THE MESSENGER Term 1 Week 4 Tuesday 20 February 2024
DEAR SCHOOL COMMUNITY Welcome again to the 2024 school year. Thank you to the parents who were able to join us for our first assembly and morning tea I hope your children have begun their 2024 journey well and that you are beginning to find some rhythm & routine now that school is back. Yesterday, you would have received a Sentral message with an attachment that outlines our ‘Student use of smart devices and screen time policy.’ The sections on phones and screen time are below. I encourage you to read the full policy, talk about this with the members of your class community, and share your thoughts and opinions with an open mind. When should I give my child a phone? We strongly suggest that parents wait until at least the conclusion of Year 8 before allowing their children to have a smartphone/ watch etc. Once your children have a smartphone, the issues accompanying the use of social media begin, and managing the risks around this requires extensive intervention from parents. We believe students are better developmentally equipped to navigate these online spaces from the end of Year 8 onward. We encourage each class community to discuss and align themselves with this recommendation for the benefit of our whole school community. Screen Time Regular and excessive screen time (including gaming) is discouraged for all children, especially before Year 9. We recommend parents carefully assess the age appropriateness of the content they are exposed to. To benefit fully from a Steiner education, children need every opportunity to develop their creative play, to learn to occupy themselves independently, to enjoy interacting with family and friends, and to learn about the world through active exploration and participation. Children may require times of being ‘bored’ to turn towards these activities more easily.
My gratitude for the Earth’s new growth and blossom-beauty and for the high, blue sunlit skies fills my soul and I want to lose all that is small in me and soar into the beauty of the cosmos. RUDOLF STEINER
These issues can be difficult to navigate but they will be easier the more aligned we can be in our approaches. Enjoy! Glenn Hood | Principal
ALL SCHOOL EVENTS AND DATES: WWW. MANSFIELDSTEINER.VIC.EDU.AU/CALENDAR
GRAPEVINE
MORNING STAR Sandi Valerio
The Morning Star children have been singing songs of Summer time, waves in the ocean, fishing songs and finally rowing their boats to shore. Our first weeks have been focused on settling in and finding a place in the Kinder that feels like home. Our stories reflected the summer months and of new adventures to meet the children on their journey as they begin their Kinder years. The story of the’ Grass star man’ had the children clapping and singing with a catchy tune, whilst the ‘Three billy goats gruff’ story gave them the feeling of strength as the billy goats showed courage and trust as they explored a new environment. Nature days on Fridays have been well received, the children have built cubbies with rainbow cloths, built dams and lakes in the sandpit with friends and enjoyed sunny days with outside picnics for morning tea. We finished our program with pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and having the told story of the Pancake man.
ROSA MUNDI Jack Finegan
In Rosa Mundi we have been settling in breathing in and out and focusing on our new rhythm in Prep! We have been retelling and acting out our favourite stories through play. The Chinese New Year story of Nian has becomes a new favourite. Sadly, due to the recent storm we have lost our shady tree by the Sandpit and there is a sense of something missing in the yard. The Rosa Mundi children are ready to get started on some new and exciting ideas to fill the space. In craft Preps are creating Pom Pom bunnies ready for their Easter Festival.
CLASS ONE Liz Morrell
Class One have been on a journey of learning the alphabet letters and sounds from listening to stories; drawing and writing the alphabet letters and exploring words which begin with the letter sound. Recalling the story from the previous day brings up the imaginations which have lived in the students overnight. Oral recall is often accompanied by ‘acting out’ the story to further deepen the story sequence experience. The class has taken up the challenge of singing the alphabet letter sounds rather than the alphabet letter names. Matching pictures to the initial letter sounds has also been a fun activity. Movement and speech are a crucial element of language learning which has involved the students listening to, and discovering rhyming word patterns, speaking tongue twisters, and moving to verses. This Main Lesson moves into the class writing and reading their own sentences. In craft, Class One are completing their rainbow Lilly pad cushion.
CLASS TWO Amy Burns
Class Two are now exploring the beautiful patterns of Ida Spider in a Main Lesson that introduces the times tables for the first time. The students have uncovered the patterns from our skip-counting number songs and learned of how Ida Spider used intricate geometrical forms to bring the magical language of numbers back to town of people who had been cast under a terrible forgetting spell by an enchanter. With wool, then chalk and their crayons they have recreated Ida’s patterns before recording the times tables into their Main Lesson books. In craft, Class Two are creating a spiral cover for their scissor bag.
CLASS THREE Ariel Stava
Class Three have been enjoying their first Main Lesson working with the Hebrew stories of the Old Testament. They had a great time painting each day of creation and hearing of the trials and tribulations of Adam and Eve. The students have had some lovely morning tea visits with their Year 7 buddies and enjoyed reading letters from the buddies explaining their experiences on their first camp. This week we will work with the stories of Noah and Abraham and in the coming week we will begin looking at some Maths Strategies using the four processes. In craft, Class 3 have started weaving a pocket for their music bag or have already started to embroider their music bag.
