Keep on Learning

THE JUNIOR SCHOOL HEROES

We have had some sweet moments with our littlest Heroes, our Junior School students.

Here are some of these moments to brighten your day:

A Zoom meeting with 20+ Year 2 Students 

Prep S's Hayden Martinez (and even big brother Devon) had lots of fun using scraps of fabric and crepe paper to make a Jelly fish.

School drive through. The book collection that happened last week was lovely. Smiles were shared, brief conversations and some cuties smiling from the backseats some in their uniforms.

Jovelyn Ng (Prep S) happily completing her school work from home.

Creative teaching and feedback processes

Year 4 students Zoom devotions meeting on Monday

Year 4’s had their first Zoom meeting on Monday 20th April. It was lovely to connect with the students and see their smiley faces. I think the best thing about on-line learning is the connection we have with our students. They have said that they enjoy seeing the different teachers in the morning devotions and seeing the teachers’ homes and pets.

We hope we can get back to school soon and have laughs and fun while learning.

Mrs van Heerden and Mrs Cheung

Year 4 teachers

LIBRARY LOOKS DIFFERENT

As school looks different in Term 2 while Continuous Online Learning takes place, so too does learning look different in the library. There are a small number of students studying hard in both the Junior and Senior Libraries as they work on Campus during this time. 

LEARNING, CONNECTING AND CARING

“When we step into the unknown,

that is when God is made known” Rich Wilkerson Jnr.

Continuous Online Learning is new and challenging.  It works well for some students, but others are really struggling and miss the daily face to face connection with peers and teachers.  Our aim in Learning Support is to help you to enable your child/ren to keep learning, connecting and caring this term.  With God’s help we aim to do this through 4 areas:

Commitment

We are committed to your child’s ongoing growth and learning.  We will endeavour to do all we can to enable your child to thrive and not just survive, and that may mean doing things a little differently for them at times during this season.  It is a great time for us to model our trust in God, even when things are out of our control.

Consideration

We need to be considerate of everybody as we learn to navigate and try new things, this includes our children.  We can do this by:

1. Providing opportunities to adjust work to suit your specific situation or needs.
2. Being realistic and flexible in our expectations of each student.
3. By choosing to place parent and child wellbeing over completing set work.
4. By encouraging you to set limits (if an activity is meant to take 30 minutes and your child has been diligently working for an hour but has not completed the activity, set a time limit (age appropriate) and submit what you feel is realistic).

Communication

Students – we aim to give clear instructions and directions, with expectations clearly outlined.  We welcome students contacting teachers for support and clarification.

Parents – please let teachers know if you are finding any aspects of online learning difficult.

If you need further support or help please email Learning Support:

sgillie@standrews.vic.edu.au and kterrington@standrews.vic.edu.au

Let us know your suggestions on how we can do better.  Open and clear communication can alleviate anxiety and pressure on us all.

Check in with your child regularly – are they on track?  Get them to repeat instructions back to you to ensure this.  Advocate for your child’s needs.

Celebration

Celebrate small achievements and successes. 

Celebrate submitting/completion of work.

Celebrate your family.

Share the wins with us.

Shirley Gillie

Head of Learning Support

JUNIOR SCHOOL ART

YEAR 2

These bright ship paintings were done by Year 2 after looking at the art work of artist Jasper Knight. Firstly they did an observational drawing of a ship, then painted  using a limited palette of 3- 4 colours.

YEAR 4

These artworks done by Year 4  students were based on the surrealist artist Hannah Hoch. The students chose 3-4 images of objects then arranged them to create a strange and surreal picture.

MIDDLE SCHOOL ART

YEAR 6

Above are two images from Grade 6. They are looking at Op Art – Optical Illusion Art. This kind of art prompts us  to consider that the world we can belong to if we trust in the name of Jesus (our Heavenly Home) is the real one, and this world we feel we want to belong to (where rust and moth destroy) is like an illusion. We can’t always trust our eyes! The year 6s are creating amazing studies and I am very proud of them.

YEAR 7

Above are some wonderful Year 7 artworks. Observations. Transformations.

Year 7 are looking at the work of Christoph Niemann, an illustrator living in New York. He has made a living making social commentary through drawing and been a regular publisher in the New Yorker. He has collaborated with other artists to make works that respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. These artists focused on the symbol of the rainbow as a symbol of hope. We have looked at Genesis and how God gave Noah the rainbow as a sign. Student projects are considering how HOPE is communicated and manifest in this time of difficulty and what the purest source of hope is – God. We are comparing and contrasting two world views.

YEAR 8

Year 8 are creating a Prayer Map of the suburb of Wantirna South in the style of artist Paula Scher. She is a typographer who has created many iconic symbols such as the Windows symbol, and who has created intensely detailed maps that make comment on environmental and socio-economic patterns in various places. Students are generating their own map and designing a typography that suits to ‘fill in’ their map. The detail in the map can be street names, businesses and schools – but the roads will be filled with written prayers and songs that the students will pray over the area. A true prayer map.

