IN THE CLASSROOM

Golden days for first graders

The warmth of Darwin’s sun on Tuesday morning is not lost on the Year 1 students at Haileybury Rendall School. They relish it—and most of the students can’t wait to go outside.

But first there are some exciting lessons to focus on. Classroom Teacher Ms Jane Whetters welcomes her students in the morning and then sends them for the first period of the day. And it will be a fun period too—specialist Drama. The children can’t wait to participate in some acting games as part of Drama and Movement.

Students Ashton and Emily love Drama. They sit next to each other in class and take in every word the drama teacher says. She is bursting with ideas and excitement as she encourages her students to develop as creators, makers, producers, performers and presenters. The students ask questions, invent and explore alternatives. Ashton already has dreams of one day being on stage.

The young students have different specialist classes each day. For this day they are focused on Art, Language and Drama.

The second period is Chinese Mandarin. New language helps our students develop and use different parts of their brain. The children are young and are never put off by a challenge. Ashton and Emily try to repeat some new words and then laugh a bit when they get it wrong. But that is not a problem as they have plenty of time to improve their skills.

Our Year 1 students then move into Spelling. Like in a sporting event they will do a quick spelling warm-up and then try to master the words of the week. Emily is eager to get every word correct and works hard at her ‘look, cover, write, check’ exercise.

The morning is going quickly but there is still time for Art. The students are discovering their primary and secondary colours and become fascinated with the different colour combinations.

As morning recess arrives, the children eat in the classroom—usually quite quickly—and then head outside. Today, some of the children have organised a game of handball and others are in the playground spinning Beyblades. There is a lot of happy noise in the Darwin sunshine and laughter carries throughout the yard.

Next up is a double period of Writing. The class has an animal of the week, and this week it is the sloth. The children will learn how to write an introduction, a description of the sloth and closing paragraphs. By the end of the week the children will have written a complete report. Suddenly, it’s lunchtime!

Straight after lunch, the children focus on Maths. The teachers use explicit teaching in this instance. The aim is to move student learning from shortterm to long-term memory, so students are more likely to retain what they are being taught. Ashton and Emily love the traffic light system which allows them to choose to solve problems at a level that is comfortable but challenging for them.

After Maths, the students move into Inquiry. The children are learning about healthy eating this term and enjoy every moment of it.

By the end of the day, our Year 1 students have completed a full day of learning, playing and connecting. Ashton, Emily and their classmates have been exemplary students and Ms Whetters encouragingly lets them pick a fun game to play until the bell.

There will be many more golden days like this as our young students grow to become outstanding senior students and community leaders. Just you wait.