Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Week 3

This week the focus will be on speech presentations. We will be holding Team finals at the end of the week and the school finals will be held next Tuesday. Students are focussing on content and presentation techniques.
Our team is also doing an Inquiry into Human Rights. Our fertile question for the term is:
CAN WE HAVE RIGHTS WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY ?
We are looking at the Universal Declaration of Human Right, world issues in relation to human rights and then we are going to narrow our focus and look at human rights issues in our local community.
Besides speeches, students will be working on the research of a chosen topic like poverty, child labour, refugees. They will be completing a management plan to guide their research.
It is important for you to have a look at the websites that they are viewing. We are establishing a page of resources on KnowledgeNet but as these are quite topical issues, it would be great for you to keep your eye on some of the websites. We need to teach our students how to use the web wisely and in a responsible way. It is also good to spend some time looking at a web site together with your child and discuss its merits, the language used and its "usability".
We don't say to children that they can't use scissors because they may hurt themselves, we teach them how to use them. This is the same for the Internet.
We will be posting updates in the week, but will add a weekly page to keep you updated and informed. We appreciate your comments.

Welcome to the Team B parent news blog

Dear Parents

We have decided to create a Team blog. We will include weekly news and updates, information on what your children are learning about at school, examples of great work and pictures and podcasts.
We would appreciate your interest and feedback and we hope that this form of communication is useful to you.

Teachers and students in Team B.