Around the Primary Classrooms

Kindergarten

Week 2 in Kindergarten and we are seeing such wonderful cooperation. New friends are being made and it is delightful to see.

The construction sticks were a bridge and a tower then morphed into ‘a hotel with a pool and two houses inside’!

Years 4 -6 Cyber Safety

Last Thursday, the Years 4 - 6 classes joined with over 20,000 students across Australia to participate in a webinar called "Stay.Safe.Online," run by the New South Wales Department of Education Cyber Safety Unit. This event was one of many associated with "Safer Internet Day," a global initiative that on February 7 celebrated 20 years of helping to create safer online spaces. This year's theme is "Connect. Reflect. Protect."

The aim of the webinar was to set teachers and students up with good digital citizenship skills for the 2023 school year and beyond. Students participated in live learning activities that focused on digital safety, and were asked to thoughtfully consider their online habits and write down some of their learning. Hopefully, these answers made their way home and sparked some great discussions about creating safe online spaces. If you have a daughter in Years 4 - 6 and haven't seen the worksheet students filled out during the webinar, it would be great if you could ask about it. The conversation around staying safe online is one we all should be involved in.

Teachers will be using a range of resources to continue student learning in the area of cyber safety (including how to report cyberbullying) throughout 2023. It will remain an important aspect of the wellbeing program here at Mount Carmel. If you have any questions or concerns, or if you require support in this area, please feel free to contact the College. Creating safer online spaces is a job for all of us.

Year 6 Leadership

Year 6 is an important learning year in many ways, but one of the most critical is in the area of Leadership. At Mount Carmel, we believe all Year 6 students are leaders, so the first major task each year is the Leadership Statement. All students spent time over the last fortnight considering their character strengths, talents, and experience in leadership roles, as well as their thoughts about what makes a good leader, seen through the lens of leaders they admire. Students were also encouraged to ask those closest to them for endorsements, allowing them to understand how their skills and leadership abilities had influenced others.

Once students started this process, they were encouraged to apply for the range of leadership opportunities available to Year 6 students at Mount Carmel in 2023: Restorative Practice Leader; Primary Leader; House Captain; Daily PE Leader; and Mission Sister. Some of these roles required written applications, some required students to give a speech in front of their peers, and some simply required the initiative to put your hand up and commit to serving our College community in this way.

Last Tuesday, students who wished to serve their peers in the roles of House Captain and/or Primary Leader stood up in front of their classmates and presented their Leadership Statements as speeches, outlining who they are as leaders and which leadership roles they were putting their hand up for. Following these speeches, a secret ballot was held in which their classmates voted for who they would like to represent them. All speeches were of a very high quality, making it clear that all students who nominated would have fulfilled these roles extremely competently. As the Year 6 Teaching Team, we consider ourselves blessed by the quality of young people here in Year 6.

The results of the elections for House Captain and Primary Leader are outlined in the Director of Primary's article in this edition of The View. We wish the successful candidates well and look forward to their leadership of the Primary Years throughout 2023 in their various roles. They will have the support of their teachers and of the rest of Year 6 as we all play our part as leaders here at Mount Carmel College.