The Golden Vine

From the School Leadership Team

Exhibition

Congratulations to our Year 6 students for the phenomenal learning that was on display at our Exhibition evening on Tuesday. 

 

The PYP Exhibition is the culmination of the IB Primary Years Program and provides the students with an excellent opportunity to share their understanding of a real-life issue or topic they've covered, as well as to reflect on their learning, further develop their presentation and assessment skills, explore and document their understanding of important topics, learn from each other, and further refine and reflect on the IB Learner Profile attributes of being knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, open-minded, principled, caring, risk-takers, balanced and reflective.

 

We are so proud of each and every one of the students for the way that they've shown how they embody all these qualities and take them into account as part of their learning through Exhibition. It has been a pleasure to see the students present on their learning this evening and to see the depth of inquiry and questioning that they've undertaken.

 

Thank you to the students for the great application and engagement that they have had to their learning.

 

Thank you to our staff team, particularly Mrs Hughes, Mr Gardner and Mrs Zadow our PYP Co-oordinator, for the massive effort that has gone into the Exhibition evening, and to all of our teachers and staff who have mentored groups of Year 6 students throughout Exhibition.

 

Thank you to all of our parents and families who have been a wonderful support for the students through this learning journey.

 

Staff News

Mrs Elaine Baldock has made the decision to retire at the end of 2023. She is looking forward to enjoying retirement together with her husband Phil, and to spending more time with her extended family. 

We are thankful to Mrs Baldock for the work that she has done at Golden Grove Lutheran Primary School over the last few decades where she has helped to manage reception and enrolments, as well as documenting much of our school history as we have grown. 

We look forward to appropriately recognising and thanking Mrs Baldock for her service towards the end of the school year. We are grateful for her thoughtful and caring approach toward all of our children, families and staff members, as well as the passion that she has for our school and church community and sharing her faith. 

Of course, you will continue to see Mrs Baldock around the school and I hope you will take the time to thank her for her service to our School. Mrs Baldock enters on this new and exciting chapter of life with our very best wishes.

 

Fete

Our school and church community day last Sunday was an amazing day and we were incredibly blessed by the weather! There was a huge range of stall holders, performances and rides available for the family to enjoy. It was fantastic to see so many of our school families enjoying the day. We are also very appreciative of all of our school families who supported the day through either holding stalls or through providing sponsorship. Thank you to our P & F who have provided some activities, as well as to everyone who supported the raffle ticket sales - your generosity is much appreciated! Thanks to Joel Schiller, Rob Mills, Jon Schutz, Luke Wachtel and the team who put in a lot of work to make the day a success! 

 

Strategic Plan and Survey

Our School Board has been working extensively with Peter Bleckly, our external consultant, and our School Leadership Team, to finalise our new School Strategic Plan. Please refer to the letter sent home earlier today for information about the survey process for us to gain feedback on the draft version of the plan from our school families as we seek to refine, approve and launch a final version. 

The letter also contains some helpful information about classes and class placements for 2024, as well as an update on our new Foundation classroom building project. 

 

Japan Trip 2024 

Traditionally, we have offered the option for Year 5/6 students and their parent(s) to travel to Japan for a study tour every two years. It has been some time since our last trip to Japan with the impact of COVID, however we have planned a draft itinerary and received some indicative pricing for a possible Japan Trip next year. The preliminary costings from our travel agent are for $5534 per student and $5953 per parent at 2023 prices, and there may be a small increase when these are requoted early in 2024. 

To gauge initial interest to see if we are able to obtain minimum numbers for the trip, please complete the obligation-free expression of interest at the below link by Friday 3 November. 

A copy of the draft itinerary is available for you to download. 

Itinerary2024.pdf

 

 

Festival of Music 

At the time of writing, we have our fantastic choir rehearsing at Shedley Theatre for the Festival of Music Performance this Thursday evening. Our students are performing a range of choir items as a school, along with some combined choral items and individual performances. A huge well done to all of the students involved as well as Mrs Ali - your singing sounds just phenomenal! 

 

Class of 2013 Reunion

Our graduating Year 7 class of 2013 will enjoy their 10 year reunion on Friday 3 November at Mawson Lakes Hotel from 6.00pm. 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

 

Will Wallace

Principal

Parenting can be tough, so tough at times. I certainly have seen and experienced the ups and downs of the different challenges it can have.

Last week my baby turned 15 years old. I reflected on the ups and downs over the years and that even though they get older there are still challenges to be had (just different ones).

As you know I am a big fan of Justin Coulson and having seen him twice over the past 2 years through his Connected Schools visits I like to read what he has to say. Finding new ideas to support kids certainly takes away some of the pressure ultimately leading to better wellbeing.

The following article is such a great read and highlights 5 key areas on how to be a great parent. It’s not easy and there are days that may leave you scratching your head but there are ways to keep working on it.

Justin Coulson focuses on the following…

  1. Be involved
  2. Stop fixing and correcting
  3. Get out of their way
  4. Have fun
  5. The power of unconditionality (No. Matter, What)

Have a read and I hope that there is something you can get out of it.

https://www.mamamia.com.au/parenting-rules-justin-coulson/

 

 

Tim Kriewaldt

Deputy Principal/Learning Support Coordinator

APPROACHES TO LEARNING 

 

What do you do when you need to learn something new?  

  • Do you read the manual when working with new equipment?  
  • Are you a person who dives straight in and learns through doing?  
  • Do you seek advice from an expert or read to learn? 
  • Does thinking and problem solving help you to learn? 
  • Do you work best when learning through collaboration and learning together? 
  • Are you able to focus and need solo time to enable get your ideas sorted? 

There are many ways that our children learn. Thinking about all the things they learn from birth, helps us to understand the incredible capacity we have as learners. Watching our children’s early years of learning to talk, walk and relate to others, helps us to understand the brain development that occurs during these times, their times of optimum growth.  

 

Within the PYP, children grow their skills in learning through the ‘Approaches to Learning’. As they undertake Units of Inquiry (UOI), teachers plan for students to focus on developing skills in areas, appropriate to the learning within a unit. These skills become a part of much of the learning in a school day, but the opportunity for targeted development sits in the UOIs. These areas are: 

  • Thinking Skills 
  • Research Skills 
  • Communication Skills  
  • Social Skills 
  • Self-Management 

Year 6 students showed the growth of these skills when they presented their Exhibition learning on Tuesday and Wednesday. In particular, they used their communication skills as they shared their learning with parents, adults, teachers, other students and members of our community. It was an exciting time in which we saw evidence of the growth of students across their schooling. Students were able to: 

  • Speak about their knowledge and understanding in their area of focus 
  • Use and explain vocabulary connected to their learning 
  • Use visuals to enhance the communicating of their learning to audience.  
  • Create artifacts that helped them to convey their learning. 
  • Use green screen technology to create a visual to introduce the unit of ‘Sharing the Planet’ This presentation showed the possible futures of our planet, comparing what might happen if we don’t act, to what will happen if we take positive action for change. 
  • Explain their action in thinking about positive changes for the future.  

We thank the students not only their learning but for their ability to teach us about the many complexities that our world faces as we endeavour to share the planet.  

   

 

Jayne Zadow 

Director of PYP, Teaching and Learning