Wellbeing & Thrive

Habit 7 - Sharpen the Saw 

SPARK Day– Maths

We did activities like fermi problems where we solved questions that had no actual answer and a pop quiz. our favourite was building a tower using materials such as foil, blue tack, boxes and popsicles. It was competing against other schools and our task was to build the tallest free standing tower. Some challenges we faced were the tower falling and not enough materials. We loved doing these activities that challenged us and got us thinking until our brains hurt!

During SPARK we had the initiative and opportunity to meet a variety of people from different schools and different cultural backgrounds. Together as “Mathemagicans” we collaborated and explored so many interesting Maths activities that Mrs Smith ( the director ) kindly put together for us. This process taught us multiple things: 

1. Synergising (Habit 6) working as a team to solve problems and puzzles
2. Leadership skills such as listening to others and sharing ideas
3. Concluding all our different opinions and backing our hypothesis up with evidence

It was a magical experience and I am sure I can speak for all of us when I say we all learnt something important from SPARK. 

The SPARK Maths excursion was a really cool day for all of us! We had the opportunity to engage and interact with other kids who were similarly gifted mathematically, which opened our eyes to a collage of perspectives especially with controversial mathematical topics.  We met so many new people and engaged with students from different schools during collaborative mathematical puzzles. SPARK was truly a unique and special experience that we will never forget! 

Today all the Year Six students from the Broken Bay Diocese came together at a Zoom meeting for a day of leadership and unique activities. It was a wonderful opportunity to get together and discuss being faithful leaders while extending our Christian values with other Catholic schools in our Broken Bay Diocese with our coordinator Mr Hyland who is the Senior Lead - Evangelisation.

We started the Zoom off with a welcoming liturgy, where we embraced our Catholic spirit with a faithful song “God Will Reign”.  We were able to participate in Religious Movements with important leaders from our diocese, as well as meet Bishop Anthony to discuss scripture passages. He inspired us to be the best version of ourselves possible and faithful, devoted disciples of Jesus. Bishop Anthony gave the students a chance to ask their questions and one of the questions he answered was about the ‘See, Judge, Act Model’ that we have been using in class to reflect against all the amazing International Mission Agencies to help anyone and everyone in need around the world. Bishop Anthony taught us how everyone is born with gifts God has given us and how we can use it to live with honesty, leadership, and kindness to weave the hands of stewardship and be faithful followers of Jesus deeply reflecting to live our life to the best of our ability.  Bishop Anthony then gave us a memorable blessing to bring an end to what he taught us in such a fantastic experience.

We reflected on prayers and a bible scripture known as Jesus healing a man who was unable to walk. Our class learnt about how we could use Christ to be faithful leaders and embrace service and forgiveness to our peers who surround us. We were taught as lifelong leaders to speak the truth with love and how we could use the tools we have learnt in class to be brothers and sisters of Jesus and live out God’s words. We are challenged as leaders and followers to live through discipleship and action. Shortly after that, we had a new special guest named Danny Casey, the head of CSBB (Catholic Schools Broken Bay). He told us that the youth in our world can make a big change to bring them closer to God. We are challenged to be more like Mary, Our Lady, to spend time in peace and love one another, to explore and nourish our relationship with God. 

This week, we are so grateful to our sport teacher, Miss Bartos, for kindly arranging and organising the cross country so all students could participate. Due to weather conditions, we are sorry for the many postponements we have had with the event. Each student ran around the school and without Miss Bartos, we could not have been able to do this amazing carnival. We have had a great term and thank you for all the parents that volunteered in our swimming carnival and cross country. It has been such an enjoyable start to the year and we are looking forward to the upcoming sport events.

Thank you to the Parents who helped out on the day.

Have a safe and Happy Weekend

Melissa Overton   

Wellbeing Coordinator