Junior School

SHELLEY PARKES

Head of Junior School

Community

The condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common. "The sense of community that organized religion can provide."

When we unpack the term community, we truly understand the power of this word. The Oakleigh Grammar Community is a wonderful representation of the strength which is drawn from like minded people, working towards a common goal, with purpose and kindness.

Our Junior School is an environment which fosters and actions a culture built on the Leader in Me principles. Together across our ELC – Year 5 students have been building their mission statements and making a commitment to upholding the values they have collectively put in place.

A mission statement provides a way of ensuring that all students are on the same page, and to serve as a baseline for effective decision making and building the capacity of community. As you walk through the Junior School classrooms we see community in action. It is reflected in displays around the learning spaces, and in the conversations our students and teachers are having. It is very clear that in the Oakleigh Grammar Junior School, we are one and we are united by culture, values and expectations for ourselves and others.

With each new day teaching, I extend my gratitude to them for their commitment, enthusiasm and dedication in ensuring the social, emotional and academic wellbeing of our students during the year. Their work is often unseen but always appreciated. 

I am grateful to all the students and families for their ongoing support, confidence and positivity shown towards our Junior School - together we are one community. Your Time to Shine is the Junior School’s time to shine.

JEREMY KALBSTEIN

eLearning Coordinator

Makerspaces Australia define a makerspace as, "a place where people can come together to use, and learn to use materials, as well as develop creative projects." Makerspaces promote learning through play and are a place that can be used for a range of activities with changing and flexible educational goals and creative purposes.

Makerspaces:

• Foster play, exploration and participatory learning;
• Facilitate informal learning opportunities where connections between home, school, and community are enabled and encouraged;
• Encourage collaborative learning where educators and students pool their skills and knowledge, and share in the tasks of teaching and learning;
• Develop a culture of creating as opposed to consuming.

They tend to reflect a hands on learning approach to creating with tools and technology. The idea is about creating creative people through the process of experimenting in a structured learning environment.

The Oakleigh Grammar Makerspace is now open and available to all Junior School students, located in Room 07. Junior School students will have access to robotics and coding, as well as the use of green screen movie-making technologies and more. This dynamic space will continuously evolve as new tools and technologies are added.

If you would like to donate materials for the Makerspace, please see the list below. Please keep in mind that where possible we would like our Makerspace to be sustainable and reuse materials. If you have any unused or excess of the following and would like to donate them, please drop them off into one of the tubs outside the Makerspace:

AMBRE BORNEMAN

Inquiry Learning Coordinator

Digital Technologies Curriculum in Prep

Our Prep students have had an exciting start to the school year and their Digital Technologies studies, with an introduction to our Bee-Bots and Blue-Bots. Bee-Bots and Blue-Bots are exciting robots designed specifically for use by young children. These colorful, easy-to-operate, and friendly little robots are a perfect tool for teaching sequencing, estimation and problem-solving. Bee-Bot blinks and beeps at the conclusion of each command to allow children to follow Bee-Bot through the program they have entered, and then confirms its completion with lights and sound.

Our Prep students have been navigating the Bee-Bots across an Alphabet mat in their Literacy rotations. This not only develops student understanding of letter recognition, but also encourages interpersonal skills through communication and cooperation with their new classmates, and invites them to invent a range of games that assist in developing literacy skills.

We have also been experimenting with the pen holder and bulldozer accessories, and navigating the Bots through an obstacle course. They are so excited to be learning with the technology, and never want the lessons to end! They are inspired to enter ever more creative and complex command sequences, and have a sense of achievement when they succeed.

Curriculum links:

• Recognise and explore digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose
• Follow, describe and represent a sequence of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve simple problems