THE ARTS

2026

🎭 The Arts at HEPS

Puppetry, Creativity and Reaching for the Stars!

This term, HEPS students have been immersed in the Drama and Visual Arts components of The Arts, with a special focus on puppetry. Across all year levels, students are discovering how puppets can be powerful tools for creativity, communication and connection.

Why Puppetry?

Puppetry offers a wide range of developmental benefits:

Encourages social learning – Students practise collaboration, turn-taking and negotiation when creating and performing together. Puppets also provide a safe way to rehearse everyday social situations such as greetings and sharing.
Builds emotional understanding – Through puppets, children can safely explore emotions such as joy, sadness or frustration. This helps to develop empathy as students consider different perspectives and experiences.
Strengthens language and concentration skills – Taking on a character role builds vocabulary and expressive language. Students learn to communicate using voice, facial expression, gesture and body language. When using hand puppets, they even practise lip syncing - carefully matching syllables to movement.
Fuels imagination – Improvisation and dramatic play nurture creativity, problem-solving and imaginative thinking.

Reception

Reception students have listened to and acted out scenes from The Gingerbread Man. They are now preparing a reimagined Australian version titled Gingerbread Jo, featuring native Australian animals as characters. Students are developing dramatic skills by using facial expressions, body movement, voice, puppets and props to bring the story to life.

Year 1/2

Year 1 and 2 students have been developing puppetry techniques, focusing on movement control and expressive voice using glove and finger puppets. They have also been learning how to sequence a story with a clear beginning, middle and end.

In the final weeks of term, students will design and create their own paper plate stick puppets to retell well-known fairy tales such as The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks - but with a creative twist to the storyline!

Years 3–6

Students in Years 3–6 have been exploring how to truly “bring a puppet to life.” Skills such as voice exploration, eye contact, lip syncing, gesture and movement have been practised using finger-eye puppets and glove puppets.

Over the coming weeks, students will design and create their own sock puppet characters, carefully considering appearance, personality, movement style and distinctive traits. In small groups, they will collaborate to create short puppet performances showcasing their newly developed skills - with opportunities to perform for others.

⭐ At HEPS, We Reach for the Stars ⭐

During the first three weeks of Arts lessons, each unit contributed to a whole-school Arts Display centred around the theme:

“At HEPS, we reach for the stars.”

Through discussions, stories, songs, tutorials and movement activities, students explored what it means to reach for their personal best. Themes of bravery, courage, persistence and encouragement were discussed across all classes.

Stillwell Unit students created Zentangle-patterned hands
Holly Unit students designed 3D stars
Castle Unit students crafted sparkling stars using pencils, crayons and glitter glue

These individual pieces came together to form a vibrant whole school display in the Arts Room. Please check out the photos!

🎶 HEPS Choir 2026

Choir commenced in Week 2 with 57 enthusiastic Year 4-6 students participating in “Come and Try” sessions. Students explored vocal warm-ups, body preparation techniques, choir expectations, and sampled songs from this year’s repertoire. They also enjoyed singing rounds and some “just for fun” pieces.

Students who have committed to Choir for the year will have information notes and forms sent home this week. Choir rehearsals are held on Wednesdays from 2:10–3:00pm.

We are thrilled to welcome Jo Burgum to assist with Choir this year. Jo, one of our valued SSOs, brings wonderful choreography skills, and we look forward to enhancing our performance and dance elements in 2026.

Year 5/6 students - Hitchhiker improvisations using glove puppets

Year 1/2 students – working on with glove puppets and exploring voice and character movement

Reach for the Stars display