CLASS FOUR Lou Pullar
Class Four continue our Spirit of Dreaming Main Lesson this week. We are recounting a range of stories from across the state, following songlines and discovering the laws and lessons behind their telling. We will then begin a mathematics-focused Main Lesson with stories from Africa. During the lesson we will plan, measure and make mud bricks to start building a new play hut in the yard. In craft, Class Four are cross stitching a design on a fountain pen pocket
CLASS FIVE Clare Bennetts
Class Five have been including similes and metaphors in their writing as well as quotation marks for direct speech. They have been recounting the stories of the Ancient Indians. Next week we will begin to learn the play of Ramayama. Students will also mould a mushroom pot that will be decorated and fired and then used to propagate mushrooms as part of their Botany studies. In craft, Class Five are doing a long stitch sample patch for their pencil case and have dyed felt in readiness to create Elephants for their india main lesson.
CLAS SIX Jacinta Walker
Class Six have been enjoying cooking in the classroom. We celebrated Chinese New Year with dumplings and then pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. We are looking forward to some Greek cooking leading up to our Greek feast at the end of term as well as making hot cross buns for the last day of term. In our Main Lesson, students have started to present their mini projects on the planets, while the rest of the class take notes, ready to write postcards from the various planets. We have also been observing what we see in the night sky; planets, constellations, the milky way and of course the moon. In craft, Class Six are doing long stitch pencil cases.
YEAR 7 Dion Hall
In chemistry of combustion students will start at the beginning by getting busy with their hands trying to start their own fire using friction, persistence and maybe a bit of crafty thought. With our heads we will unpack a timeline of the history of fire, looking at how long (and how we know) humans have been playing with fire. Finally, we will gather together and warm our hands and hearts together by our own fire to imagine and reflect on the bonding that fire has generated in groups of people for time immemorable.
YEAR 8 Seamus Kavanagh
The Year 8’s will be working within the Renaissance this coming Main Lesson cycle. This rather pivotal period in history sees the separation of sciences, spirituality, ethics, politics, mathematics and humanities from each other. This reflects both what is happening in the curriculum, and in your young person’s brain. We explore in depth, the lives of Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Martin Luther, then use their lives to engage with Machiavellian politics, guild systems, early banking, religion, the beginnings of personal / non-organisation dictated freedoms, and of course, art and philosophy. During this, your young person will be working on recreating a Renaissance masterpiece via their own medium.
YEAR 9 Suz McKay
The Year 9 Outdoor Education year is off and hiking. Students have navigated their first day walk and after a wobbly gear check, rose to the challenge of their first overnight hike. Along with our wonderful sessional staff member, Bella and Seamus we enjoyed learning new systems, having a swim in the river and battled with the blackberry weed thorns on the High Track. On Wednesday, students completed their face-to-face First Aid course where they received high praise from their instructor from Lifesaving Victoria. We look forward to the much anticipated Otway’s hiking and surfing trip where we will study the geomorphology of the coastline which once joined Australia to Antarctica. Main Lesson will begin to look towards how atmospheric and terrestrial elements build and change ecological functions on this land that we walk, live and play upon.
YEAR 10 Nick Koschitke
In Week 4, Year 10 will begin travelling back through literary time to the early days of writing and storytelling in this Birth of Literature Main Lesson. They will study the reasons why many ancient texts were written in verse and broken into sections, how our written language has evolved through the centuries, as well as getting hands on with paper making and traditional Greek oral storytelling. This epic Main Lesson will inspire their deep thinking and curiosity.
YEARS 11 & 12 INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE
With the Year 7s and 11s entering new and challenging chapters of their education, the two cohorts had an opportunity to connect during a halfday of games run by the 11s. This served as a light-hearted introduction to a challenging year of academia for both groups. As for the 12s, each student has been working hard to prepare their extended essay for submission. See the IB section on the back for more detail.
MUSIC
It has been with great joy to begin our extracurricular ensembles again for 2024.JPO, MSPO and MSCO have begun rehearsing their programs in preparation for Strings on the Green on Friday the 22nd of March. We will be thrilled to share their progress with the school community. The Year 7 lunchtime string group performed for the secondary school assembly last Monday. It was heartwarming to see their courage to perform for the first time in front of their peers. They played beautifully and we hope to hear many more performances in the future!
REMINDER: At lunchtime Thursday and Friday the craft room is open, if students have project ideas from home this is a great time and space for them to work on these projects.
STRINGS ON THE GREEN
A Classical Music Picnic Featuring: JPO, MSPO, MSCO and the Year 7 String Group
Friday 22nd of March
5:30 - 6:30pm Food available (P&F) at Melliodora Hall 6:30 - 7:30pm Picnic & Music outside Gallinbirem &Gurrin
IB - THE INTERRELATIONS OF THE EE MacKenzie Henderson-Hogg & Willow Matthews
The Extended Essay is a core element of the IB program that allows students to conduct an in-depth exploration under a topic of their choice. While the essay builds on skills students learn in class; this investigation culminates these proficiencies to demonstrate the real-world applications of such work. Each student from this year’s cohort has chosen a topic exploring the arts of expression and collaboration under the subjects of anthropology, literature, and visual arts. Under Literature is an investigation into the construction of Australian society through the lens of an Indigenous poet, Evelyn Araluen. In her poetry collection Dropbear, she works to dissect societal normalcies, such as the performative nature of acknowledgement of country and critique the lack of action beyond mere recognition. The student’s findings on this topic have weaved into the school’s practices of acknowledgement, recrafting this week’s assembly acknowledgment into a time for action on learning words from the Taungurung language. This integration of core IB practices into the broader rituals of the school illustrates the applications and enhancements that can be achieved through well-informed academic explorations.