THE MESSENGER
Term 1 Week 4 Wednesday 18 February 2025
Dear School Community,
I hope you have had a positive start to the school year and that your children are enjoying Term 1.
The use of technology, particularly social media, is a challenge worth regularly revisiting. You will be aware that we don’t use devices in Primary school and that we gradually introduce computers in Secondary school. We value faceto-face interactions, conversations, and students making things by hand where possible. Technology, in its many forms, can be an amazing tool by which students can learn to do many creative and positive things, however, having the skills and awareness to ensure that you are a user of technology, and not used by it, is important.
A Bill has recently been passed that recognises teenagers’ limited capacity to safely manage social media environments and aims ‘to prevent exposure to harmful content, [and] also to mitigate the negative effects on sleep, stress levels, and attention.’ Within a limited definition, the legislation aims to restrict social media access to children 16 and under. (Many consider the definition in the Bill far too narrow).
Last year we suggested that not allowing students to have a
The sun with loving light makes bright for me each day, the soul with spirit power gives strength unto my limbs. In sunlight shining clear I revere, Oh God, the strength of humankind, which thou has planted in my soul, that I may with all my might, may love to work and learn. From thee stream light and strength to thee rise love and thanks.”
Rudolf Steiner
smartphone until at least the end of Class 8 was a good target for parents, however, if social media platforms are being restricted for use by 16-year-olds, should we not be asking ourselves why we are allowing them a smartphone and, do they need it?
Doom scrolling, gaming into the early hours of the morning, or obsessively swiping through to the next reel or YouTube clip is an addictive behaviour that is a planned result of the algorithms that command our attention.
Access to the internet gives us access to the world, including the dark and anti-social corners. We need to monitor the online space that our children inhabit to the same degree we look to ensure their physical safety. There are 8 competencies that children need to demonstrate before you consider giving them
a phone with internet access (and, most likely, therefore, social media access). Do they regularly demonstrate: Responsibility for their things, Responsibility at school, Time management, Communication skills, Physical activity, Engagement in life, Impulse control, and Parent Connection?
If you want to know more about this, I highly recommend a Conversation Hour interview through ABC, ‘How the iPhone rewrote the teenage brain’.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/ programs/conversations/davidgillespie-2019/10986686
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Glenn Hood | PRINCIPAL
SCHOOL EVENTS AND DATES: WWW. MANSFIELDSTEINER.VIC.EDU.AU/CALENDAR
GRAPEVINE
MORNING STAR Sandi Valerio
Morning star children have begun their year with a beach theme for their morning circle. Songs of waves,seagulls, crabs, and boats have sung as we row our boats to and from the shore. Mornings are a busy time, baking,kneading bread and cutting fruit as we all prepare our morning tea together. Outdoors the children have enjoyed using their strong arms to dig tunnels and dams, water our trees in the heat and build cubbies and villages with new friends. Our stories have reflected the program, the grass star-man, a story from the beach and the little straw broom, teaching us all to care for our room together.
ROSA MUNDI Jack Finegan
In Rosa Mundi the children have been singing songs of Summertime, waves and the ocean. Breathing in and out and focusing on our new rhythm in Prep! We have been retelling and acting out our favourite stories through play an exploring the exciting new equipment and areas that the prep yard holds. Big yellow boy and our climbing tree’s have been the favourites so far along with a play under the sprinkler to escape the heat!
CLASS 1 Samantha Charlotte
Class 1 has had the most wonderful introduction to the ‘big school’! The students are working hard every day to learn the rhythm and routine of the class.
We have been on an adventure through the magical Australian bushland and have discovered that everything is made up of either a straight line, a curved line or a combination of both. We have encountered lines and shapes through the stories each day and carefully recreated each of the forms in our form drawing books. Class 1 students have also been making new friends in the school playground and learning more about the people and places within our school.
We are now on an adventure into the land of letters. The students will experience the twists and turns of the fairytales brought to them, and of the letters as they learn to write them and artistically render their new understanding of the alphabet.
CLASS 2 Liz Morrell
Class 2 have settled back into the new year, new room and new learning with gusto. We are coming to the end of the first Main Lesson focussing on the place value of numbers. Using manipulatives, the students have discovered the value of each digit in a number up to and beyond 1000. With this knowledge and understanding, the students can name, rename, compare, order and sequence numbers.
Number games have been a firm favourite. Skip counting to known melodies, along with more complicated actions is practised each morning. The parents had an experience of this at the parent evening and discovered the challenge for themselves! The class is looking forward to presenting their first long poem at assembly along with some singing and recorder playing.
CLASS 3 Amy Burns
Class 3 have sunk back into the rhythm of school with ease, eager to hear new stories and learn new painting techniques, spelling rules and complex dances. We started the year, as is tradition, by painting our way through the seven days of creation. It was a beautiful and peaceful way to begin the school year together. Last week, the peach tree outside our classroom was full to bursting, and the students eagerly filled two wheelbarrows full of juicy fruit, ready for bottling and jam-making. Disaster struck, and a whole new lot of learning, when we discovered that entire crop had been stung by fruit fly and would need to be destroyed. The students took this in their stride and enjoyed trying to search for any signs on the outside of the fruit of where the larvae were! Luckily, the cantaloupe we planted last year are happy and healthy and have provided a delicious afternoon treat on these long hot summer days. Our year of farming and gardening is off to a wonderful start!
