From the School Leadership Team

Thank you to our families and students for the wonderful term that it has been. It is incredible to look back at the busy first week that we had with both and Eisugakkan visit and Junior Primary Concert and all that has happened since! There has been Special Person's Afternoon, Celebrations of Learning, Middle of Term Breakfast, sport, debating, public speaking, many excursions and so much more!

Eisugakkan are planning to have 25 of their Year 5 students visit at the start of Term 3 next year. A key part of the trip to make it successful is to help provide our visiting students from Japan with a homestay experience for a night. it is likely this would be the first Saturday night of term. Whilst we will also email out formal expressions of interest for this, please feel free to contact us at office@goldengrove.sa.edu.au

if you are interested in having a student from Japan stay with your family for a night.

Year 6 have been particularly hard at work on Exhibition and we are looking forward to the amazing learning and research that they will be able to present early next term.

Our strategic planning process is continuing well and a draft will be presented to our School Board early neat term for their consideration. Our building works are also continuing on our new Foundation classrooms. We recently had a water leak from an irrigation pipe that affected one of the retaining walls in the site. We have had the wall assessed by our insurance company and anticipate being able to rebuild it coming weeks and then continue with our building works apace.

We received the news with mixed emotions late last week that Pastor Greg has accepted a call to serve at Faith Lutheran College Redlands in Queensland in 2024.

The Lutheran Church have a process where other congregations and schools are able to call, or invite, a pastor to serve in their community. Each time a pastor receives a call they consider it prayerfully, in seeking to discern God's will as to whether they are the right person to undertake God's work in a new community at that time.

To say that we will miss Greg and his wife Connie will be a massive understatement, as it has been an incredible privilege and blessing to work closely and meet weekly with Greg over the last three years. We also acknowledge that this is God's call that Greg is now called to serve at Faith Lutheran College.

We will certainly arrange an occasion later in the year to formally thank and recognise Greg's Godly leadership and significant service to our community and we have the opportunity to pray for him, give him our best wishes as well as to express our immense gratitude.

Our Church Council Chair, Jon Schutz, wrote to our congregation that:

It has been a privilege to have Greg serving us as our Pastor for the past (almost) 8 years. Inevitably, pastors move on according to their calling, so whilst we are disappointed that Greg and Connie will no longer be part of our congregation, we must remember all that we have to be thankful for. Under Greg's spiritual leadership we have established a cafe ministry that is more effective at connecting with families from the primary school than ever before, an annual fete that invites thousands from our wider community into our space, a regular Christian education program that brings a diversity to our discipleship, a children's program that has navigated through challenging times and is growing steadily, weekly live-streamed services ongoing post-COVID, a prayer healing program that has a consolidated place in our mainstream services, an active school-church ministry partnership which has experienced strong growth, and a new Messy Church initiative. No doubt this is an incomplete list.

At this stage we expect that Greg will continue to serve at Golden Grove until late in the year. In the meantime, we will be starting to work on calling a new pastor and I will be sharing more about that process as the details become clearer.

Please take the opportunity to wish Greg and Connie God's richest blessings in their new calling, and let's use the next few months to celebrate their time with us. Responding to a call is a significant disruption for the whole family so please remember Greg and Connie, Annelise, Patrick, Edward and Olivia in your prayers.

A reminder that our P & F have a meeting on Monday 16 October at 7.30pm (the first day of Term 4). This meeting will be online and you are most welcome to join us. Please contact office@goldengrove.sa.edu.au if you would like the link.

Our class carers will also have a meeting in the first week of term on Friday 20 October at 9.20am (following Chapel). You are most welcome to come along to join us as we are planning for Term 4 events as well as for next year and always welcome new volunteers to the group who are able to assist in making connections between families, with pastoral care, and assisting with events including our Mother's and Father's Day Stalls.

Our graduating Year 7 class of 2013 has planned to enjoy their 10 year reunion on this Friday 29 September at Mawson Lakes Hotel from 6.00pm. We had a number of old scholars who were interested, however clearly this year group is a particularly industrious bunch as many have work commitments in regional South Australia and interstate at this time. To help our old scholars get together, we have tentatively rescheduled to Friday 3 November at the same time and venue. Please spread the word if you know any old scholars from this year group. Alumni who are keen to attend can RSVP by emailing us at office@goldengrove.sa.edu.au

I hope that all of our families enjoy the holiday break and the good weather that awaits us. Vicki and her team have a brilliant Vacation Care programme planned for the many students who will join us there.

Will Wallace

Principal

Exhibition and Primary Sources

Our Year 6 Exhibition students have chosen their specific areas of learning within the Transdisciplinary Theme, Sharing the Planet. Within Sharing the Planet, inquiries are based around this descriptor:

‘An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.’

Over recent weeks, the classes have explored this descriptor and discussed what learning might sit within it. From here, student choices have been varied, but allowed students to be grouped so they can discuss their learning and share their learning resources.

The areas of focus include:

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Solar energy
Wind energy
Hydro power
Renewable energy in transport

LAND AND WATER PRESERVATION

Pollution
Water preservation

COMMUNITIES

Relationships between countries
Police providing help and safety for communities.
Animal rights within communities

MENTAL HEALTH

Racism
Support for mental health difficulties
Bullying

EFFECTS OF WAR

The effects of the Russia/Ukraine war

SLAVERY and POVERTY

Slavery today
The effects of poverty

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Mining, usage and storage

NON RENEWABLE/FINITE RESOURCES

Coal
Oil
Using finite resources

RIGHT TO ACCESS EDUCATION

The right for all children to access education

WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Women’s rights in sport, leadership and the world

We are looking for experts in any of these fields that our students could talk to, ask question of and learn from. When researching, people who work in the field or are experts, are known as PRIMARY SOURCES. Primary sources offer first-hand experience and understanding that isn’t necessarily gained from secondary resources. If anyone can offer us help on specific subjects, could you please contact us! We would love to hear from you. We ask you to email us with your area of expertise and possibilities of how and when students could make contact with you early next term.

Amy Hughes hughes.amy@goldengrove.sa.edu.au

Jayne Zadow Zadow.jayne@goldengrove.sa.edu.au

David Gardner gardner.david@goldengrove.sa.edu.au (who is available in Term 4)

Jayne Zadow

Director of PYP, Teaching and Learning