Primary School News

From the Head of Primary, Wayne Revitt

Being Safe Online – Digital Citizenship

Social media is now part of our world and especially so for our children. I have watched my own children navigate the social media landscape and I know that our students need to be resilient, respectful and careful. I also know this world can be positive in connecting and sharing information with friends and loved ones. This week,  our Upper Primary parents and students will receive excellent feedback on SEQTA from Primary Digital Technologies Teacher, Haylee Godfrey. The students' current unit of inquiry included establishing a positive digital footprint, setting clear privacy settings (to protect personal information) and understanding how to set up a social media account, such as Instagram, effectively. This is vital learning for all children, and I am most grateful we have such an effective and timely education program as part of the Digital Technologies Curriculum in our Library. You can see evidence of this in the class pictures below. 

Parent Quiz – Be A Risk Taker!

Our students have been learning how technology is created. I challenge you to test your skills below. If you require help, you could ask the Year 3 students who have just completed this task as a summative assessment or pop in and ask one of our friendly Library staff!

(The answers could also be at the end of this Newsletter.)

1.  What is Coding?

       a.  Playing with robots and telling them what to do

       b.  A set of instructions in computer language to make a computer do something

       c.  The program you need to play games on the internet

2.  Coding is something only an adult can do when they work on computers.

       a.  True

       b.  False

3.  What is branching?

       a.  The leafy sections of a tree

       b.  The type of guesses you get when working out a pattern

       c.  The choice or decisions you make in a program or game

4.  Which of these is an example of branching?

       a.  If you see a creeper in Minecraft – kill it or run away

       b.  Turn left in Minecraft when you see a witch

       c.  When you chop down a tree and use the branches to make a fort

Creativity Open Morning - Tuesday 14 August

Tuesday morning  saw the Wellness Room full of parents and guardians hungry to learn about the Primary School's focus on creativity. They were possibly also hungry for the delicious breakfast provided by the Café! Our visitors were given an insight into the importance of providing student learners with opportunities to be “creative, connected and engaged learners in a rapidly changing world” (Priority 2; Gonski 2.0) through presentations by members of the Primary Leadership Team and an amusing but hard-hitting TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson on “Do schools kill creativity?”

 https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

Motivated by the desire to engage parents and guardians as partners in their children’s learning, classrooms were open for participation in creative learning experiences. The combined pedagogy of both the Early Years Learning Framework and the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme provides an excellent framework for our learners to explore, express and learn through creativity. Whilst we continue to strive to develop strong Literacy and Numeracy skills, we also provide engaging learning environments that challenge our learners to develop their creative instincts. As creativity advocate Yong Zhao says, “Reading and writing should be the floor and not the ceiling.”

Good Luck to Our Opti-MINDS Team!

On Saturday 25 August our first Opti-MINDS Team will compete at Curtin University as part of our  PACE (Pegasus Academic Challenge and Extension Program) in the Primary School. Opti-MINDS is a creative problem solving program for teams of up to seven participants, who are required to solve demanding, open-ended challenges from one of the following categories:

• Language Literature
• Science Engineering
• Social Sciences

I hope Anna Shaw, Chelsea Bydder, Charlotte Pilgrim-Byrne, Charlotte Trueman, Jonah Lee, Matthew Tonnessen-Carjaval and Tuppence Cornelius have an exciting afternoon at Curtin University and I look forward to sharing their experience with you.

Speakers Challenge

Congratulations to our three finalists who performed admirably in the Year 3 and 4 Speakers Challenge at Wesley College. All three girls received Bronze Medallions and enjoyed meeting students from other Independent Schools. Well done, Tuppence, Nadia and Lila!

Book Week Assembly

You are welcome to join us next Friday 24 August at 8:50am in the BDISC,  for the highly anticipated Book Week Assembly. Students will be dressed as a ‘book first’ character, bringing in the book they are dressing from. The Years 5, 6 and 7 students must bring in a favourite picture book to share with their younger buddies. The Year 12 Prefects who also love to dress up, will also bring their favourite picture book to share with younger students. I look forward to the Staff Pantomime (a chance for Year 6 Teacher, Brady Morris to shine this year) and hope to see you there for a wonderful John Wollaston morning.

A Message of Gratitude

One of our International students, Xu Jiahui (Lisa) returned home to China last Friday. At a Primary Assembly, she spoke beautifully thanking us for her time at the School. She loved being in the Kangaroo Class and told the assembly she didn't want to return home, as our school is very different to hers. It was a powerful moment, as Lisa was so visibly moved by her time here. It made us all reflect on what we take for granted such as, learning that values collaboration and creativity, gatherings and rituals like Chapel and Assembly and caring for each other. Sometimes we do need to pause and reflect on how, as parents, you provide your children with the opportunity to attend a great school. 

We look forward to upcoming events such as the Inter-School Cross Country at Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School and our own Inter-House Athletics Carnival. What a busy and exciting term!

Wayne Revitt

Head of Primary

Quiz Answers

1.  b.  A set of instructions in computer language to make a computer do something

2.  False (Kids can code too and they are usually very good at it!)

3.  c.  The choice or decisions you make in a program or game

4.  a.  If you see a creeper in Minecraft – kill it or run away