CLASS 4 Carol Watts
Class 4 has settled in well this term. We enjoyed meeting and learning about each other and showing kindness to one another. Over the last 3 weeks Class 4 began their journey to deepen connections to place. We have investigated mapping from an eagle’s eye perspective, beginning with mapping our desk; then our classroom and our school grounds. Children have learnt about compass points, legend, scale and drawing from an eagle’s eye perspective. We have recited poetry, sang songs, played recorder and performed at assembly. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with your beautiful children over these first three weeks.
CLASS
5 Lou Pullar
Class 5 have had a great start to the year kicking off with our Sovereign Hill camp in Week 2, swimming and an excursion last Friday to visit the memorials in High Street, the Gadhaba Gathering Place and Mansfield Museum. We have been fortunate to meet wonderful people along the way that have shared their stories and coloured our imaginations of olden days. In Ballarat, Hugo’s Uncle Jarrod, dressed resplendent in his miner’s clothes, regaled tales of the Eureka Stockade and a legendary whip fight between Spanish dancer Lola Montez and Henry. The students were under the firm and controlled hand of Maam at Sovereign Hill under she set them free to pan in the creek, and gold fever infected the group! At the Gathering Place Uncle John with his old faithful jack russell, Jackson by his side, told us about his clapsticks and how the Yowung Illum balluk gathered regularly to yarn. On her first school tour at the local museum, Margaret Mc Cormack explained how it took the potato farmers of Tolmie three days round-trip to see their potatoes off to market on the train. Thank you to all the parents who have made these events happen (including the lasagna bakers – delicious!)
CLASS 6 Clare Bennetts
Class 6 have grown to full capacity, and we welcome Bryn Ah Chee back from the U.S.A, Lola McLeish from Merrijig and Alex Mulvihill from South Australia as well as our Friday teacher, Tania Neale from Melbourne. We have completed our time in Ancient Greece, learning about democracy and the reign of Pericles, the great philosopher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great. We mapped the Empire that Alexander took over with his enormous army. Last Thursday, we had a visit from Councilor Tim Berenyi (an alumni of our school). He spoke to us about the importance of a democratic government and how lucky we are to be able to have our opinions considered. Everyone asked lots of questions about the three tiers of government in Australia. Our next Main Lesson will be geometry. Tania will be teaching the Wonder and Wisdom of Words on Fridays along with music, Class Orchestra and Maths homework correction.
YEAR 7 Seamus Kavanagh
Students have just completed their first secondary school Main Lesson on Arthurian Literature. Based on and around the King Arthur stories, they followed the rise and fall of Logres, and all of the moral tales that came with it. Creating their own Chivalric values, and a coat of arms, they reflected on themselves as young adults stepping into the world and navigating the complexities of teenage social interactions. Working together, they retold a number of stories creating a story map of Launcelot’s life and travels, to display in our classroom.
YEAR 8 Dion Hall
In Year 8 Main Lesson, students have been exploring money as a human invention that has played a key role in the development of societies worldwide, facilitating trade across long distances and over time, while replacing less efficient bartering systems. In practical terms, students have been investigating the language and mathematics behind various payment systems, including annual, weekly, and monthly salaries, commissions, and casual pay, with and without penalty rates. Finally, they have examined how percentages work to illustrate the impact of compound interest, showing how it can either lead to a debt trap or serve as a smart investment.
YEAR 9 Suze McKay
Year 9 have effortlessly moved through the preparatory phase of the Year 9 Outdoor Education Year. Despite the souring heat, we had a successful day on our first day- hike; fitting gaiters, packs and learning about foot care, hand hygiene and beginning to match maps to land features. Our first overnight hike was thwarted by fires, but we managed a hot and sweaty day-hike around the Gough’s Bay State Forest, had a blissful swim and cooked lunch on our Trangia’s, continuing to hone our outdoor skills. The students have completed their first-aid qualifications ahead of our first challenging hike along the stunning Otway’s coastline.
YEAR 10 Briony Davenport Salt Chemistry Mainlesson
We kicked off the year with an in-depth exploration of salt chemistry, examining its broader impact on dry land salinity. Spanning 5,000 years of scientific progress, students traced key developments in our understanding of salts and uncovered their unique properties firsthand through experimentation. They then took on the challenge of designing their own investigation, exploring how different salt concentrations affect the growth of wheat seedlings—an inquiry they are now writing up as a formal scientific report. A standout moment from the past three weeks (and yes, it’s in the curriculum) was creating homemade fireworks, igniting curiosity about atomic-level interactions. It’s been a blast!
MUSIC Celeste Cleason
It has been wonderful to welcome all our students back to their individual music lessons. Reconnecting with their instruments, discovering new repertoire and, for some, meeting a new instrumental teacher has been a positive start to the year ahead. The wonder and delight of our Class 3 students receiving their instrument for the first time has been a highlight. We have welcomed two new staff members into the Music Faculty with Tania taking primary classroom music and Robyn taking violin, viola and cello lessons. Our extracurricular orchestras and ensembles have begun rehearsals on our marvellous new hall stage. They are already busy working towards our first music event for the year, Strings on the Green (Friday the 28th of March at 5:30pm)
jlarocca@hockeyvictoria.org.au
