Junior School

Head of Junior School Update

Last Friday, we celebrated Grandparents Day in Junior School. We had a wonderful turnout of Grandparents and special friends. We appreciate our Junior School families for making this happen, as we understand the effort involved in accommodating grandparents’ visits to school and home. Thank you also to families for supplying such a wonderful morning tea.

A special thank you also goes out to our teachers, who organised wonderful activities for our students and Grandparents to enjoy together. For some reason, I always seem to end up in the Year 1 room during the Hokey Pokey with Mrs Snook!

A huge thank you to the PTFA volunteers, headed up by Amy Newton who organised the morning tea. You created such a beautiful space to honour Grandparents and special friends in our students’ lives. I also want to thank Kirrilee Neild and Collins Books for arranging for books to be made available for dedication to grandchildren and purchased for the School library.

Also last Friday, the new Junior School playground was opened for business. Students have been loving this new equipment.

Finally, a huge congratulations to Ollie D (Year 6) who, in a nail biting finish, took out first place in the ABC Game Show Hard Quiz Kids! Ollie filmed the episode at the ABC Southbank studio back in May, after applying along with 800 other applicants.

During the 2 hour filming for a half hour show, Ollie’s expert knowledge in his chosen area of expertise, The Beatles, helped him seal the win, securing him the heavy 9.5 kilogram Hard Quiz Kids brass mug.

Yes, he gets to keep the mug, which is engraved with his name. Ollie reported that he even had his own dressing room! Well done Ollie! We are so proud of you! The episode aired last Saturday night and will air again this Friday on ABC Family. It is also available to watch on ABC iView.

Alex Burgess

Head of Junior School

Year 1

This past fortnight has been jam packed with not only our day to day learning but an evacuation drill, exploring the new playground and having loved ones visit the classroom.

Grandparents Day is such a special event on our school calendar. It was wonderful to see our Year 1 room buzzing with so many visitors. A highlight for the students was having their Grandparents and special friends, dance the Hokey Pokey with them, make necklaces and complete a wide range of activities. Thank you to all of those who were able to come along and engage with our Year 1 students. They are so blessed to have such loving families.

Jack - My Nan and Granddad helped me decorate an elephant with patterned paper.

Charlotte - My Grandma came to do the Hokey Pokey with me.

George - My Grandparents said that the work in my maths book was correct.

Eseta - I liked making a necklace with my Nanna. It was fun to see her wear it.

“Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children” – Proverbs 17:6

Another highlight for the Year 1's has been the completion of the new playground. Here are some of their thoughts:

Isaac - We can now play on the new playground.

Enya - The monkey bars are the favourite bit of the playground.

Letty - The new playground has a climbing wall. It has two tall towers and monkey bars. Next to the playground are two cubby houses.

James - We have a new playground. I like the slide the best.

Rupert - The playground is fun to play on. I like the monkey bars because I can swing on them.

Kerry Snook

Year 1 Teacher

Year 2

Year 2 have been working very well on learning their times tables over the past few weeks. We've been playing lots of games to focus on our 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s. I am so impressed with everyone's knowledge and improvement!

In Science, we have been conducting lots of different experiments involving water to see how rain would fall on different surfaces, where it would go and what might happen to that water.

And of course, we LOVED Grandparent's Day! The Year 2's had a wonderful morning with their Grandparents and special visitors. They played different maths and card games together, made cards, read some stories and interviewed their special visitor. Thank you to all of the Grandparents and special visitors who were able to join us last week!

Alissa Griffin

Year 2 Teacher

Year 3

Year 3 have had a busy couple of weeks at school. Grandparents Day was wonderful, with every child having a special visitor come to school to spend some time with them. We’ve also been learning about States of Matter in science and doing some pretty cool experiments!

Ang Hales

Year 3 Teacher

Year 4

There was a buzz in the Year 4 classroom on Friday 2nd August as students eagerly awaited their Grandparents or special friends to come and spend some quality time with them. Students had been learning about how things change over time. They had the opportunity to ask their special visitor questions about what school was like for them, and compare it to their own experiences. They then made a diorama with exhibits of animals from the Melbourne Zoo, in anticipation of their upcoming excursion there.

Christie Stephen

Year 4 Teacher

Year 5

Year 5 has had a very full and exciting two weeks of learning. We have had the privilege of going into the Senior Science lab and using some of the equipment to learn about reflection, refraction and how light travels. We also tried our hand at some reflected writing.

In Maths, we have been learning all about compass points and direction. The students did a wonderful job of choreographing a song using direction and then presenting it to the class.

A big thank you to all the wonderful Grandparents, special friends and Senior School helpers that came and shared some time with us in the classroom last week. It was very special to be able to share our wonderful School with you and you certainly made the students feel very special and loved.

Naomi O'Brien

Year 5 Teacher

Year 6

Five times a week when we have Language, Year 6 do Language Rotations. This is when we spend 20 minutes completing a Language Task. In the five time slots we rotate through all five of the activities, completing some important language tasks that we need to do in Year 6. The five tasks are:

Handwriting - This is where we complete a page from our Handwriting Book. Mrs Robertson then marks our effort and we get stamps for how well we have done. No one in the class has got a 10/10 yet because Mrs Robertson is a very hard marker, but a few of us have got 9/10.
Email & Touch Typing - This is when we email Mrs Robertson each week to let her know how we are going. It is called our wellbeing email. We can share anything we'd like to with her, any concerns or issues we have or fun things we have been doing. We also practice our touch typing to improve our skills. We are getting faster all the time.
Silent Reading - This is when we get to plop on our Cloudsac, a special Year 6 treat, and read the novel we are currently enjoying.
Spelling Board Game - This is a fun time where we practice our spelling skills in a fun and creative way, playing the designated spelling game for the week. It is lots of fun and often challenging. This week's game was Scattergories. The other games we have are Boggle, Scrabble, Quiddler, Crossword, Upwords and Bananagrams.
Cars and Stars - This is our classes reading comprehension program. We work in groups with Mrs Robertson, reading out loud and sharing the answers that we choose to the questions about each passage we read. We then discuss why our answers were right or wrong.

We really enjoy doing Language Rotations!

Coral Robertson

Year 6 Teacher

Lunchtime Clubs

This week saw a number of new lunchtime clubs commence, which include mindful colouring, LEGO and marble run, and the educational platform of Minecraft. It was an enthusiastic start, providing students with a supportive environment to connect with others and create some amazing structures! Well done Jashy (below), the only problem is I think I lost my marbles!

Steve Griffin

Assistant Head of Junior School