Contents Principal’s Message Qur’an Memorisation Whole School Excursion Diary Homework Busy Bees Eco Owls Minions Dear Taqwa Parents and Friends, Assalamu Alaikum, It is with pleasure that I welcome you and your child(ren) back in to Term 4, and I hope that your break time was filled with joy and peace. Taqwa School has much planned for this coming term. Our teachers have been working hard over the stand-down period in preparation for the term ahead; designing challenging, rigorous and engaging learning episodes for your children. On that note, it is essential that you have your child(ren) here on time (8.30am) to start the school day. This week Sheikh Nouredine has begun having all the children for the first half hour of each day practising and learning recitation of the Qur’an – and as such this is a most important part of your child’s learning at Taqwa School. Students who are consistently late will miss out on this valuable part of their day. Likewise, our school day finishes at 3.30pm each day. As such, it is the school’s expectation that your child is engaged with their learning right up to the end of the day. Unless it is a dire emergency, I would appreciate you supporting us by having your child(ren) remain at school until the end of the day. Could I also please remind you that your first point of call with a question/ query about your child’s learning is the classroom teacher. We find that open and transparent communication is the best way forward with any concerns. Obviously, you are also most welcome to make an appointment with me to discuss any issues (positive or negative) but I do reiterate, if it is an issue related to your child’s class learning, then the class teacher is your first point of call! I look forward to an exciting term ahead. And stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks about the Learning Journey in Week 9. This will be an opportunity for your child(ren) to take you on a ‘journey of their learning’ within their classroom to articulate their goals, and show their achievements and progress thus far. Jazakallah Khair, Wassalam Bronwyn Edwards 21 October 2016 Term 4 Week 2 Issue 10 From the Principal Bronwyn Edwards – [email protected]
Transcript
Contents
Principal’s Message
Qur’an Memorisation
Whole School Excursion
Diary
Homework
Busy Bees
Eco Owls
Minions
Dear Taqwa Parents and Friends, Assalamu Alaikum, It is with pleasure that I welcome you and your child(ren) back in to Term 4, and I hope that your break time was filled with joy and peace. Taqwa School has much planned for this coming term. Our teachers have been working hard over the stand-down period in preparation for the term ahead; designing challenging, rigorous and engaging learning episodes for your children. On that note, it is essential that you have your child(ren) here on time (8.30am) to start the school day. This week Sheikh Nouredine has begun having all the children for the first half hour of each day practising and learning recitation of the Qur’an – and as such this is a most important part of your child’s learning at Taqwa School. Students who are consistently late will miss out on this valuable part of their day. Likewise, our school day finishes at 3.30pm each day. As such, it is the school’s expectation that your child is engaged with their learning right up to the end of the day. Unless it is a dire emergency, I would appreciate you supporting us by having your child(ren) remain at school until the end of the day. Could I also please remind you that your first point of call with a question/ query about your child’s learning is the classroom teacher. We find that open and transparent communication is the best way forward with any concerns. Obviously, you are also most welcome to make an appointment with me to discuss any issues (positive or negative) but I do reiterate, if it is an issue related to your child’s class learning, then the class teacher is your first point of call! I look forward to an exciting term ahead. And stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks about the Learning Journey in Week 9. This will be an opportunity for your child(ren) to take you on a ‘journey of their learning’ within their classroom to articulate their goals, and show their achievements and progress thus far. Jazakallah Khair, Wassalam Bronwyn Edwards
We are pleased to inform you that Taqwa school students are now memorising verses from the Qur’an as part of their morning assembly. This task is shared between our Arabic and Islamic Studies staff who not only help students memorise verses from the Qur’an, but also explain the meaning and significance of these verses. They are currently learning the first ten verses of Suratul Inshiqaq. It is the most crucial part of the school day for your child and we ask that your child arrives at school in time for the assembly and Qur’an lesson.
Taqwa School Diary
Taqwa School Fete
At Taqwa School
Saturday 29 October
Excursion to Birrigai
Tuesday 6 December
Whole School
Assembly (TBA)
Learning Journey
Week 9 (Day TBA)
Last Day for students
9 December
Qur’an Memorisation
The ACT Bilingual Education Alliance (ACTBEA) is a local non-profit community group that seeks to support and encourage bilingualism in the Canberra region. The Alliance supports and promotes family-based bilingualism as well as formal bilingual education programs, from preschool years throughout primary and secondary schooling, both mainstream and community based. The Alliance also encourages adults to maintain or develop their bilingual skills. For more information on programs and events go to http://actbilingual.weebly.com/
Whole School Excursion: Floriade What a colourful way to start the term!! Our excursion to ‘Floriade’ in Week 1 was a huge success and all our students had a wonderful time learning about nature and its beauty. Our students were a highly engaged and well-behaved audience to various shows at Floriade. A special thank you to Sister Asma for volunteering to assist us during the excursion. Jazak Allah Khair!
