Primary School Update - 21 November 2025

HEAD OF SCHOOL UPDATE Melanie Woods

Dear Parents and Carers

‘Ending Well’, ‘Looking at the Nativity’ and ‘Consolidating our Learning’ have all been themes that our Primary students and staff have been focusing on this term. We want to thank you for partnering with us in 2025 so that our students can be all that God has created them to be. May you have a blessed season as we end the year well, filled with growth and good memories.

The Nativity Our Primary students will be performing choir items on Monday 24 November at our Nativity Performance. I can guarantee that the sound and joy-filled faces of our 750+ children's choir will bring you to tears and give you goose bumps! We look forward to welcoming you as it will be encouraging for our students to have an engaged and live audience.

Taster Day K-6 All our students on campus at ACC enjoyed a morning in their 2026 Year Groups on Tuesday. We also got to meet new students and families from other schools who will be joining us in 2026. There were classrooms filled with expectation and meaning as they worked through what it may look like for them next year. 

We do understand that change can be tricky for some of our students and our staff are providing meaningful and incidental opportunities for all students to continue to create a smooth transition to 2026.

Year 5 Camp In Week 6 our Year 5 students enjoyed their time on Year 5 CRU Camp at Lake Macquarie. CRU worked diligently with us to create an exciting and God-focused camp for our students. Students participated in a variety of land and water activities such as orienteering, rock climbing, raft building and stand up paddle boarding. They had a wonderful camping adventure!

Year 6 Celebration Assembly The Celebration Assembly for our Year 6 students was a wonderful opportunity for family, students and staff to come together and celebrate their transition from Primary to Secondary School next year. There was a morning tea for parents and students, and then students headed off to Ten Pin Bowling and Laser Tag, with more food, action, fun and memories. Please enjoy the images below.

Library Notice As we approach the end of 2025, we would like to kindly remind all families to return any Library books that your child has borrowed. All books need to be returned by Friday 28 November, 2025.

Please check your child’s bag, desk, and other places at home for any books that may still need to be returned. 

If your child would like to continue reading during the school holidays, we are excited to let you know that our eBook system will still be available during the summer break. It is a great way for your child to enjoy a wide selection of books from home!

Our eBook system is available by installing the ePlatform app from Self Service, or going to https://accmarsdenpark.eplatform.co/, and following the prompts to log in with your child’s ACC email address.

Thank you for your support in helping us maintain an organised and accessible Library for all students.

How To Contact Primary Hub and Primary Administrators To contact Primary Student Hub, please email primaryhubmp@acc.edu.au. You can continue to use a teacher’s direct email if it is a question for the class teacher.

Follow Us On Social Media Don’t forget to follow our Instagram/Facebook pages as you get to see all the ‘goings on’ in the life of our students at ACC Marsden Park.

• facebook.com/ACCMarsdenPark 

• instagram.com/accmarsdenpark

• facebook.com/groups/accmarsdenparkparents 

End of Year Dates for Primary School

• Primary Presentation Assembly - Monday 1 December Staff, students and families will gather for our end of year Celebration and Awards Presentation Assembly.

• Primary Fun Day - Tuesday 2 December We will travel to Richmond Pool for an end of year celebration with sun, friendships and fun. Further information about times and food has been sent to all our families.

• Term 4 Last day of school for all students - Wednesday 3 December All students from K-6 will enjoy class parties and partake in class gift giving to celebrate the best gift of all: Jesus. This is also a time to be reflective and look at what has been achieved throughout the year. Semester 2 Academic Reports will be emailed to families by the end of term.

LEARNING ABOUT PROCEDURES IN KINDERGARTEN Nancy Hassaraty 

What an exciting and hands-on term it has been in Kindergarten! Our big focus this term was learning about procedures and understanding how step-by-step instructions help us do things in the right order. The students explored different types of procedures through stories, writing, cooking and real-life tasks - they had an absolute blast discovering how much these simple instructions help us in everyday life.

We learned about words that make procedures clear: nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Nouns are naming words like bread and sprinkles, verbs are action words like spread and eat, and adjectives make sentences more detailed, such as soft bread or colourful sprinkles. This helped children understand each word's role in writing instructions.

