Campus Stories

Film Festival Results

The inaugural Cornerstone Film Festival was held just over a week ago, and was an absolutely brilliant night of showcasing the film-making talents of our students, as well as giving a great opportunity to get dressed up and walk the red carpet.

If you are on Facebook, make sure you check out the photos our student paparazzi took on the night.

We are also showcasing the award winning work our our category winners on our Facebook page, two of which you can see below.

1. Primary - best film (Eva Dragstra, Shania Harney, Matiah Cleaver, Ella Mullally)
2. Junior high - best film (Ally Vocisano, Yr10)
3. Senior secondary - best film (Jesse Adams, Yr11)
4. Junior High - runner up (Hope Adams, Lucy Burge, Yr8)
5. Best Yr 8 Advertisement (Lucia Kindt)
6. Senior secondary - runner up (Toby Wallace, Yr12)
7. Promotional film - joint winner (Jodi van Niekerk, Yr8)
8. Promotional film - joint winner (Ally Vocisano , Yr10)

Congratulations to everyone who participated.  It was a  night to remember!

To Mr van der Tang - we are grateful for your enthusiam and efforts in this regard, and thank you for your organisation of the night.  To Mr Cleaver, Mrs Wright, Mr Arthur and Mrs Posa, your significant part in providing students with the opportunity to develop these skills is acknowledged and appreciated.

Well done to everyone involved.  Make sure you mark the 2019 Film Festival on your 'must attend' list for the year ahead.

Promotional Film, joint winner - Ally Vocisano

Promotional Film, joint winner - Jodi van Niekerk

Working with Wood

As the school year creeps to a close, some impressive work is also being completed.

The woodwork rooms are filling up with some pretty spectacular coffee tables and benches - and James' work is the first to be ready to showcase.

Well done James. Are you taking orders?

Sports for Schools 

The Sports for School's equipment has arrived, and thanks to the partnership with our families in supporting this endeavour, the Year 6 students had quite a bit to unpack!  Special thanks to Mrs Tammy Broadbent and the lovely Josie Broadbent, who spent hours gathering the vouchers and coupons together to see this come to pass.  

Thanks everyone who was involved. We are very grateful!

Learning about the Six Seasons during Outdoor Classroom Day

'The Year One and Two children participated in ‘Outdoor Classroom Day’ at the Dunsborough campus. The day was filled with a range of exciting outdoor learning experiences linked with the Science, English and Mathematics curriculum. The children went on a bush walk to explore and observe seasonal changes in our environment. We are currently in the Noongar Season of Kambarang and many things are undergoing transformation with the warm change in the weather. We saw an abundance of colours and flowers exploding all around us such as Banksias, Kangaroo Paw and Orchids. The children noticed that the Balga trees are also starting to flower. We kept our eyes peeled for the bright orange and yellow flowers of the Australian Christmas Tree which signals that heat is on its way. We also talked about Kambarang as a likely time of the year that you might encounter a snake as the reptiles start to awaken from their hibernation and make the most of the warm to assist them in getting enough energy to look for food. It's also a time that many young families of birds will be singing out for their parents to feed them. Koolbardies (Magpies) will also be out protecting their nests and their babies. The children are keen observers and enjoyed foraging for interesting and unusual natural materials to use when moulding clay ‘nature tiles’ later in the day.'  Mrs Tocknell.

New 'Big Kids' at the College

A new group of senior students have taken the reigns over from the Class of 2018, being given one of the privileges reserved for the oldest pupils. Last Friday, next year's Year 12s stepped into the staffroom for the traditional 'student-teacher' shared morning tea.

It's always heartwarming to see the joyful banter between senior students and staff, and these senior students showed that the tradition is firmly established for the year ahead.

Number Talk

Number talks are short 15-20 minutes sessions with daily exercises aimed at building a student's number sense.  Our K-5 students at Dunsborough have been enjoying these fun, collaborative and hands-on sessions.  These sessions help our students to visualize their problem solving, increase their speed in performing calculations, become more flexible in their mathematical strategy, work collaboratively and build on their number literacy skills.

Not trash, but Treasure!

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Year 3 have been working hard this term designing and making new things out of rubbish as part of our Reduce Reuse Recycle theme in Designing Technology. They came up with some great ideas - pot plants, showers, sprinklers, surf boards and more. Here are some of our 'Out of the box' thinkers! Eden, Ruby and Hayley created a stylish up-cycled milk bottle pencil case that the rest of the class loved! Maddox designed a bird feeder and Josie a money box. There are some very creative minds in Year 3 and possibly some future designers! 

Cultural Tour with Josh from Koomal Dreaming

This report has come through from Mrs Tocknell.

The Pre-Primary, Year One and Two children from the Dunsborough campus went on an excursion with Josh Whiteland from Koomal Dreaming on Monday. The tour was held at the Ngilgi Cave site and involved a bush walk around the area, with Josh teaching us about local plants, food and medicine. He told us that the flowers of the Peppermint Trees are still flowering, indicating that more rain is likely to be on the way. We also learnt that the leaves can be rubbed onto your skin, releasing oils to protect from insect bites. Next we learnt about the Mia that Josh constructed and some traditional Aboriginal tools. We helped to light a fire using sticks and banksia flower and learnt different ways to cook food using a fire. Josh played the didgeridoo for us and demonstrated the different sounds of the kangaroo, kookaburra, dingo and frog. We used tapping sticks to tap to the beat and learnt an emu and kangaroo dance.

“I liked how he made the fire and how he showed us his didgeridoo. I liked how he told us there was a kangaroo in the Mia in the morning and my favourite part was seeing the ochre and the knife because I would like to make one using a sharp rock, a stick, the sap from the Balga tree and kangaroo poo.” Duane

“I liked how he made the fire because he doesn’t do it how we do it, we put newspaper and wood and use matches but Josh used Balga tree sticks. He got a rubbing stick and stick with lots of holes and he rubbed it together and it made some smoke then he got some skinny sticks and he put them on the smashed up Banksia flowers and they caught on fire.” Saxon

Every day is Outdoor Classroom Day at Cornerstone Dunsborough!

Across the nation many students have taken part in the Outdoor Classroom Day initiative led by NGOs Nature Play and Project Dirt.  Project Dirt recently released the results of a survey conducted of teachers about the positive impact outdoor play has in a child's learning.  

Benefits include: 

• Improvement in social skills
• Greater engagement in learning
• A well developed sense of imagination and creativity
• Increased concentration
• Happy children!

That's why everyday is outdoor classroom day at Cornerstone Dunsborough!