From the 

Head of Junior School

Junior School Productions

We are so excited you are joining us on Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 September to experience the joy that is our Kinross Wolaroi Junior School Production for 2022: Playful Tales – an Evening of Comical Storytelling. 

This year our production has gone in a new direction as we moved to increase student ‘voice, choice and ownership’ within the production. The students have been developing the skills of acting and theatre, as well as learning the many elements that contribute to staging a play.  We have had lots of fun times along the way! 

The Junior School’s musical educational offering is strong, with bands, ensembles, choirs, and small group and individual tuition opportunities, as well as high quality and engaging weekly music lessons.  For this reason, in 2022, our productions have focused on developing students’ skills in drama and acting. 

Preparation for the productions has formed part of the regular school curriculum within school hours. Alongside Mrs Sinclair, class teachers have worked with students in Years 3-6 on developing drama skills such as: 

• Working in a team – learning about fulfilling our role in an ensemble production
• Communicating using non-verbal methods – learning about using our face, stance, and movement to show who we are
• Voice technique – learning how our voice can be used for different effects and purposes
• Script work – learning how to interpret a script and bring it to life off the page
• Production elements – learning about all the aspects of putting a project together

These skills complement those acquired across the curriculum, particularly in literacy and music. When I read the list of skills, I am immediately struck by how their relevance is not confined to the theatrical arts. They are skills for life! Your child’s involvement in drama can have physical, social, and emotional benefits, as well as expose them to culture and the arts. It has the potential to develop their:

Confidence and Courage

Improvisation and experimentation help your child think outside the box and embrace unfamiliar situations. They learn to trust and proffer their ideas and instincts.

Creativity

Workshopping scripts gives students the opportunity to make creative choices. They learn the value of new ideas rather than sticking to established, and perhaps clichéd, approaches.

International-mindedness and Empathy 

Creating a production involves understanding characters, roles, and the subtext of plays. Your child will learn to relate better to different situations, backgrounds, and cultures. It encourages students to show compassion and tolerance for others. In today's world, the ability to understand others' motives and choices is critical. Drama can help build responsible global citizens.

Cooperation

Students will engage in discussions, accepting feedback, rehearsing and the actual performance, the quality of which relies on a cooperative ensemble approach. In learning to engage in discussions, feedback, rehearsing, and the performance, your child will learn the best outcomes are a result of combining the creative ideas and the abilities of all participants.

Concentration and Commitment

Playing, practicing, perfecting, and performing develop your child’s ability to focus their mind, body and voice. Rehearsing and performing lines and movements involves building their memory, which like a muscle, needs exercise to grow.

Communication Skills

Drama improves vocal projection, articulation, tone of speech and expression. It also develops listening and observation skills.

Enjoyment

Drama brings elements of play, humour, and laughter to those taking part. 

Emotional Outlet

Acting and drama games allows your child an opportunity to experiment with and express a range of emotions. It encourages them to understand and deal with similar feelings they may be experiencing in real life, but within a safe, controlled environment – often allowing for a period of reflection afterwards.

Self-Management, and Gross and Fine Motor Control

Performing, even the most passive performances, requires intensive movement over a prolonged period. Through workshopping, rehearsal and performance, your child will have the opportunity to learn skills of flexibility, coordination, balance, and self-control. Playing a role on stage involves a great deal of self-discipline, and your child will learn how to maintain a role without slipping in and out. 

The Junior School students and staff are excited to share with you what they have learnt as you are transported to a world of Playful Tales – an Evening of Comical Storytelling.

An event like this does not happen overnight. I would like to thank Mrs Katie Sinclair for her vision and drive in leading our preforming arts program in the Junior School. For taking the lead in bringing our productions to the stage. 

Our Stage 3 teachers, Mr Jarred Tyack, Mrs Nicole Caro, Mr Mark Whitehead and Ms Belle Hazelton for their willingness to take on roles from directing and choreography, set design and prop development, costume creation and design. Without them taking on these tasks, alongside their regular commitments in the classroom and in our co-curricular program there would be no “Giants in the Sky”.

Our Stage 2 director, Mr Toby Paul, who has led Mrs Rebecca Whiteley, Mr Mark Pritchard and Mrs Zoe Morris in bringing “Storyville” to life. This is the first production our Year 3 and 4 students have been involved in at Kinross Wolaroi. The team have worked alongside students to create an enjoyable process, working to overcome nerves and engage everyone in the production. They have worked hard to plan costumes, gather props, and stage the dance moves. 

A final thank you goes to all members of the Junior School Team. For their support of colleagues in volunteering to cover additional duties, providing administration support or an extra pair of hands. 

Students making their Mark 

At Kinross Wolaroi we value and strive for academic rigor. Students have a myriad of opportunities to engage in enriching learning experiences which in some instances the School provides or facilitates student access to them.  Please share with us your child’s interest, passions, and achievements by emailing junioroffice@kws.nsw.edu.au.

KWS girls achieve success at the NSW U13 Hockey Championships. 

Over the middle of the year term break 5 KWS students represented Orange over 3 days at the U13 State Hockey Championships in Bathurst. Kinross Wolaroi School was well represented with Clare Wood (Year 8) and Zoe Strahorn (Year 6) playing in the Division 2 Orange team and Annabelle Clinton (Year 7), Chloe Provost (Year 7) and Isabelle Provost (Year 6) playing in the Division 3 Black team. The Orange 1 team came away winning Division 2 outright! The Orange 2 team in Division 3 made it through to the semi-finals where they were defeated by Nepean who went on to win the Division.  The win in Division 2, means Orange has earned a promotion to Division 1 for next year’s tournament. 

Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards

The Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards is Australia’s longest running national poetry competition for school aged children located across Australia. The awards seek to capture the imagination of school students across Australia, to express their thoughts and feelings through the medium of poetry in their pursuit of literary excellence. The theme chosen for this year’s awards, ‘In my Opinion,’ sort poems that illustrated students understanding of events and issues that have impacted young Australians over the decade. 

Over 6000 poetry entries were received from school children located in cities, regional and remote areas across Australia. Zoe Strahorn’s poem ‘Here but not home’ drawn from her learnings in Term 1 relating to the experiences of refugees, was shortlisted as a finalist in the Upper Primary category. Zoe’s poem will be published in the Dorothea Mackellar 2022 Anthology of poems by finalists and winners. 

Here but not home

Tirelessly walking

Reminiscing the beauty, the grass when it swayed

Now it’s shrivelled, a depleted, desiccated desert

Where once life used to thrive

My stomach was in a never-ending knot making me want to curl over like a wilting petal

stomach gurgled like a horrifying thunderstorm

A relentless chain of people escaping a drought-run community

Hoping for a better future

With fresh food and running water

HOME

The thought that I crave

Morocco

A plane awaits us on the tarmac

A mysterious metal bird, taking us to safety

Small, squished, sticky

Skin sweating as the blades started to whirl

The plane took flight

People scrambling around below

Tiny ants at work

Flying over water

Bigger and wider than I'd ever seen before

Weird fish and large boats capture my attention

Until

Land in sight, hope in sight

Large barren desert environments

Wondering if green will be seen

A large red rock looked up at me

Surrounded by desert and shrub land

The taste of the finish line is near as, our trip approaches the end

Buildings as big as mountains and endless towering skyscrapers

Until

We start to go down

Air rushes past

Then

Thud!

The tarmac is our safety net in a foreign land

Sydney, Australia is our home

The trip is finally over, but the journey has just begun

Sydney life as busy as a bee

The city is alive every day and night

Lights and cars dancing throughout the streets

Unfamiliar stores inviting with delicious, new smells

We are here, but we are not home.