Monday 10th - Friday 14th May Year 12 Exams
Tuesday 11th May Community Heath Nurse seeing
Children's House students Tuesday 11th - Thursday 13th May
NAPLAN Testing (Years 3, 5, 7, 9) Friday 14th May
Karri Gold Industry Incursion Tuesday 25th May
Treetops Annual General Meeting 4pm
UPCOMING DATES EDITION 140
The audited 2020 financial statements are now available.
Sustainability and Waste Management at Treetops
As part of the Treetops Strategic Plan, the school's staff have been developing andundertaking a number of initiatives to look at our sustainability and waste streams. Werecently have, or soon will have, implemented the following programmes, which we are
encouraging all of our school community to be a part of:
Containers for Change
Treetops is part of the 'Containers for Change' recycling scheme. This schemealso doubles as a fundraiser for the school. Our collection bins are located in the schoolcarpark behind the large Treetops sign, as well as outside the School Office.
The school's scheme ID is C10242770 - please make a note of this if you wish to recycledirectly to the Shire depot.
See here for more information: https://www.containersforchange.com.au/wa/faqs
Treetops Annual General Meeting
All members of the Treetops Community (parents, guardians, and staff) are invited to
attend the Treetops Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The AGM will be held in the Music Room at 4.00pm on Tuesday 25th May 2021.
Composting and Worm Farms (Waste Wise)
You may have noticed a number of tumblers in the school gardens and some compost binsin the kitchens. We use these to tend to the school gardens. In addition, in our STEMprogramme, we are building worm farms and will use the worm casts for compost and soilimprovement.
Plastics Bread Bags and Clips Collection (Wonder)
A collection bin will shortly be available in the School Office for bread bags and clips (anybrand). These can then be recycled and made into play equipment.
Oral Care Recycling Program (Colgate - Terracycle)
A collection bin will shortly be available in the School Office for oral care items (toothpastetubes and caps, floss containers, toothbrushes, and electric toothbrush heads) of anybrand. These will then be sent off for recycling.
Battery Collection Program (EMRC)
The dry cell batteries you have at home contain precious metals such as lead, nickel, steel,cadmium, zinc, manganese and silver. They also contain hazardous materials which canpollute groundwater and soil. And yet, 94% of batteries are still disposed of in householdrubbish bins.
EMRC have provided us with a battery collection bin, located at the front of the SchoolOffice. Last year we collected 21.5kg of household batteries! The batteries are sent off forrecycling, which allows the non-renewable metals inside the batteries to be used again andensures that hazardous waste is not ending up in landfill.
Writing Instruments Recycling Program (BIC - Terracycle)
A collection bin will shortly be available in the School Office for writinginstruments (excluding wooden pencils, crayons and chalk). We will collect any brand ofpen, felt tip, highlighter, marker, correction fluid pot (must be empty), correction tape,mechanical pencil and eraser pen. Note that we can not accept glue sticks, erasers, rulersor other cutting objects that could disturb the recycling process. Please be careful not toinclude any of those items.
Ink Cartridges Collection (Close the Loop - Cartidges 4 Planet Ark)
We have a collection box for used ink cartridges located at the front of the School Office.From July to December 2020, we collected 10.2kg of cartridges which were diverted fromlandfill! Only the following brands of ink cartridges can be placed in our collection box:
New Recycling Bins (Suez)
Thanks to our new bins from Suez, our classes are now separating their recycling into:
Co-mingled Plastics and Glass Cardboard and Paper
Families may also hear a little more at home from students when we look at some classinitiatives on waste free lunches, waste audit, and energy usage reviews. Some studentswill also soon engage in the Darlington community-based sustainability/waste project -skate park Noise Bin.
Children's House
At first glance, Montessori classrooms can seem a little unusual to newcomers.Trays of objects, jugs of water, and dressing frames are not standard equipment in most classrooms. Perhaps the oddest thing may be the fact that we only have one of each activity! This is done with purpose.
‘The daily experiences’ that Maria Montessori talks about in the above quote are the veryrealities the children face when attending our Montessori classroom. There is only one ofeach activity and many children of different ages in one classroom. The experience ofwaiting your turn teaches patience and respect. Not having a teacher instantly available(for non-emergencies) teaches problem solving and collaboration. Our students gentlyplace their hand on the teacher’s shoulder to wait for attention.
