Tournament of Minds

On Saturday 19th August, Ava, Madie, Gabi, Luciano, Valerie and Frances, also known as “The Cannons”, travelled to Deakin University to participate in the Tournament of Minds for 2023.

After weeks of researching, writing scripts, painting sets, assembling props, recording soundscapes, making decisions and collaborating effectively, the team produced a fabulous performance to address their Long Term Challenge.

Our St John’s team chose the challenge of creating an immersive art experience for the International Arts Committee. They chose Albert Namitjira, a famous Aboriginal artist, researched his body of work and chose one of his artworks (The Standley Chasm) to use in their immersive art installation. Their installation was a 3D representation of the artwork and needed to be assembled during their 10 minute presentation. The installation had to include a copy of the original artwork, a soundscape and the use of performance art (they used dance and mime) to assist the building of the installation. The judges had to be able to walk through their installation.

The Cannons should be incredibly proud of themselves! They truly worked within the parameters and the ‘spirit’ of the Tournament of Minds and showed great skills in all aspects of the challenge. We were so thrilled to see quieter personalities shining through, strong personalities listening to each other, identifying each others’ strengths, collectively and creatively designing, constructing and producing an immersive art installation that they had successfully completed together.

The judges’ feedback was incredibly positive and the students spoke confidently about their roles in the challenge. We look forward to receiving official results soon…but no matter the outcome, we believe you are stars! Well done Cannons!

Ange Crowe and Mel Kerwin.

Extension Education.

Literacy and Numeracy Week

Week 10 @ St John’s 2023

“Read, Grow, Inspire!”

We have a great deal of fun and frivolity planned to celebrate! Please keep these dates in your diary… September 11-15th and watch this space!

We hope you can come along and share in the fun and games!!

Australia Computational Thinking Challenge 2023

It’s time for Round 2 of Bebras Australia Computational Thinking Challenge 2022 and students in Years 3-6 will once again participate. Bebras is an international initiative aiming to promote informatics and engage students' computational thinking and problem solving skills in a fun, interactive environment. The Bebras international community has now grown to include 60 countries with over 2.9 million students participating worldwide!

Bebras Australia began in 2014 and is now administered through CSIRO Digital Careers. St John’s began participating in Bebras in 2015.

The goal is to promote computational thinking in students in a way that challenges them beyond science or mathematical skills. It uses a number of skills such as pattern recognition, algorithms and logic. Bebras Australia is designed to be accessible and easy to use and is linked to the Victorian Digital Technologies Curriculum.

We use problem-solving in everything that we do – and future jobs will require this even more. Teaching Computational Thinking is not about how to use technology to solve the problem but rather how to understand the problems and identify the tools needed to solve them. Bebras is a challenge, not a competition. The aim is for students to develop a positive impression about Digital Technologies.

St John’s Years 3-6 students will take part in Round 2 of the Bebras Challenge between 28 August and 8 September. The students will participate in this online challenge in a 45 minute (Years 5 & 6) or a 60 minute (Years 3 & 4) session at school.

For more information go to https://digitalcareers.csiro.au/en/Bebras

Staff Professional Development

Last Wednesday the school staff were led in a Mathematics Professional Development day where we worked through the Launch, Explore, Summarise model which we use to help teach our students Mathematics. The model is essentially based around open-ended questioning with multiple entry points to ensure students have a deeper level of understanding of concepts and can verbalise the process and strategies they used to solve a problem. Students then share their responses and are exposed to the various ways of thinking that their peers may have used to solve the problem.

Staff were also immersed in a variety of challenging games that they can use with their students and worked collaboratively to figure out how they can be adapted for a variety of students' needs and to ensure consistent engagement.

I look forward to sharing pictures of some of the activities that we planned for students and then completing them in the next few weeks.

During the past 3 weeks we have been extremely lucky to have had Ella from Netball Victoria come and coach the Grade 3 - 6 students in netball. The students have focused on passing, shooting, movement, gameplay strategy and defensive moves. We are now playing games and the students are putting their skills into practice. The students have been outstanding with their attitudes and have shown wonderful growth in their skills. We are looking forward to seeing them play fully fledged games this week!

Community Association