Primary School

Tomorrow is World Teacher’s Day and we celebrate and honour the extraordinary teachers who make GSG such a special place. Their role extends far beyond teaching curriculum content; they are mentors, encouragers, role models and advocates for every child. Through their dedication, compassion and willingness to go the extra mile, they support students and families in countless ways, helping children grow in confidence, character and achievement.

At GSG, our teachers pour their hearts into ensuring every child feels valued, supported and known. Their care extends well beyond the classroom and we are incredibly thankful for the passion, expertise and kindness our teachers bring to our school each day.

With the Whole School Athletics Carnival just completed, Year Four on camp and Year Six heading to camp next week, our teachers are consistently going above and beyond at GSG.

Baby News  

Huge congratulations to Mrs Rochanne Bloor and her husband Dale on the exciting news that they are expecting a little bundle of joy in May!  

Classroom News 

We hope you enjoy reading about what our classes have been up to this week.   

Djinda  

We have been working on our Djinda storybook, where each child's creativity is captured throughout the pages completed. This week we are using our hands to create the art (literally) and we cannot wait to unveil the masterpiece in Week Eight! We are dipping our toes into Loose Parts play, getting outside our comfort zone to try new things, and working together to build and make meaningful play spaces created by us! 

Kindergarten 

Our Kindergarten children have had so much fun learning our new Talk for Writing story, Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle! We are already fantastic storytellers and can even explain how Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle get to each other’s houses. The repetitive language and actions help us build our vocabulary, memory and confidence while developing a love of storytelling. 

This week, we also explored some of the wonderful resources available to us as we begin incorporating our Loose Parts program. The children loved building, creating and bringing their imaginations to life! Through these experiences, they practised sharing ideas, negotiating with friends, problem solving and working together. So much learning through play! 

Pre-Primary 

This week we have been consolidating our knowledge of alphabet sounds and applying this to longer words (CCVC and CVCC). We have to listen very carefully to words that have two consonants and a vowel followed by another consonant to ensure every sound is represented. We imagine a word is like a slinky being pulled apart! This strategy will also help us when we begin to write polysyllabic words. Now, we are transferring these skills to our sentence writing and we cannot wait to share our stories with you. 

Year One  

This week we welcome our teaching practicum student Miss Abbey Sugg into Year One for three weeks. Mrs Gouldthorp is especially excited, as Miss Sugg is an ex-student whom she taught many years ago! Letter writing and visits to the class Post Office have started, with the class telling Mrs Gouldthorp all about their favourite parts of Year One. The classroom has also been taken over by water cycle mania. The children have watched, sung and acted their way around the water cycle and delighted in repeating the words ‘evaporation’, ‘condensation’ and ‘precipitation’. We cannot wait to share more of our water inquiry findings at our Year One assembly next week!

Year Two  

This week we enjoyed a fun spelling activity of making our spelling words into hopscotch grids. We used chalk on the pavement and did a single hop for single letter sounds, a two-foot jump for digraphs and two feet and a hand for trigraphs. While our caterpillars are peacefully metamorphosing, we have learnt about the four stages of a butterfly's life cycle, from an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis and finally into a beautiful butterfly. We have learnt the meaning of the word metamorphosis – meta means change and morph means form – so our caterpillars are changing form! We are looking forward to showing you our wonderful writing, where we have included our characters speaking and used speech marks, speech verbs, verbs and adverbs.

Year Three  

This week, we are focusing on measurement. Students are excited to participate in a range of hands-on learning experiences, including using scales to measure and compare weight and a variety of measuring jugs to explore and calculate capacity. These practical activities provide students with meaningful opportunities to apply their understanding of measurement concepts in real-world contexts.

Students were also presented with a real-life learning scenario titled Too Hot in the Car. This engaging investigation challenged students to think about what happens to different objects when they are left inside a hot car. They identified and discussed items that would change state when exposed to heat, such as a chocolate bar melting from a solid into a liquid or an ice block melting and eventually evaporating. Students used their understanding of solids, liquids and gases to explain these changes and make predictions about other everyday items.

Year Four 

Day one of camp has been an absolute blast! Thanks to Mr Ritchie, we enjoyed a tour of the wind farm and Sandpatch before holding on to our hats at the spectacular Gap and Natural Bridge. Camp Quaranup is outstanding and the afternoon was filled with team-building activities, plenty of laughs and great teamwork. A few students are trying their luck at catching us a feed down by the jetty, but we are not holding our breath! 🎣 It has been a fantastic start to camp, and we cannot wait to see what the next two days have in store!

Year Five 

Have you ever been to a live auction? Perhaps it was the steers and the Suffolks being herded around the circle. Or perhaps you were treated to a trip through Royal Doultonchina. Either way, the hum of excitement is the same as the announcer inches up the bids, the nervous energy of the moment sending your trigger finger into the air one too many times as you pay over the odds for that item you simply could not live without.

This was the reality for our students this past week as our Economics unit hit its first auction. The students came up with cunning plans ranging from conglomerates to on-selling items in advance. All very interesting as we unpacked the nature of supply, demand, wants, needs, and in a couple of instances … buyers’ remorse.

Year Six  

It has been another busy week, both in and out of the classroom. We started the week enjoying an Eagles Leadership talk which made the students think about what being a good leader entails. We are also ramping up our drama rehearsals for our mini production in Week Six. Camp preparation is well underway, and this week was all about finalising some of the small details. We have wrapped up our area unit and the students have enjoyed the practical sessions to guide their understanding.  

ECC Briefing 

The following superstars have worked exceptionally well and received a Star Award for their outstanding efforts.

Kindergarten A: Wesley Pyle 

Kindergarten B: Aiden Wu 

Pre-Primary B: Ludovic Pyle  

Year One: Rosie Paton 

Year Two A: Teddy Davison 

Year Two B: Georgia Gent 

Students have been focusing on the value of Integrity this week. Well done to the following students who stood out within their classrooms: 

Kindergarten A: Daisy Ball 

Pre-Primary B: Violet Bolitho 

Year One: Oscar Weatherill 

Year Two A: Ava Ray 

Year Two B: River Melia  

Primary School Briefing

Congratulations to our students who have shown the School value of Integrity this week.  

Year Three: Ayla Wrobel 

Year Four: Charlee Scott and Joey Newman 

Year Five: (away this week at the Eagle’s Incursion) 

Year Six: Tate Sawicki and Lucy Carpenter  

Ten-Minute Tables 

Well done to our new 120-Club members: Sonny Williamson, Georgia Rutter and Aurora Leslie from Year Four! 

Have a wonderful weekend.  

Ms Leah Field | Head of Primary and

Mrs Hayley Ranger | Head of Early Childhood