Year 4/5/6 News

In Year 4, 5, and 6, we’ve started our first Unit of Inquiry. The transdisciplinary theme is HOW WE ORGANISE OURSELVES and our Central Idea is “Decision making in government systems affects society and its structures.” To see this in action, we took a trip to Parliament House! When we arrived, we had to go through heavy security. And let me tell you, they found some interesting things in our bags. Toothpaste and a soccer ball to name a few!

Once we entered, we visited the green house. Here we were lucky enough to do a role play where we were all asked to take on roles within the parliament such as Speaker of the house, Clerk, Premier and Leader of the opposition. The Speaker of the house had a tough job keeping order with the rowdy members of Parliament! Another important role is The Sergeant-at-Arms who brings a mace into every meeting. A mace is a giant fancy stick that represents authority. An interesting fact is that an old mace was stolen a long time ago and They still haven’t found it! 

We were pleasantly surprised to receive a visit from James Newbury, our local member. A fun fact was that the red house has 8 million dollars worth of gold paint on the walls! I wonder if they’d notice if we borrowed a little? The red house was super grand and we were lucky enough to visit there too. It was a pretty great excursion.