Welcome

We love to celebrate our students and showcase what they have been up to, both inside and outside the classroom! Below are a few things that happened over the last two weeks.

You can also keep up-to-date on our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/MoamaAGS/

Japanese exchange students

This week we said goodbye to eight Japanese exchange students and their teachers from Naka High School in Japan.

Students participated in intensive English lessons during their class time and spent weekends and evenings staying with host families from the School.

Thank you to those families who assisted in caring for and welcoming these students into their homes.

Tournament of the Minds

Tournament of Minds weekend was a great success. We took six teams of 7 students each, two secondary and four primary across topics including STEM, The Arts, Language Literature and Social Science. The committed team members left in the dark at 6:30 am on Saturday morning, arriving back after 8:00 pm in the evening.

Tracker, our coach driver, had never seen so much cardboard in his entire life and wondered what he had signed up for!!! Luckily the coach was just big enough to fit one giant cardboard car, one Qantas aircraft, two beaches, one mirrored field, a DNA sampling machine, approx 6km of sticky tape and multiple palm trees.

The students represented the school amazingly and showed their creativity and passion for the TOM competition. This was our first foray into NSW Riverina competition space - which represented a huge step up in class and competition due to changes made at the national level, which meant we were no longer able to compete at Shepparton as we had previously. One section of Primary Arts had 17 other schools in it. Our students were up against 2018 State Honours winners and other tough schools.

Every team faced its challenges and performed to the best of their abilities.

RESULTS 2019:

1st place - Primary Language Literature (Jilly, Jaxson, Millie, Neave, Willow, Jordan and Hayden).

Honours (2nd) - Primary Social Science (Gillian, Ameya, Andrew, Macklan, Isaac, Sophia and Boyd). This team was coached by Ashah Downie and Izzie Williams (Year 10) and assisted by Priscilla Paul.

1st place - Secondary Language Literature

Lucille McCormick, Ruby Hehir, Lexie Heinrich, Jorja Mounsey and Meg Kennedy-Ripon (and a sock puppet).

We have qualified two teams for Sydney, which means we are a quarter of the Riverina Team heading to the NSW Finals in a fortnight. Congratulations to all involved and who supported this program.

From a student's perspective:

Beep! Beep! Beep! Went my annoying, but very exciting alarm. It was Saturday 31 August. Why was my alarm going off? It was the Tournament of Minds (TOM) Regional Finals at Wagga Wagga! Eventually when I dragged myself out of bed mum and dad were going on about “even if you don’t win you still tried your best and your team still put in a play that you can watch”. Whilst I ate breakfast, I multitasked and got dressed so I could be ready to leave for school by 6 o’clock because the bus for Wagga Wagga was leaving at 6:30am.

For lunch I packed lollies and a Vegemite and butter roll, I also packed money for the early Maccas dinner. The bus trip was terribly boring because I had no one to sit next to, the only thing I could do was practice my lines and eat. After the 4 hour bus drive we finally arrived at Sturt Public School, Wagga Wagga. We all scrambled out of the bus so we could finally stretch our legs. We were all so nervous but still so excited at the same time for today was presentation day, and we were finally ready to present what we had been working on for so long to the judges.

First presentation to the judges was the Primary Arts Team who had to rewrite the Wizard of Aus. This was followed by the secondary Arts Team who had the same task. Then it was Social Sciences turn with the task called ‘Legacy of Inclusion’, which was pretty challenging. After that it was STEM’s(science, tech, engineering and maths) turn who worked with DNA and animals with guest presenters who rap about animals. They created a machine that was animal friendly so no animals were harmed. Lastly, was Language Literature primary and secondary who had to create a new language feature. The primary created code and secondary overcame their hurdle of one team member absent by using a sock puppet.

After we had all presented our solutions we headed to Macca’s and I bought a cheese burger, fries, nuggets, frozen coke and an Oreo McFlurry, gee I was full. We all hopped onto the bus with full stomachs, very excited to go back to Sturt Public School to find out the results and who won. Thinking positively, whoever comes 1st gets to have a trip to Sydney to participate in the state finals.

