Junior School

One Tree Per Child

Science Works Excursion

The Year 2s enjoyed a wonderful excursion to Scienceworks and Planetarium. We got to see some fantastic technology and how it has developed over the years. It was especially interesting to see the future of technology and how this will impact us one day!

We were able to do a whole range of exciting things including trying to run as fast as Cathy Freeman. We were also able to try a different variety of activities with the different technologies. We got to see a robot that was designed to perform surgery! Which was both scary and exciting. Overall, we really enjoyed our day. We even had perfect weather for a play on the playground! 

 

Nicole Ng

Year 2 Teacher

 

“Rock climbing was phenomenal!” - Sera 2N 

“Building the builder wall was so much fun!” - Samuel 2N 

“I was trying to get some diamonds with my new and improved body! I was squirting fire out of my hands! It was a little bit weird and awesome!” - Jim 2N 

“I thought the excursion was amazing because there were lots of cool machines and things that I had not seen before!” - Annabelle 2N 

“I thought the excursion was awesome because I got to do lots of cool things. My favourite thing was pretending to build a wall!” - Emily 2N 

“ I thought the excursion was nice and a bit scary. It was a little creepy seeing the astronauts sleeping! My favourite part was when I went to the Planetarium because we got to watch Tycho and the Moon!” - David 2N 

 “Pretending to sleep like an astronaut! It felt weird!” - Cynthia 2H 

“I enjoyed running away from Jim on the playground! He was the good guy and I was the enemy!” - Sean 2N 

Junior School Spelling Bee

On Friday 8th September, the Junior school held a House Spelling Bee Competition. The students had practiced so hard in their classes some having mini heats to find the best speller for each house in each class. The pressure was on as each student from Prep to Year 4 stood and spelt very difficult words in front of the whole Junior School.

The students were amazing, they rose to the challenge and it was an amazing event. The house scores in the end were only separate by one point each with Barton third, Parkes second and Deakin taking out the event as the winner. The teacher competition was very fierce with Mrs Lepilio and Mrs Sires stand out winners leaving Mr Mellody to return to practicing his phonics!

 

Thank you to Mrs van Heerden the spelling word master with her able assistant Mrs Das and to all the teachers and students it was a fantastic morning.

 

Yvonne Hughes

Head of Junior School

Colour and Light Dress Up Day

On Friday 15th September, the Junior School came dressed in amazing colour to celebrate the end of the Arts week. The theme was colour and light and the students were a beautiful rainbow of colour on a grey day.

The students had had a great week of incredible art experiences and Friday was a fun way to finish the week. Thank you to all the parents who created amazing outfits of bright colours to celebrate the day.

 

Yvonne Hughes

Head of Junior School

Year 4 One Tree Per Child Program

On 31st August 2017, Year 4s walked to Egan Lee Reserve in Knoxfield to do the One Tree Per Child program. This program involves school children volunteering to plant trees and become involved in their local community. 

When we arrived, a man from the Knox City Council welcomed us and took us on a short nature walk. On the nature walk, we learnt about the two main introduced predators in Victoria, foxes and cats, and how they threaten our small wildlife such as lizards, possums and birds.

 

After the walk, two people from the One Tree Per Child program demonstrated how to plant trees using a Hamilton, or a pogo stick as some students called it. Before we left school, we thought we would be planting one tree each. However, it turned out to our disbelief, that we would be planting 350 trees. We set to work, working in pairs carefully to plant the trees.  Once we got the hang of it, we swiftly got the job done.

Then we played a game using a sticker we each received with either a tree, lizard, possum, owl or bird on it. During the game, when the music stopped, we had to form hollows (two trees holding hands), with one possum or bird, one owl and one lizard inside.  After every round, trees were removed, leaving more and more animals homeless. We learnt how important trees are to providing animals’ homes. It was also interesting to learn that a hollow big enough for an owl to live in takes at least 200 years to form.

 

We all enjoyed planting trees and learning how important trees are to our wildlife.  It was a wonderful feeling knowing we had made a small difference to our community.

 

Hannah Chard

Year 4 Student

Traffic and Road Safety Incursion

On Friday 1st September, we were surprised by a visit from “Lottie” at our new, school crossing! Tony was given some extra help from Lottie as St Andrews’ children and parents crossed Tyner Road safely on their way to school.

The Junior School students from Prep-Yr 3 were given lots of important safety information as we listened to Winchelle and Chris in the Multipurpose Hall.

 

We learnt to:

  • Stop, Look, Listen and Think before we cross the road
  • wait for 2 whistles from Tony before we cross at the School Crossing
  • not distract mum and dad while they’re driving the car
  • remind mum and dad not to be distracted by their mobile phones while they’re driving, especially near school crossings
  • and many other important lessons!

Some children enjoyed showing us the safe way to cross at a School Crossing as we role played this activity.

It was a fun morning where we were able to be reminded of how to keep ourselves safe.

 

Sonia Sires

Prep Teacher