeldie and Newlands Primary Schools continue to break new ground in developing beneficial partnerships. The latest innovation is to expand our tri-school S.O.L.E. learning to include school visits from university staff, host pre-service teachers in our schools (who have an interest and talent in science) and also put in place student visits to the University as part of our S.O.L.E. student investigations. Recently we visited and spent time with Marijke Graham - School Partnerships and Dr. Rebecca Allen - PhD in Astrophysics to formulate our strategy.
Students will be involved in the 3D Astro Tour and also spend time in the Design Factory as well as completing school based investigations focusing on space. We are nurturing future scientists and promoting curiosity and discovery.
Students will be involved in the 3D Astro Tour and also spend time in the Design Factory as well as completing school based investigations focusing on space. We are nurturing future scientists and promoting curiosity and discovery.
Partnerships with Gene Therapy Access Centre (G.T.A.C.)
Our school recently hosted a professional development day for teachers from many different schools. The day was run by the brilliant scientists from G.T.A.C. - Gene Therapy Access Centre which is located in Parkville.
The teachers were led through a sequence of learning called BioMaths Bites, a series of free ready-to-use bite-sized student activities, resources and lesson plans that use primary years 5/6 mathematics to solve real-life biological problems.
BioMaths Bites are a selection of collaborative, open-ended learning activities that encourage critical and creative thinking skills. They provide opportunities for students to engage in real-world maths and allow easy assessment of student understanding.
Students will learn how to apply mathematical concepts to biological problems including:
Scale and magnitude of numbers to calculate how much plastic is polluting our oceans
Measurement, data representation and interpretation of real life data to investigate leg length in invasive cane toads
Area and volume to explore how animals can maintain body temperature in different environments
Co-ordinates and angles to emulate how ants navigate across deserts
How many other schools do you know of that have developed such strong relationships with high level scientific educational organisations? Not many that’s for sure! …but here at Belle Vue Park Primary School we are again ahead of the field.
I am happy to announce that our students in year 5/6 will be doing another 2 brilliant science days here at school this term. That makes 6 science days ... 6 more than any other school.
These sessions will focus on the Digital Technologies curriculum from a medical science context.
The approach to this Digital Technologies unit is to provide a sequence of teaching strategies that can be applied across different curriculums to promote computational thinking to solve problems.
This sequence is designed to develop student skills in problem solving through the use of observation, planning, action and reflection cycles.
The teachers were led through a sequence of learning called BioMaths Bites, a series of free ready-to-use bite-sized student activities, resources and lesson plans that use primary years 5/6 mathematics to solve real-life biological problems.
BioMaths Bites are a selection of collaborative, open-ended learning activities that encourage critical and creative thinking skills. They provide opportunities for students to engage in real-world maths and allow easy assessment of student understanding.
Students will learn how to apply mathematical concepts to biological problems including:
Scale and magnitude of numbers to calculate how much plastic is polluting our oceans
Measurement, data representation and interpretation of real life data to investigate leg length in invasive cane toads
Area and volume to explore how animals can maintain body temperature in different environments
Co-ordinates and angles to emulate how ants navigate across deserts
How many other schools do you know of that have developed such strong relationships with high level scientific educational organisations? Not many that’s for sure! …but here at Belle Vue Park Primary School we are again ahead of the field.
I am happy to announce that our students in year 5/6 will be doing another 2 brilliant science days here at school this term. That makes 6 science days ... 6 more than any other school.
These sessions will focus on the Digital Technologies curriculum from a medical science context.
The approach to this Digital Technologies unit is to provide a sequence of teaching strategies that can be applied across different curriculums to promote computational thinking to solve problems.
This sequence is designed to develop student skills in problem solving through the use of observation, planning, action and reflection cycles.
Book Week celebrations
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Book Week was a fantastic celebration. Lots of visitors were here to enjoy presentations from our students who read book reports about their favourite characters and books. We had a parade of book characters from each class and it was a really high standard. Many families went to a lot of trouble to do a “home-made” outfit. Our teachers all dressed as a character from the Mr. Men series and they also wrote a report about “why I love reading” – These were great samples of reading and are on display in the year 3/4 WonderWalls. Thank you to Natalie and her team for their organisation and for everyone’s participation.
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HUNTING FOR MICROBES
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Belle Vue Park Primary School has a very large focus on Inquiry learning and Investigations through S.O.L.E. (Self Organised Learning Environments) and Science.
As part of our commitment to this our year 5/6 students participated in lots of science learning this term. Recently staff from G.T.A.C. (Gene Therapy Access Centre) which is based in Parkville visited our school to lead our students in a series of experiments on microbes. These investigations are always a highlight for our students and they learn so much. Our students did a lot of hands on learning discovering the properties of common microbes. Brilliant learning! |
"Some microbes are good for you and some are bad for your body and can make you sick. The experiments were interesting, fantastic and made the learning fun for us. We did a number of experiments each session. In one experiment we had to put our thumb into a jelly substance to see how many microbes were on our skin. We couldn’t see anything to start with but after a week the microbes had grown and spread.
The staff from G.T.A.C. were really nice and planned lots of fun and interesting activities for us. They were really nice and we learned a lot. Microbes are really small and you have to use a microscope to see them. There are different types of microbes. They live everywhere… in food, a body, water, earth." - Baha Saad and Hanede Saraya “My favourite part was in the lab where we looked at the microbes through the magnifying glass. We were able to identify different microbes. We used microscopes to zoom into the microbes that we couldn’t see with the naked eye. We learned that there are 4 types of microbes. The session was brilliant.” - Affan &Alia Yr 5/6 |
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