Short & Curly are fans of NPS!

Last year in Community Inquiry, the 3/4s made podcasts and comics to wrap up our ethical and philosophical inquiry into whether or not it's ok to lie to get out of trouble. This came about because earlier in the year, when talking about values, we found that lots of students thought that it was ok to lie to "save yourself" (get out of trouble).

The schedule for making the podcasts and comics was really tight, and the challenge to manage time, group dynamics, and technology was big! Nonetheless, lots of students did manage to finish and we were able to share them in the last newsletter of 2025 - and we're sharing them again below. Why?

I contacted Short & Curly, the ABC podcast that inspired and guided us in our podcast making and ethical and philosophical explorations, and we recently heard back from them! Please share this with your child if they were in grade 3/4 last year! Here's what they wrote:

"Hello there Year 3/4 Community Inquiry crew at Newlands Primary School in Victoria! This is Carl from Short & Curly. And let me just say: you lot ROCK! 

This is such a cool project and I'm so impressed with your podcast episodes. Max, Ted & Rudi, I adore your energy and enthusiasm, it sounds like you had so much fun making this together. Quinn and Zoe, I love your voice acting and storytelling! We're very happy our silly voices inspired you. In my opinion, you should never stop speaking in silly voices. Well, I guess there are times when you should - but I haven't really found them yet. And Maggie, Emma & Sienna, I'm very impressed with your creative problem solving to the party dilemma!

Every one of the episodes I listened to had such wonderful ideas and sound effects and laughter and play and energy and cool kids with excellent questions. You should all be so proud!

Big hugs to all all from Short & Curly HQ and thanks for being such wonderful and enthusiastic members of the Curly Crew.

Carl xo"

"This has really genuinely warmed my heart, teaching ethics in the US right now is a sad state of affairs and I am so tickled & happy to see how much excitement these brilliant kids have got from Molly & Carl’s adventures. I am inspired!" - from Eleanor Gordon-Smith

So, again, here are the students' podcasts! The top three podcasts, based on their professionalism and the level of engagement of the students in other classes who got to listen to the podcasts, were:

The other podcasts that were completed in time are also worth a listen!

Thanks again to one of the parents, Cam, who did a lot to support the podcast project by teaching me what to do (so I could teach the students), and compiling the sound effects and theme music for students to use.