The Sturt Public Hall where the presentations were held smelt like the various selection of food from the Sturt Public Canteen. After five minutes of congratulating, our school was starting to get called up. At the end, the Primary and Secondary Language Literature teams came first and are going to Sydney, the Social Science primary come second with honours. Congratulations to all teams who participated in the TOM program.

On behalf of all TOM participants we would like to thank all the teachers who put hard work into helping the students and achieving their goals of going to Sydney. Particularly Miss Briggs, Mrs Williams, Mrs Zweck and Mrs Paul for helping us on the day.

Ruby Newman & Hayden Taylor (Year 5).

Father's Day and Footy Colours Day

Students and families had a wonderful Friday afternoon last week celebrating Footy Colours and Father's Day. Thanks to all the Dads and Father figures that joined us for an afternoon of fun on a perfect sunny day!

Thank you to all our Parents and Friends helpers too for assisting with the BBQ cooking and serving on the day.

Pass Camp

Students in the Year 9/10 PASS classes have been studying modules on Energy Systems, Fitness Components, Training Methods and Nutrition. In practical classes the students have been completing training sessions in bike riding and canoeing. As part of their assessment and a culmination of all activities completed so far the students from Group 1 have begun their Murray River Journey today.

Students will ride along the trails on the banks of the Murray to Barmah Lakes today and then canoe up the lake to their camp ground.

Such an amazing experience for these students. We look forward to sharing more photos of their trip!

Melbourne Writers festival

Students from the primary school travelled to Melbourne on Tuesday to attend the annual Melbourne Writers Festival. The Melbourne Writers Festival has been bringing together the talent and ideas of the best writers and illustrators from Australia and around the world, and is the highlight of Melbourne’s literary calendar. Students participated in three workshops on the day including:

The Orchard Underground - What would you do when the only way to save something truly magical is by destroying everything you know and love? Dive into Mat Larkin’s adventure mystery The Orchard Underground, where the young heroes face this very dilemma.

More than a Thousand Words - Award-winning authors and illustrators Maxine Beneba Clarke and Alison Lester discuss the value of illustration as a storytelling tool. Hear them share how they decide what to tell with pictures and what to tell with words.

Oh the Intrigue! - Stella Montgomery sure gets up to some mischief, but not all of her own making. Her creator Judith Rossell is a bestselling author-illustrator who knows a thing or three about writing mysteries, and she’ll share tips so you can write and draw them too!

It was an fabulous experience for our students to hear authors and illustrators describe and detail their process from idea development through to the publishing of their books.

Planting trees

On Monday the Kinder students along with Miss Garden’s Ag students planted 200 trees along the school boundary. The trees were supplied by the Shire of Campaspe and Planet Ark as part of National Tree Planting Day. We would like to thank John and Dean for preparing the trees and holes in readiness for the planting. It was such a lovely afternoon working in the sunshine together. We’re hoping the Kinders will remember this day when they’re in Year 6. Perhaps by then they’ll be able to sit under the trees and enjoy the shade.

A huge thank you to the Shire of Campaspe and Planet Ark for sponsoring this very worthwhile event.

Public Speaking

Congratulations to Year 5 student Montanah Southern who won the Junior Lion’s Club Public Speaking District Final at St Patrick’s Primary School in Tongala. Montanah competed against five other students who came from as far as Albury/Wodonga.

Montanah was an outstanding representative of our school and the Moama Lion’s Club.

Fruit and Veg week

September is Healthy Kids Association 'Fruit and Veg' month! We are celebrating in the primary school with a week of various (delicious) activities during lunchtimes.

Students in the Primary School thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to try a wide variety of soups today prepared by our parent helpers. From broccoli and bacon to pumpkin and Vietnamese it was great to see the students enhancing their taste buds during our Fruit and Veg week!

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