Middle Years Update
I encourage all families to have open conversations at home regarding their child’s school day. This will help build relationships within the household between parents and children and siblings. A great way to connect with your child about school work is to go through Compass together and discuss the lessons and any homework. Ask the questions, “How was your day today? What classes did you have? Tell me something that you learnt”.
Creating this open dialogue creates a powerful dialogue and gives your child a chance for deeper reflection on their learning, and consolidates their learning by verbalising key elements of their lessons. There is always homework to be done! This could take many different forms: set homework from a teacher, unfinished work or arguably the most important, a reflection on the lesson’s learning intention and the pre-reading for the next lesson. One of Koonung’s key improvement goals this year, is to increase metacognition, with the result that all teachers at Koonung aim to have their lesson plans on Compass. This gives the students the pre-warning of what to expect and it can be used as a valuable resource when revising each lesson and to initiate a conversation at home. Koonung is proud of the Let’s Learn Instructional Model because research has showed that students learn better when they know what is coming and can clearly identify the purpose of each lesson.
All students have access to a Koonung diary. This is a such a powerful tool for organisation. Students are encouraged to write in homework, due dates and reminders to study for upcoming tests. This is easily accessed by parents and conversations about schoolwork and family commitments can be discussed. These conversations help to keep the family in touch with each other, and assist the student to take ownership of their learning and study routines.
Another helpful hint for organisation is to print out your child’s timetable and place it on the fridge at home or go through compass together every morning. Even a simple "I see you have PE tomorrow, have you packed your clothes?" is a great way to prompt and encourage organisation. Let’s all work together, as members of this learning community, to encourage student agency in their own learning.
Year 8 Team Building Day
The Year 8 cohort set off last Friday to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on a team building day. The students participated in the Arnold (Schwarzenegger) Sports Festival which is Australia’s largest multi-sports festival. The students participated in a range of different activities including: basketball, tennis, roller skating, dodgeball, wheel chair softball, fencing, chess, cup stacking, Kyokushin, material arts and gymnastics. It was fascinating to see body builders, boxers and the like all competing in different competitions on the day. Unfortunately, Arnold himself was not in attendance but his passion for fitness and health was certainly on show. The growing obesity epidemic which has become part of the Australian landscape is a challenge that this Sports Festival is tackling head on through encouraging people to get active. I am sure that our students enjoyed the day and hopefully a passion for being active will grow from experiencing many new activities for the first time.
On Friday the Year 8s went to the Melbourne Exhibition Centre for a team building day. On the day, my group started off with basketball and then went to tennis and fencing. I fought Xina, Francis and Harry H. I lost to all of them. After lunch we did gymnastics and roller skating. Out of the whole day, I really enjoyed roller skating and fencing because these were the two things that were new to me and I had never done before (especially roller skating). All in all, the day was an awesome experience to work with other people. Being able to work with people that I haven’t met or worked with before was a really good experience because it meant I could get to know a bit about them. We also saw all of the body builders at the convention and this was really cool because it meant that you were able to see how much effort people put into working out. This was a great experience and placed importance on getting active, and to try and learn new things.
Mairna Ely 8G
Year 9 Parent Information Evening
It was a wonderful turn out of Year 9 parents and students, standing room only. All the important information for the current Year 9 cohort, the Year 10 subject selections and prerequisites and the transition into Year 10 was clearly presented and sent out via Compass. There were fantastic questions asked about subject selections, the Year 9 Live Life Program and the end of year Year 9 Camp. If anyone has further queries please contact Middle School 9890 9662 (option 1).
Parent Teacher Student Conferences
Parent Teacher Student Conferences will be held on Wednesday 3 April. I encourage all students to attend with their Parents/Careers. This is a great opportunity to meet the teachers, get feedback on the student learning and find out ways to improve. I look forward to seeing you there.
Extra-Curricular Excellence
My name is Lucas and I am 12 years old. My passion is futsal. Futsal is a type of indoor soccer with 5 players per side. I train at the Melbourne Brazil Futsal Academy (MBFA) in Lower Templestowe. I have been playing there for a year now and I am extremely proud of my achievements, such as Under 11’s Player of the Year and my medals from competitions. About a year ago I was invited to Spain to represent Australia in the Futsal World Cup in Blanes, Spain. Whilst in Spain we played 7 countries including Japan, Germany and Brazil, as well as others. In Spain I made many friends, most of them from Japan. Although we could not communicate well, we used google translate and during recreation and lunch we would try to meet up. Overall my team were placed 3rd in the silver division and we were all awarded bronze medals. I am hoping to go again this year and to beat my efforts from last year. I encourage everyone to give futsal a try, and if you believe you have the skill, agility and teamwork you can apply for a tryout to compete in the World Futsal Cup 2019.
Lucas Manariti 7C
Congratulations to Sophie Zarafa 8G who competed in the State Track and Field competition held at Casey Fields on the 16-17 March. Sophie came 3rd in the Long Jump with a personal best jump of 5.06m.
Sophie also competed in Triple Jump placing 5th, as well as coming 5th in the 400m heats.
Sophie is a member of the Box Hill Athletics Club which trains twice a week, she has been competing in athletics for 7 years. Her favourite athlete is Sally Pearson. “I am looking forward to Koonung’s Athletics Day” Sophie said.
Uniform
Students may begin wearing their winter uniform from the commencement of next term. Monday 6 May is the date that all students must wear winter uniform. Summer uniform may be worn again in
Term 4.
Upcoming Middle Years events
Parent Teacher Student Conference – Wednesday 3 April