A term highlight was our lesson on making fairy bread, where students practised sequencing and procedural writing by following each step. First, they placed their bread on the plate. Next, they used a knife to spread the smooth, yellow butter. Then came the most exciting part as they sprinkled over the bright sprinkles until their bread looked magical. Finally, they cut their fairy bread into fun shapes and proudly enjoyed their creations. Afterwards, the class worked together to write a proper fairy bread procedure. They included a title, a materials list, clear steps and lots of verbs to show the actions. Some students even added extra steps or used adjectives to make their writing sparkle. Others worked on sequencing pictures to match the order of steps, helping them understand why instructions must be organised from first to last.

It was a fantastic way to practise sequencing and strengthen our understanding of how nouns, verbs and adjectives help us write clear instructions. We are incredibly proud of how much the children have grown as readers and writers this term and how confidently they now use procedures in their everyday learning.

YEAR 1 EXCURSION TO THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS Lara Dikha 

Year 1 students had the wonderful opportunity earlier in the term to attend our much anticipated excursion to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Students arrived at the College raring to go, geared up in their raincoats and sports jackets. When we arrived at the Gardens, each class was taken through a rotation of four fabulous learning experiences. 

The first rotation involved a guided tour through gardens, with a First Nations educator showing students the different uses of plants and how introduced species have affected our flora and fauna. The second activity involved students engaging in a hands-on experience where they manipulated clay into a ball, created a little cavity in the middle and filled it with soil and seeds. Students then closed the clay back up and rolled it back into a ball to make a ‘seed bomb’ which could be thrown into the ground to release the surprise seeds and soil into the ground to grow. 

During the third rotation, students were taken through an interactive, symbolic recount of the experiences of First Nations people when their land was colonised and how their families and livelihoods were affected and changed forever because of it. Students exhibited great empathy and maturity when reflecting on this retelling using small figurines to connect with the experiences of First Nations people. In the fourth rotation, students were guided through the gardens by a First Nations educator who expanded their understanding of what the phrase ‘connection to country’ means. Students provided multiple examples of how they were ‘connecting to country’ in multiple ways throughout their day by appreciating nature, engaging with the stories and lives of those gone before them who walked on the land. 

It was truly an amazing experience and opportunity for our Year 1 students to feel, to see and to hear the significance of our First Nations heritage as a nation. 

DISCOVERING POETRY IN 2V Cornelle DeVilliers

This term, our Year 2 classroom has been buzzing with creativity as we stepped into the exciting world of poetry. Poetry is one of God’s wonderful gifts to us, an art form that helps us notice, imagine and celebrate the beauty of His creation. Students explored how authors use words in playful, powerful and meaningful ways. They also learned that they, too, can be authors who use language to spark joy, paint pictures and express themselves. We read a range of rich and delightful texts and explored poems that made us laugh, think, and reflect. These examples helped us imagine God’s creation in vivid new ways. We were reminded of the blessing of sight as we explored poetry written specifically for blind students and learned more about Braille.

Students began to notice patterns and techniques that poets use to make their writing come alive. From rhythm and rhyme to imaginative comparisons and thoughtful word choices, every poem offered a new treasure to discover. The students were encouraged to experiment with techniques such as wordplay, repetition, personification, similes and metaphors in their own writing. 

I would love to share some of our writing using these devices.

The power of repetition: This is the cave full of lions. This is the water dripping. This is the glowworm in the cave. This is the cracks of the rocks in the cave.

Similes compare two things using “like” or “as”: I am as smart as a dolphin, as fast as a fox and as funny as a clown. My mum is as sleepy as a sloth. My mum is as busy as a city. My mum is as gentle as a swan.

Metaphors make a direct comparison, showing deeper meaning: Orange is a traffic cone stopping all the cars. Yellow is a pretty sunset. Blue is the ocean’s crashing waves. White is the cloud travelling. Red is the bright poppy where War 1 and 2 took place.  Red is a ripe strawberry milkshake that is getting slurped up.  Red is hot tomato soup cooling down.

Personification gives human qualities to things that are not human: The lights were jealous because the sun was brighter than them. The bike was scared when he was going too fast. The balloons were angry at the person that let go of them. The clock feels sad because it’s feeling dizzy.

We spoke about how authors choose different styles for different purposes: sometimes to entertain, sometimes to describe God’s world, sometimes to express a feeling. Our young writers applied this understanding beautifully.

As their teacher, I was thoroughly impressed with the poetry they produced. Their poems reflected joyful imaginations, growing technical skill and, importantly, hearts that see God’s creativity in the world around them.