We are all navigating this online environment but the Visual Arts are going strong!

God Bless,

Mrs Heading

MUSIC – CONTINUOUS ONLINE LEARNING!

In the spirit of ensuring music continues to be as interactive as possible, students have had opportunities to engage in stories, dance, singing, theory, and performance. All from their homes!

I have been impressed and amazed at how beautifully students have engaged with the learning content. From video quizzes, to photos, to recordings, students have had the opportunity to share their work with their teachers and classmates.

Thank you for watching my crazy videos, for joining in with me, and for making music so much fun!

RHYTHM COMPOSITION

HOMEMADE INSTRUMENTS

PERFORMANCE

ANALYSIS

Rachel Ranger

Primary Music Teacher

CRAZY FOR YOU

With all the changes to school life as we know it, you might have wondered what will happen to the SACC 2020 production Crazy For You. We are currently running “Crazy for you” musical rehearsals via Zoom and Soundtrap. Running a full scale musical remotely is a new challenge, but continuing to have theatre to connect our students at this time is really valuable, and a great chance for them to be creative and learn how to adapt to using different forms of theatre making.

Drama classes are using Padlet to share work – so students can perform at home and video themselves, then we are creating Padlet story boards, where the students can post their videos and their classmates can watch them and comment on them, as we would do in the classroom. It’s great to see the students being clever and creative with their video editing, and utilising props and costumes from their own homes for their scenes.

Karen Elbourne

Drama Teacher

CAREERS AND STUDY SKILLS

CAREERS NEWSLETTER

The impact of COVID-19 has been felt across the world, with the education industry experiencing significant disruption. The mass cancellation of career expos and university events was a sensible and necessary step and it is really exciting to see how quickly universities have adapted and developed new opportunities to interact with prospective students.

Universities and TAFEs are working to bring more Virtual Open Days, Virtual Campus Tours and Virtual Presentations and I will ensure to keep you informed as they are launched.

In this careers newsletter you will discover the latest news from our leading universities as well as other careers resources.

St Andrews Careers Newsletter Issue 6

STUDY SKILLS 

Our school is a subscriber to the study skills website www.studyskillshandbook.com.au

This is a website that helps students develop essential skills for academic success. There are units of work on topics such as improving time management skills, how to study, research skills, summarizing, technology use, brain and memory.

To access the handbook, go to www.studyskillshandbook.com.au and login with these details:

username: standrewsvic 

password:  130success

Mrs Irena Yevlahova

Careers Coordinator

CHEMISTRY CORNER

I am so proud of my Chemistry student cohort who are so enthusiastically attending their online, remote learning sessions as we moved into this new phase of distance learning. All Unit 3 (Year 12) classes will continue to run as per timetabled classes via online sessions. This initiative will help us to align well with our course timeline and complete Unit 3 in Term 2.

May I also take this opportunity to thank our parents for all their encouraging emails sent this past two weeks. Thank you for letting me know that the weekly plans emailed to you is helpful in organising your child’s daily / weekly learning routine.

Please see below an outline of the curriculum areas that will be covered in VCE Chemistry for Unit 1 and Unit 3 classes in the next 3 weeks:

Students have been informed of SAC dates via the HUB (all SACs will be done online, under adult supervision at home).

Please email me if you have any further concerns / questions.

Mr Fernandes

lfernandes@standrews.vic.edu.au

LIBRARY RESOURCES

The College has been invited to share access to these databases to help students with their continuous online learning. These links are available free until 31st May, 2020

USEFUL LINKS FOR RESEARCH IN YEARS 7-12

1. Gale In Context: Science – ideal for years 7-12               

http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/61book01?db=SCIC

Password: gift

 2. Gale In Context: World History - ideal for years 7-12 

http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/61book01?db=WHIC

Password: gift

3. Gale reference  – your instant reference library online

 Easily sortable by reading age: content mediated for years 7-12

http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/61book02?db=GVRL-0

  Password: gift

 4.  Gale Academic OneFile –  The simplest to use Academic database for Australian year-10-12 students & teachers:

 http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/61book10  

 Password: gift

READING

Renaissance Learning has generously opened up parts of their home reading library to enable students to keep reading. For students in Years 4-6, these can be done as Accelerated Readers (Parents- please use your discretion with these titles, as some may not be suitable) Both Fiction and non-fiction are available.

This access is free until 30th June, 2020

https://www.myon.com/school/remotereading

Primary

Username: primary

Password: books

Secondary

Username: secondary

Password: books

Lynne Marks, Anita Little, Wai Peng Heath

Library Staff