The Anchor

Junior School 

From the Head of Junior School

I am consistently impressed by the ability of our young people to manage lengthy periods of wet, windy and generally intense weather. In fact, I think many of our students enjoy finding puddles of water and do not seem too bothered by having wet socks! It’s a lovely reminder that you can find joy just about anywhere, and our Junior School students find it in abundance on any given day, even in appalling weather.

Science Day

In our second week of looking at ‘gratitude’ as a character value, Science Day this week was wonderful to be grateful for on Wednesday 10 August. This year's theme was ‘Flight’, and it certainly captured everyone’s interest and imagination. Students thoughtfully prepared investigations that detailed how their flying contraption worked and brought them into school on display. 

 

The day started with a wonderful presentation from Mr Scott Neil - Learning Engagement Officer at the Museum of the Great Southern. He talked about the history of flight, science behind flight, the mechanics of how birds use their wings to fly and thrilled the audience with wonderful demonstrations of flight with models. 

Students then worked in their class groups to prepare flight experiments for another class, each presenting for three rotations and being an audience for three rotations. It was a fabulous display of peer to peer learning across cohorts.

Some of the experiments included making:

  • Paper straw rockets
  • Rotocopters
  • Teabag rockets 
  • Coke and mentos ‘rockets’
  • Film canister rockets 
  • O wing gliders
  • Mini butterfly kites
  • Parachutes

At break times students were treated to a demonstration from Mrs Gouldthorp with the infamous  ‘marshmallow launcher’ borrowed from the Science Department, which is a reverse cycle vacuum cleaner and launch tube. The best marshmallow throw was just over 20 metres. 

In the ECC, they enjoyed the magic of making bubbles. Students each had their own frame to blow bubbles and were able to try the expander bubble maker frames which could create enormous bubbles, big enough to cover a whole person! 

Back in the Junior School, there was a friendly competition to see which paper plane could fly the furthest, with the winning planes cruising 14 metres. 

And let's not forget the gumboot toss competition. Students enjoyed giving a gumboot a great big swing before releasing it into the air to see how far it could carry. The whole occasion was a great source of amusement. 

Science Day was a resounding success by every measure. Students had an incredible time exploring the different elements of flight throughout the day. Science, with all the excitement and curiosity it captures, was celebrated for the wondrous subject discipline that it is. 

We all would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to Mrs Gouldthorp (Year One Teacher and Science Coordinator for the Junior School) for her organisation and management of the occasion, it was a tremendously enjoyable day planned beautifully. To Mr Scott Neil - Learning Engagement Officer at the Museum of the Great Southern, thank you for your time and your enthusiasm to support Science Day again with us this year, and to teachers for your ‘flight’ experiment designs with your classes. 

Lastly, our gratitude is also extended to every student and their family for the thoughtful flight machine models that were prepared before Science Day and showcased in the ECC, they looked magnificent as a group and I’m sure they were loads of fun to construct together as a family. The collaboration together as a family for these types of projects, combined with ample amounts of laughs and smiles are the ‘gold’ that makes memories of childhood that you’ll be forever grateful you were able to enjoy together.

Year Five Camp

Next week, we wish our Year Five cohort well as they depart for the camp to Pemberton. The group will be away from Tuesday to Friday, staying at the Pemberton Camp School and enjoying outdoor activities in the region including mountain biking, canoeing, raft building, archery, bush walking, orienteering, team games and camp fire sing-a-longs. It will be a tremendous time away for our Year Fives and a wonderful opportunity for them to develop a range of character traits that will help them as they prepare for their final year of Junior School as Year Six leaders. A full report of their camp will be included in next week's Anchor.  

 

With warmest regards and gratitude, 

Mr Ken Raven | Head of Junior School