The younger children learn routines, skills, and habits from the older children. The older children in turn, learn responsibility when they help a younger child.
These experiences teach children how to live peacefully in a community, better than any verbal direct instructional lesson would. ‘The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life’ – Maria Montessori.
As usual with Montessori, the disparities start to make sense after a while. This is theTreetops difference!
So how you can help support your children at home?:
Explore ways to teach patience using similar methods at home.Model patients and respect.Provide opportunities to interact with children of different ages.Encourage children to come up with their own solutions
Anene Lamb
MarriThe Marri class has had an exciting start to Term 2. We have been learning about manyinteresting topics this term, and have some awesome hands-on experiences to lookforward to this term.
We have begun our investigation into forces for Science, and are currently looking in tomagnetism. Before we began, Marri students shared their hypothesis with the class andany theories behind their ideas. After sharing our ideas, the class had several experimentsto complete regarding magnetism.
For HaSS, Marri has been transported back 4,500 years to the era of Ancient Egypt,learning about the timeline, daily life, culture, and the amazing architecture that still standstoday. The class has done a research project about the significance of the Egyptian Godsand picked one of the many Gods to investigate. Soon the class will be tasked withcreating one of the Ancient structures and attempting to have the Ancient Capital city ofMemphis on our notice board.
During literacy, we have begun writing a story as a class, voting and discussing the journeyof story. So far, the class has created a twisted version of the fairy tale world. After we havefinished our class story, we are going to be creating story boards focusing on the keymoments of the adventure. So far, it has been a unique and funny experience trying tomerge 22 different ideas into one. Once they are complete, look out for the story boards onthe Marri windows.
Hylton Hayes
Japanese
Treetops continues to be involved in the ELLA F-2 schools trial.
ELLA is a digital, play-based program that includes a series of interactive applications(apps) that make language learning engaging and interesting for children in preschool andthe early years of schooling. Students are supervised for short duration use in keeping withage-appropriate guidelines for screen time. More information can be found athttps://www.ella.edu.au/
This is the final year of the trial. Many students have already been using the apps in a trialmode and the engagement and improvement in language retention has been excellent.Permission slips have been distributed for Children’s House and Wattle students to beinvolved. Some families may already have previously signed, but the permission slips areneeded each year.
Please show your support by returning the signed permission slip to your class teacher assoon as possible.
Elsewhere in Japanese, students have been busy consolidating their learning from Term 1and taking on new tasks. Karri students are writing their own book “A Day in my Life” whileJarrah and Wandoo students are upskilling their reading and writing.
Year 11 IBDP and WACE General students have completed various assessment tasks andhave all made a smooth transition into the increased demands of the Senior Secondarycurriculum.
Primary students this week enjoyed celebrating Children’s Day in Japan, learning about thetraditions of the holiday and making origami.
Sharon Crossman
Wandoo students have been investigating and finding out about acids and alkalis. Theytested the pH of different household substances and food stuffs, and have also completedneutralisation experiments using common chemicals found in the lab. Using red cabbage,they were able to make their own indicators. They rose to the challenge of creating theperfect neutral solution and also made a rainbow of different pHs
Suzanne Blake
Science
Wandoo have been studying Civics and Citizenship in HaSS, exploring government policyand the systems of democracy. Students broke down political cartoons and held a mockvote!
Kasey Boyd
Humanities and Social Sciences
We invite all families - Primary, Secondary, and interested prospective parents from thewider community - to our Year 11 and 12 Options Information Evening on Tuesday 15thJune, from 6pm in Learning Areas 3 & 4.
Please RSVP to [email protected], and share this with anyone you know whomay be interested in learning more about what we offer!
Secondary Information Evening
In our Senior Secondary, students in Years 11 and 12 have the option of either:
the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). An academicallyrigorous pathway with direct entry to university; orour Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) General StudiesProgramme for students who may have employment or vocational training (TAFE)as their post-schooling goal.
We have the flexibility to give students many of the same kinds of academic options asmuch larger schools, but delivered with all the individual care and attention that a smallschool has to offer.
