Junior School
Head of Junior School Update
Fractions, Dinosaurs, Painting and Performance. Make Believe, Drums, Mazes and Songs. Stories, Chess, Computers and Soccer. Oh the life of a Junior School student! The term has come to an end and I am, again, grateful to God for King’s College and the community of students, families and teachers who belong to it.
For the wonderful semester, I would like to thank our teachers who use their expertise and creativity to inspire a love of learning in our students. Their hard work in designing learning experiences to ensure students have skills and interests in the things that would hold them in good stead for the future, is much appreciated. Thank you also to our team of learning support staff, whose keen interest in the engagement and support of our students sees to it that every child enjoys opportunities for success.
Thank you to our PTFA and our amazing supportive community of families, who volunteer their time and efforts into raising funds, promoting the school and supporting the decisions, programs and events of King’s College. We rely on and appreciate your support to no end. And lastly, thank you to our incredible students who bring their unique personalities, interests, passions and skills to contribute to our learning environment. We love teaching you and sharing experiences with you. What a great place to work.
The Year 3 - 6 students attended The Little Mermaid Jr at the Lighthouse Theatre on the last day of Term 2. We got to see some talented King’s College students perform in the show! Well done Eliza, Lylah, Grace, Maeve and Sebastian! You were amazing!
As you are most likely aware, our Year 2 teacher, Alissa Griffin, is currently with the team of staff and students from King’s College who are visiting Ararat Christian School in Uganda. Earlier this year, Caprice, one of Alissa’s Year 2 students, came up with the idea to collect as many bottles as she could for the 10c bottle exchange and her parents matched what she earnt. Caprice gave all of the money to our Principal, Allister Rouse, and he sent it to the Director of Ararat Christian School, Gideon Kabenge, along with a letter that Caprice wrote explaining how she saved the money. The Year 2 teacher at Ararat used it to purchase a clock for their classroom wall, which was shown to Alissa this week.
The Year 2's at Ararat are so thankful to Caprice and had her letter on display in the classroom for a few months. The class prayed for Caprice daily and even used her letter to structure a few Maths and English lessons. The clock has been used for teaching time in the classroom too! Alissa has also given letters and booklets from each of our Year 2 students to the students at Ararat. The Ararat students were extremely excited when they saw Caprice’s letter and were able to put a face to the name of the person who donated the money to them! Alissa also did a FaceTime call between her class and the Year 2 class in Uganda. What a great experience for all and well done to Caprice for your generosity and thoughtfulness!
Alex Burgess
Head of Junior School
Prep
The Preps loved having two of the Year 9 students in our class last Friday. They read us stories and helped us do some jobs, including putting up one of our beautiful new art displays. The Preps have also been busy getting creative with the pattern blocks and painting.
Here are some of the things we love most about school so far:
Bailey - "My friends"
Kian - "Playing with my friends"
Miriam - "I like that I get to have a buddy that can play with me sometimes"
Jack - "Buddies"
Zeke - "Buddies"
Thank you so much to the parents for all the ways you support us in our learning!
Eden Romero
Prep Teacher
Year 1
Year 1 have been studying light in Science. Using a torch as their light source, students explored shadows, discovering objects in our classroom that cast transparent, translucent and opaque shadows, according to the amount of light they blocked. We also had fun tracing around shadows, and making and using shadow puppets.
Year 1 also investigated what the Bible has to say about light. In Genesis, God created light, and in the New Testament Jesus said “I am the light of the world”. Jesus was telling people He was the source of all light and life; in fact, He was God. Year 1 memorised Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” as a reminder that God’s Word guides us every day.
Lyndell Tucker
Year 1 Teacher
Year 3
Year 3 have had such a wonderful term! In eleven weeks we have learnt so much and progressed so much in our learning. Mrs Hales could not be prouder of these amazing children and hope that they all have a wonderful holiday and come back to school, ready to learn some more.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have played some games in Maths and explored some online platforms to help us learn our times tables.
We got off to a good start in our learning about Solids, Liquids and Gases and made Oobleck!
We also got to listen to a very interesting talk from Craig Hawkins about fossils and creation theory. This made for some great questions when we got back to class, some very healthy discussion and opened our eyes to being more critical thinkers.
We also had a very special visitor, Joe Tuisuva, who came and told us all about his home country of Fiji. We are learning about the neighbouring countries of Australia, so it was great to hear from a true Fijian. Mossese co-presented with his father and made a Powerpoint to guide them. It was such a great presentation and we so appreciated Mr Tuisuva giving up his time to come in and talk to us!
Ang Hales
Year 3 Teacher
Year 4
Last week, students in Year 4 hosted an afternoon for their parents and friends to present biographies they had written. Everyone shared so confidently and proudly and it was exciting to learn more about different people's family history. Here are some reflections from different students:
Benjamin - I wrote about my Grandma and it was special because she came along to listen. I liked showing the class what I'd done.
Adrian - I liked that people mostly laughed while I was sharing my biography. I like to make people laugh.
Emily - I liked telling people about my Mum and what she did when she was younger.
Evelyn - I liked learning about how Mum used to be when she was a child.
Alexander - The best thing about presenting my project was that I was able to share it with more than one person.
William - I felt proud to share my biography about my Poppy and tell other people stuff about him.
Elijah - I did my project on my Dad and I enjoyed doing the animations.
Gabby - I did my project on my Great Aunty and I enjoyed presenting it in front of all the parents. It was special because my Aunty Jenny came along to listen.
Grace - I enjoyed answering questions from the audience and spending time perfecting my project before the presentation.
Ellie - I liked reading out my biography to the parents. I liked doing this because I liked sharing more about my Poppy with everyone.
Emily Hunter
Year 4 Teacher
Year 5
Year 5 have had a wonderful term with lots of learning and fun experiences.
We created maps, angles, and clocks in Maths, while also discovering lots about fractions, factors and multiples. Our Science unit was a wonderful journey of experiments and exploration about solids, liquids and gases. The geography based Humanities unit gave us great insight about physical and human geography.
The novel study of Paper Planes has been a highlight of English and of course the reward of watching the movie at the end of all our hard work. The students have also toiled away at their spelling, reading, touch typing, handwriting and literacy skills.
Overall I am very impressed with all the Year 5's efforts and progress made. Enjoy a well deserved break everyone and come back refreshed and ready for Term 3.
Naomi O'Brien
Year 5 Teacher
Year 6
In STEM this week, Year 6 created and raced worms. Naming and decorating our worms was a very important part of the process. We then raced in pairs and then had semi-finals. The grand final was won by Niah with her yellow worm named Kristal. We had an absolute blast.
Coral Robertson
Year 6 Teacher
Gideon Program
This term has been very busy for the Junior Gideon class. Students have been incredibly focused on the tasks assigned this term and results are speaking loud. Congratulations to all in the Junior Gideon class who come in day in and day out with a positive attitude, a strong work ethic and a ‘can do’ mindset. I am continually impressed with all students in the Gideon class, what wonderfully talented young people we have at King’s College!
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:57
Stephanie Kosh
Junior School Gideon Teacher