Junior School update

It has been amazing to see our students pivot back to remote learning with such resilience. These lockdowns are tough but all students have impressed their teachers by working hard and staying positive.

Last Friday, we ran our second live assembly on MS Teams. Our Junior School Co-Captains and four House Captains worked diligently to prepare a special Science Week assembly. They shared a presentation about future foods and ran a quiz for the whole Junior School. The theme for Science Week is Food: Different by Design, which inspired us to put together some experiments using food! You can access the experiments on Shelly news. We look forward to sharing photos of students having fun with these experiments soon.

Book Week

Each year since 1945 the Children's Book Council of Australia has brought children and books together across the country through Book Week. This year’s theme is ‘Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds’. Next Friday 27 August, we will hold a live assembly and look forward to seeing which books will be the winners. And even more excited to see students dress up as their favourite book characters. Of course, being home will require us to be even more creative this year!

Happy homerooms

Homeroom teachers have incorporated many hands-on activities to keep everyone engaged; we’ve had teeth brushing procedures, playdough making, and lots of cooking! This newsletter showcases a variety of the exciting tasks teachers have shared with their classes over the last fortnight.

Prep

The Prep students have just begun their unit on Procedural writing. They received a toothbrush and toothpaste from Mrs Walker to brush their teeth and made a jam sandwich! Mrs Walker and her wonderful students wrote the procedures together, step by step. They are also beginning to share dreamtime stories as part of their Inquiry Unit. The first story was, How the birds got their colours. The beautiful coloured picture belongs to Sophia M.

Mrs Whelan popped into say ‘hi’ during one of their Literacy meetings too. She had a lovely Q&A session with the girls. There were lots of giggles from the girls … and from Mrs Whelan!

Year 1

Did you know the Year 1 students love tacos just as much as dragons do? It’s true! As part of our exploration of procedural writing, Year 1 read the book Dragons love tacos. They looked at adverbs to enhance their writing and to give more information about the verb – thoroughly cook the meat, finely shred the lettuce, carefully dice the tomatoes and coarsely grate the cheese. Year 1 also looked at alternative verbs for ‘cut’ to ‘up level’ their writing! In the end the only thing left to do with the taco was to eat it – greedily!

Year 2

Year 2 students have continued to write procedures, the most recent being how to make a triple decker sandwich. Parents were glad to see their daughter can make their own lunch!

During Inquiry, Year 2 students welcomed the Year 1 class to their Teams session to discuss ‘The Dreaming’. After listening to the story of The rainbow serpent, students drew their own interpretation of the story. It was a beautiful sunny day so some opted for chalk drawings outside. 

Year 3

In Cluster Maths Year 3 students have been exploring lines and angles. Check out the amazing examples they created with toothpicks and stickers.

Year 4

On Monday Year 4 watched the animation of The lost thing by Shaun Tan, this year’s Book Week artist. Students then created their own lost creature characters and used these as a stimulus to write a narrative focusing on the Book Week theme ‘Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds’. Year 4 did an excellent job of describing their characters using the acronym STACKS (Size, Texture, Age, Colour, Kind of … , Shape).

Year 5

Last Thursday, Year 5 gathered online to make playdough to build a model of the Earth with. Why you may ask? They are studying natural disasters this term! Students made four different coloured bundles of play dough and used them to represent the inner core, outer core, mantle and crust. When finished they cut it to create a cross-section.

Year 6

As a part of their persuasive writing unit, Year 6 students have been exploring how technology has impacted society. They explored the work of Gary Turk and watched his video poem titled ‘Look up’. In class they discussed the impact technology has had on society and and explored the topic from various viewpoints. Finally, they researched information, analysed data and wrote their persuasive pieces. 

Please see examples of work below.

6A

One thing can help us discover new things, create millions of experiences, get in touch with friends and even make new ones. This one thing can also steal our information and give it to strangers, make us so addicted to it that we can’t stop looking, it also gives us access to millions of platforms where strangers or even people you know can bully you anonymously. So, what is this thing called? Technology. While reading this text you’ll learn how technology is negatively impacting our generation and the future of humanity.

