Junior School

The Junior School have enjoyed an exciting and challenging Term 1.  Our Year 4 students started the year by celebrating and acknowledging the importance of leadership and community with our Year 12 Induction Service at St David’s Cathedral. This inspired their own leadership journeys as environmental, sports, playground and hosting leaders, which they will all have the opportunity to rotate through during the year.  I would like to congratulate Annabel Pearce and Grace Varghese on becoming the 2026 Junior School Captains and our House Captains, Lila Hall, Millie Sheppard, Sibby Millington, and Evie Wills. 

The Junior School community spirit shone through at the end of the first week when we celebrated the opening of the Winter Olympics with our very own House Winter Olympics event.  There was a lot of fun and laughter with additional excitement due to the ice-cream van.  The Year 3 and 4 students were enthusiastic for their swimming carnival this term, and I would like to congratulate everyone on their house spirit and support of each other. On Harmony Day, we celebrated different cultures around the world and within our own campus.  It was wonderful to have three of our students teaching everyone traditional Greek dancing.  The School Fair was another fantastic example of our Junior School coming together to donate items and run the produce stall.  The Year 4 leaders were particularly excited to make house key chains for school bags that could be sold at this fair and future events.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful Junior School students, families and staff for their incredible support of our School and community events. It is very special to see the connections, friendships and community spirit at these events. 

Students throughout the Kindergarten to Year 12 years have continued to build on their ‘Buddy Class’ activities and bonds.  The Junior School Buddies meet weekly to share learning experiences, excursions or shared lunches together.  Our Year 4 and Year 12 students have been writing to their pen pals on a regular basis and get together each term.  We have also loved having our Year 8 leaders supporting us at our carnivals, the Year 10 students helping in our community garden and our Year 11/12 Working with Children class supporting our learning in the Kindergarten classrooms.  We are looking forward to having them in all our Prep to Year 4 classes next term.  It has also been very special to see the connections developing between our Junior School students and those in the same year level at Hutchins.  Classes get together each term to go on bushwalks and complete challenges together. 

We have welcomed many guest speakers to visit our Junior School this term, including Lisa Ford’s parent seminar and student workshops on Grit and Resilience. The Hockeyroos players inspired students when sharing their personal journeys to becoming Australian national team members, while Dan Warlow got the students dancing and singing to many well-known songs together with some new ones when he visited Tasmania.  Students were excited to participate in writing workshops with children’s author Peter Carnavas and are looking forward to the release of his newest book. 

Friday afternoons are full of action in the Junior School with a wide variety of sports on offer for students to develop their skills and try something new.  It was wonderful to see enthusiasm, support of each other and perseverance when trying something new each week.  Some sports on offer this term included AFL, Soccer, Badminton, Pickleball and Dancing.  In the second half of the term, all classes worked on Service Learning projects, which saw them dedicate time to different community groups, events or projects.  The Year 2 students were particularly excited to create a TMAG Banner representing Growth Mindset that will be on display in Hobart for the wider community to share.  As part of their service learning project this term, the Year 4 students will be running our Junior School ANZAC Day Service, which will be a very special conclusion to our term.