Poverty Day

Cornerstone's 'Poverty Day' was an opportunity to encourage students to think about others who live in challenging material conditions in the third world and to do something about it. The emphasis was on celebrating how poor communities are able to tackle their problems in creative and affirming ways. We focused on recycling and reusing. The day was the brain child of Secondary teacher, Mr David van der Tang, who was delighted with the engagement and participation of the entire high school in the endeavour.

What happened?

Op-shop - students brought in unwanted clothing to swap or sell for a gold coin. All monies went towards our Compassion child sponsorship commitment (raising almost $300).

Bottle cap challenge - the house with the highest tally of bottle caps were awarded with a Freddo Frog each.

Tibetan “sand” painting - a large scale picture was created on the concrete area in front of the canteen using the bottle caps.

Shack building contest - each house collected suitable materials for building a shack. Shacks were built during the house lesson in the quad and judged during lunchtime.

Giant chess set - we made a “giant chess set” out of plastic soft drink bottles, highlighting the possibilities with recycling.

The winners of the shack building contest were Naphtali House. Corey, Bailey, Sebastian and Glyn were part of the powerhouse construction team to create the winning structure.

Pain the Town REaD

Our Dunsborough campus was in the spotlight a week or so back, when the National launch of the Paint the town REaD book tour set off on its journey across the country.

VIPs, guests from interstate, local parents, children and students from the College all shared a part in this special event that will see a book travel across Australia, stopping at around 80 schools as it does.

Saxon Trigwell was the first to sign the book after it was launched in Parliament just a few days before. Saxon was joined by local politicians who also recorded their part in this literacy endeavour.

Well done to everyone involved. A great honour to be part of this story.

Garden Grant Thank you.

The College was delighted to invite the CEO from Busselton Water onto the campus last week, to thank the Board for their generosity with funding the Sustainable Garden at the western end of the campus.

Mrs Meyerink was being her usual blessing, helping students cook mini quiche and make a salad from the products of the garden. Other students were working with Mr Meyerink to get the space looking ship-shape, and others were in charge of decorating. It was a wonderful case of everyone coming together to make the event really special.

We are incredibly grateful, particulaly to Busselton Water for their enormous contribution to this project at the College. It is also important for us to recognise the Men's Shed for a bench, Bunnings for garden supplies equipment, and Jo Gardiner, one of our parents who is becoming a professional Grant Application expert! All of these people have blessed us as a community, and we are so grateful.

We love the Webbs

The Webb family are close to our hearts at Cornerstone. They are a family who moved from Busselton to work overseas within a third world country. Recently they were deeply impacted by floods in their community.

Not only have they as a family been personally knocked by the events, but the community they live within has experienced catastrophic loss. The most basic of supplies are in high demand.

The Primary School House Captains at the Busselton Campus have championed a fundraising effort, with gold coins collected. These donations were arranged to send a message of love and will be forwarded to the Webbs as soon as possible.

Well done to everyone involved - and as the money spells out, 'Webbs, we love you!'

NB. $311.35 is heading to their way.

Early Learning Centre Language Opportunities

Did you know our ELC students are learning Sign Language?

Mrs Waters, one of our legendary Education Assistants, has sign language skills, and she has been responsible for teaching children across the Early Learning Centre communication skills that will enable one of our young students to be able to connect with her peers.

It's a wonderful thing to behold!

We are incredibly blessed. Well done Mrs Waters and students!

Girls in Science

Roving report from Miss Needham, who travelled to Perth with some of our female students.

“We are in the lecture theatre at Murdoch University awaiting the start of the Wise Women event - a day for girls to discover opportunities in the fields of science, engineering, technology, mathematics & entrepreneurship.”

Apparently they also learnt about ciphers and cracking codes.

It’s been a great adventure for our team of ladies!

Around the Sun

The Year 1 class at the Busselton Campus had a special Science lesson with Mr Maynard last week. Stepping out from behind the Principal's desk, he donned his science teacher hat and spoke to students about how the seasons change, what makes the earth have day times and night times, and why some parts of the world have whole seasons of complete darkness or daylight. By bringing along the 'sun' and a world globe, he gave a clear picture to the children about how our solar system works.

Well done Mr Maynard, and well done Year 1s for having such amazing questions that needed answering.

Our Senior Students have Hearts and Brains

... that little pun comes to you from Mr Arthur, who has had his Human Biology students dissecting hearts and brains to add some practical learning to the theory in Year 11 and Year 12. The Year 11s were digging into matters of the heart, and the Year 12s are digging deep into a sheep's grey matter.

Thanks to Mrs Lucas, our extraordinary Lab Technician for aiding in this activity. Her veterinarian skills are well exercised on such days, due to her better-than-average understanding of anatomy!

Another Conference ... yet another Cornerstone Teacher!

Who has had this man teach them over the years - most probably in Cadets? A lot of current and also former students have, and last week, Mr Spencer presented information about our Cadets program at a conference in Perth. At that conference, stories and images of past and present students were part of his presentation.

We value the Cadets program enormously at Cornerstone, and we know those at the conference would have been enriched and challenged as much as those who are in his classes are.

Well done Mr Spence.

Study Skills

STUDY SKILLS TIP