“Leave me alone!” Billy screamed. A crowd started to form around the boy. Tears gleaming form his eyes, he thought to himself; he never wanted to come to school today because he was afraid this might happen. The older girl in front of him kept yelling insults. Eventually a teacher came and stopped what had been going on for months. Verbal or physical bullying is horrible but not to hard to stop. When someone is being rude or mean online you can’t scream at them because they won’t hear you. Cyber bullying is only just one of the dangers of technology. One in four kids from year nine and up get bullied online is said by ‘Australian schools.net’. This is a quote said by Demi Lovato (a very known pop singer): “People don’t realise how badly verbal harassment or cyber bullying affects you. I wish they had just hit me in the face and gotten it over with, because what they said to me, sticks to me to this day. It affected me into the person I am today.” People bully online because they can be anonymous so no-one knows who actually is behind the screen. In real life, you don’t have to question who’s talking to you because your looking right at them but when your online you could be talking to anyone including people you do know who wouldn’t otherwise have the courage to be mean to you in real life. Cyber bullying is and can get really serious, so think twice before going online.

Claude R

There is a delightful world waiting for us, however, we choose to make our own on our screens. In a recent article published by the age, children sport enthusiast and studier quotes: “The average amount of screen time for children aged 8-18 is 7 hours, leaving almost no time for exercise.” Would you like your legs to be stiff as rubber, and your back tough like leather? Instead of moving your fingers along a screen, go outside and move your legs along a path. At least zombies move around, unlike us, stuck on our bottoms with a screen in our hands.

Zoe K

All your blinds, windows, doors... shut. The scintillating object flickering in your face like a firework. You should be outside, yet you have been sitting here for hours being unfruitful. Our world is changing faster than we can adapt and it will soon reach havoc.

I want you to get up and check your screen time on your phone. (A long time, isn't it?) All that time you have been glued to a screen like a leech. We are missing out many opportunities because we are sucked into an alternate world! Georgia Dixon, a digital content editor, said that the average Australian would spend 16 and a half years on their phone in their whole lifetime! (That is 145,800 hours!) So many new chatting apps, social medias as well as games are coming out on the daily and we just cannot resist that bright blue light screaming into our faces. We really need to shut off our screens to reconnect with our world!

Zoe C

6BTechnology. What do you think it is? Phones, Laptops? Well, yes, however, it's much more than you think it is. It's something that effects our society, and many may say it has a bad influence, however, with new research and conclusions made, there is evidence of a positive impact. Close your eyes and create an image in your head, imagine you are an elderly woman, living all by yourself, remote and isolated from all your relatives and family. You are making a cup of tea, however, an unexpected pain sears through your left arm. A tight sensation around your chest persists to squeeze and beads of sweat roll down your forehead. You're turning as white as a ghost. These are the symptoms of a heart attack, you remind yourself, swiftly you dial 000 and an ambulance comes rushing to your address. This incident is similar to the ones that many of the elderly experience on a daily basis. Although, many may say “get off your phone and talk to someone!" keeping in contact with not only your friends and family, but with health officials, and first responders* is important, especially in covid; now that we cannot go see others. Technology is the quickest way to contact someone, if you're expecting people to walk 10km to the hospital when they’re having a heart attack, you might as well have sent them a death sentence. Technology is the root of saving lives, it is educating and teaching us.  

Khue T

Socialisation is mandatory in order for society to function. Face to face interaction is great, but it has become significantly harder over the past few years. That's where technology comes in. Technology has made communication undeniably easier and more convenient. Majority of the population have friends and family that live in different states or even countries. If you have access to a device, you can contact anyone in the whole entire world. There are many benefits to communicating through technology. For example, you can actually see the persons face, you can see their emotions and experience a sense of normality. You can also communicate with people almost instantly. This allows you to get real time responses and send urgent messages if need be. Whereas letters take anywhere from 3-7 days to reach their recipient. By the time it reaches its final destination, the news would be as old as the Lydian Lion. A study was conducted in 2020 about relationships and socialisation, here are some of the results....... 56% of people said that the only form of communication they had with friends and family was through technology, 27% of people had reported a deterioration of friendships during the study, however, those people hadn't been using technology to socialise.

Gabby B

Sarah McKenzie, Head of Junior Discovery Centre

Jacqui Sidaway, Head of Years 3–6