YEAR 3 - 6 News
Inquiry – The 22nd Commonwealth Games
Our inquiry topic this term is on the Commonwealth Games.
All our year ¾ students were only starting school when the Commonwealth Games were last held on the Gold Coast in 2018. They are now a familiar with names such as Kyle Chalmers and Emily McKeon who represented Australia at the last Commonwealth Games.
The first part of our Inquiry unit is looking at the history of the games. Questions that students wanted to inquire and research about included the following,
- Why are they called the Commonwealth Games?
- What year and in what country were they first held in?
- What sports were played in the first games?
- How many different team and individual sports are played now?
- How many times has Australia hosted the games?
- How many athletes competed in the first games?
- What is the difference between the Commonwealth Games and Olympic games?
- Who are some
We have also looked at the importance and history of the Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags for our country and the significant meanings behind each design. They have really enjoyed this aspect of their research and are now designing their own Australian flag which encompasses all the above flags. The students will share their designs with their class and explain the meanings behind their design.
The highlight of the term will see all year 3-6 students attend an excursion and tour the MCG where they will see where the 1956 Olympic games were held along with the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. They are all looking forward to this.
Celebrating past students
We are always proud to hear news of our former students and this week we celebrate several WPS 2021 graduates who have had some exceptional academic success in year 7.
Congratulations to Mila Hristova, Angus King and Millie Faichney who have recently received the following academic honours:
Milla (at Pimpana State secondary school): academic excellence award in recognition for achieving a GPA of 4.5 or above.
Angus (at Caulfield Grammar school): outstanding academic achievement award for PE/HEALTH
Millie (at Caulfield Grammar school):
* Outstanding academic achievement award for Maths
* Outstanding academic achievement award for English
* Academic General Excellence award
For context, Caulfield Grammar has 240 students in year 7. An ‘Outstanding Academic Achievement award’ is awarded to the top 2% of the year (i.e. 5 students) for each subject. The ‘Academic General Excellence award’ is awarded to the top 10 students (5 girls, 5 boys) and is determined based on a student’s grade point average across all subjects with Global Grade.
Angus and Millie’s parents sent this message to the teachers at WPS:
“We strongly believe the results are testament to WPS and the more ‘open ended’ way of learning… rather than ‘force feeding this is how you do it / repeat’, the WPS more open ended problem solving / inquiry approach teaches kids how to learn and think… the foundation our kids received at WPS has helped them think critically, solve complex problems and also drive their own learning … so, THANKYOU and all the amazing teachers at WPS. “