The staff have many responsibilities throughout the school day. If you have any concerns or questions about what is happening in the school or your child’s class, we ask that you please email or ring to arrange a mutually agreeable appointment time.
What are we getting up to? A warm welcome back to all the Parents and students. We have started the term off by setting some SMART goals. Each and every student has set up an achievable yet challenging goal to be accomplished by the end of the term. This is to encourage them to reflect on and take responsibility for their learning. Do you know what your child’s goals are? I encourage all parents to start having ‘Clever Conversations’ with your child when they get home from school. What is a ‘Clever Conversation’? This is when you engage with your child in meaningful conversation about what they are learning. Your aim is to:
learn more about your child’s interest, skills, learning experiences and
friendships at school.
gain a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
develop your child in areas of communication, cognition and
socialisation.
model how to speak respectfully with others and positive behaviours.
For example, how to think, listen, speak and take turns with adults and
children.
identify if there are any issues your child is having (this is NOT the main
aim). Please speak with me about anything that is concerning.
Research shows that children learn best through participation and communication with others. Conversations about their learning experiences provide support for their learning. I’m looking forwards to having a term of goal setting, reflecting and learning!
Homework Staff at Taqwa School believe that homework should just be revision of classroom learning, and assist in forming organisation and time-management skills. This can be done in many ways. For example:
ask your child to share
what they learned in
school;
encourage them to
practise skills such as
mental addition,
subtraction, multiplication
and division.
Read and discuss a favourite book together. This could be their home reader or a library book from the school/public library.
Any homework that is set is relevant to the current happenings of the classroom
It is really nice to have some sunshine after a long, rainy winter. We went to visit
Floriade in the beginning of the term and enjoyed the colours of spring. Much fin and
enjoyment was had by all. The reptiles at the ‘Kids’ Corner’ fascinated us and we
actually had a chance to touch them. We will be learning about weather this term. We
have already decorated our weather journals with the drawings about our favourite
weather and we are excited to learn more in the coming weeks. We are really focused
engaging with many different literacy and numeracy activities each day, and are looking
forward to the many challenges and adventures of the term ahead!
My dad is a pious abacus Who can figure out sums in seconds. My mum is a calculator who always comes in handy for the hard problems. I am the pencil who writes everything Everyone needs one now and then.
Happiness is… By Sara
As colourful as fireworks in the night sky. As melodious as the birds songs. It smells as lovely as a garden. It feels like eating cupcakes. It makes you jump around!
Taqwa School Newsletter | October 2016 Page 3 of 4
This term, we the Minions, have been learning about Area in Maths. We made Pixel Art and measured its area. To make our Pixel Art we drew pictures on grid paper, then coloured full squares and counted them to find area of our art. We like Maths!!
Important reminders (By Haider, Haneen, Khadijah, Yahya) Hats. We wear hats to protect our skin
from sunburns. We can’t wear caps as
they only protect a small part of our
face.
Library. Our library day is Friday. We
borrow and return books every Friday
morning.
Nut-free school. Some of our friends at
Taqwa school are allergic to nuts so we
can’t bring food like Nutella, Snickers
and Picnic bars, peanut butter
sandwiches.
Assembly. Our morning assembly
starts at 8:30 a.m. in the Musallah. We
memorise the Qur’an there and right
now we are learning Suratul Inshiqaq. If
we are late in the morning, we will miss
our Qur’an memorisation lesson.
Pick-up time. School finishes at 3:30
p.m. Most of our friends are picked up
straight after school and if we are
picked up late, we have nothing to do
and get very bored while waiting.
Assalamu alaikum Parents/Carers, Welcome to Term 4, the busiest and the best part of the year. Our students have been doing lots of learning this term through team work and collaboration and would like to share their learning so far with you:
Literacy (By Maryam, Tahmid, Sara)
For the past two weeks, the Minions have been learning how to write ‘Free verse poetry’. We have been using similes and metaphors in our poems to make them interesting. We used similes and metaphors to create emotion poems and to compare objects from home to our family members. In Literacy groups, we learned how to interpret poetry and non-fiction texts. Our goal for this term is to become good poets.
Excursion to Floriade (By Abdurrahman and Mahrosh)
We began the term with an excursion to Floriade. We had lots of fun. We learned how flowers grow and also got to see and touch some reptiles including snakes! We saw a dinosaur show by David from Questacon that was about Australian dinosaurs. We were very excited and felt happy. Thank you to our parents and teachers for this excursion.
Swimming (Maltiti, Mohammad, Ayesha)
Yesterday (20 October) was our first swimming lesson for the term. We were so excited! Many of us moved up a level from last time. We do some fun stuff at swimming and our instructors always high-five us after our lesson. We will have swimming every Thursday so we must remember to wear our swimmers under our uniform on that day.
