Specialists News

Auslan News

Welcome to Term 4 of Auslan!

All classes have done a week of revision of topics from Terms 1-3 by choosing from a range of games and learning activities to practise signs with their peers. Lots of fun was had as students raced their friends to sign words in games, or helped each other to complete activities by signing together!

All classes have now started learning their new topics for Term 4:

Grades Prep-3 are learning about Handshapes in Auslan. Handshapes are used to form different signs in Auslan, and knowing which Handshape/s are used for certain signs will help improve our accuracy when signing. Some signs use more than one Handshape. There are 38 Handshapes in total, and this week we learned the names of 6 of them: 

Hook, Good, Point, Spread, Flat and Ball. 

See if your child/ren can show you each of them and a couple of signs that use each different Handshape. We will learn the other 32 Handshapes over time too.

Grades 5-6 have already learned about Handshapes, so they may be able to prompt their younger siblings or buddies to help them remember the Handshape names! 

Grades 5-6 are learning about the basic grammatical structure of Auslan. Grades 5-6 students will be applying their knowledge of basic grammar in Auslan to simple conversations that they construct in class over the next few weeks.

On Tuesday this week, Grade 1-2 Todeschini/Arthur, Grade 5-6 Byron and Grade 5-6 Lidgett were very fortunate to be part of a live check-in session with a Deaf consultant and an Auslan Translator through the Auslan Education Services program that Spring Gully Primary School have been learning with throughout this year!!

After overcoming some inevitable tech difficulties connecting, Grade 1-2 students were able to enjoy a 20 minute live session with Maddy who features in many of our educational videos. They had a mini lesson on colours and some of our Grade 1-2’s will be featured in a small promotional video, having been filmed by Channel Nine! 

The Grade 5-6 classes both enjoyed a 40 minute session where they learned about some of Maddy’s life experiences as a Deaf person. The students got to ask questions of Maddy and her interpreter helped her to understand what was being asked. She then signed her answers whilst her interpreter translated for us. 

Many of the Grade 5-6 students were also given the opportunity to sign a sentence to Maddy to see if she could understand some things that we have been learning at SGPS in Auslan classes. 

The students in each of these 3 classes need to be commended on how they represented our school, and they made me VERY POUD, seeing so many students engaged in the live session and eager to sign to Maddy! It was a very valuable learning experience for us all. 

Here are a couple of snaps from the Grade 3-4 and Grade 1-2 classes this week, practising their Auslan…

Mrs Riordan.

Sports News

Loddon Mallee Region Athletics Championships.

Congratulations to all of our students who represented the school at the Loddon Mallee Region Athletics on Monday. This competition was very strong and featured the best athletes from Central and Northern Victoria. 

In what is an outstanding result for our school – all 5 students who competed on the day have progressed to the the State Athletics final at the Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne on the 1st of November.

Our Boys 11 Years Relay team had a particularly successful day. Not only did they win their race, they also broke the long-standing LM Region record. This follows on from breaking the Sandhurst Division record last term. Awesome effort! This team included Archie C, Hser Yu Say, Jed K and Charlie F. We wish them all the best at the State Championships.

Charlie and Hser Yu Say also performed brilliantly in the respective individual events. Charlie won the 11 Years Boys High Jump and was second in the 100m, whilst Hser Yu Say won the 11 Years boys 200m. Both boys will progress to the State Championships in these events. 

Emma A also run superbly to win the 11 Years Girls Hurdles. This is the second year in a row that Emma will represent the school at State level. Outstanding achievement Emma!

I would like to congratulate all of these students on their achievements, and for the way they conducted themselves throughout the day. I would also like to thank Tegan for her assistance with supervising/organising the students on the day.

Victorian Mountain Bike Series

Spring Gully Primary School was represented by a small but determined team at the Victorian Schools Mountain Bike Series final on the Spring Gully trails on Sunday 17 September 2023. 

Jack Mc roared in to the finish line in 8th in U9 boy. 

Lottie Mc made it on the podium with 3rd for U11 girls race. 

Hardy Mc put his body on the line, crossing the line in 7th with a smile in U13 boys novice and Bennett K finished 3rd in U13 boys novice in what was a big field. 

Adam G, current U13 boys Victorian champion, kept the speed up throughout the race finishing the U13 boys race 1st and winning the overall series for U13 race which consisted of four races over winter. 

The Bendigo Mountain Bike Club hopes to see more kids race in the Tuesday Summer Series. If interested, races start - Tues 17 Oct, 5.00pm at the Spring Gully trail head.