GRAPEVINE
back and safely go anywhere they choose. We do not doubt that this group has met this benchmark for success, and I hope that they use this year as a springboard for a lifetime of adventures.
The 2025 Year 12 IB cohort has also completed a long journey of their 2-year IB Diploma course, and we celebrated their achievement on Saturday at the Graduation Dinner. As with the Year 9s, we are incredibly proud of them for completing this challenge. The development in their thinking and capacity to appreciate and understand multiple perspectives is exactly what we aim for.
At graduation, I shared my hope that through their school journey, they have developed the desire to go into the world and continue to develop a sense for the deep
MORNING STAR Sandi Valerio
mystery that is existence and consciousness, to become a lighthearted and kind, hard-working seeker of meaning. Someone who can give 110% to a task and to other people. Someone who stops to appreciate the smallest things but is also capable of contemplating the fact that we live in an unfathomably vast universe. To be kind and open, curious and grateful. To have a life full of failures that have resulted from attempting difficult things, and when, among those failures, success comes, hold this success lightly and continue to strive.
Well done, Year 9 and 12
Glenn Hood | PRINCIPAL
MORNING STAR Sandi Valerio
Although Lady Spring is sometimes sleeping, we have enjoyed lovely days outdoors in Morning Star. Watching birds visit, gardening, making bee hotels and finishing craft as the year ends. The Echidnas are working on their nature bags that will follow them to prep, and the Honeybees have handwork and pom poms to finish. Our favourite story has been ‘The magpie and the milk’. The Echidnas showed their skills and retold it on Nature Day. They were able to retell the whole story and use the props to create a puppet play. They have certainly shown us they are ready for the weekly prep plays ahead next year. This week we begin our Christmas festival Morning Circle that will be part of our up-and-coming Christmas festival to conclude our year at kinder. It is hard to believe another year has passed and the children are moving on. Summer is almost here and new beginnings are just around the corner for our lovely Morning Star children.
Last week the Morning Star children farewelled Winter with a special gnome afternoon tea. The Honeybee children were surprised as they arrived on their last day of Winter to see little gnomes waiting to share some pancakes and tea with them. Many conversations were had, games were played and then the little gnomes joined morning circle for a last time singing songs of frosty cold days.The Echidna children have been busy sewing gnomes to be ready for their end of Winter afternoon tea. Although we had a lovely afternoon sipping on chocolate chai and enjoying honey biscuits, we will do it all over again this week as some of our friends were not well and could not join us. Our stories have been telling us tales of the beginnings of Spring. ‘Pussy Willow’ with her little fluffy kittens blooming as Lady Spring arrived, and a Norwegian Folktale, ‘How the snow became White’.
ROSA MUNDI JACK FINEGAN
Rosa Mundi have been spending time out in the yard watching the Princess of Spring work her magic on the flowers and trees as they seemingly spring back to life. The seeds we planted in the garden are also springing to life with the kids excited to see what is to come. Our morning circle has changed with the season, as we prepare the yard for our Spring Festival and upcoming Spring Fair. Father Sun is returning from his holiday as the children enjoy singing songs of blossoms and warmer weather.
ROSA MUNDI Jack Finegan Spring is coming to an end; flowers blossoms are falling and making way for delicious fruit to form in preparation for the new year. The children have sensed this change and have begun their own preparations. Some choosing craft time outside or using their whole bodies to dig out our riverbed and build bridges to cross. They are spending as much time in the beautiful Rosa Mundi Garden and also inside creating impressive towers from our Kapla blocks. Coming into the last few weeks of Prep we are having our transition days and meeting our buddies from Class 4. We are all very excited for the changes to come.
CLASS 1 Samantha Charlotte
Class 1 have spent the last weeks honing their writing skills, beautifully summarising the stories that are being brought to them in the Ancient World Tales Main Lesson. They are flexing their numeracy muscles in our practice lessons, enjoying our rhythmic skip counting and practicing sums using dice and pebbles. The class’s growth in their artistic skills is shining through their clay modelling and painting, as well as the lovely knitted scarves that are growing in length each day. Our last weeks of this school year will be spent exploring our local environs through our Local Surroundings Main Lesson.
CLASS 2 Liz Morrell
Class Two have been exploring the world of grammar this Main Lesson, beginning with nouns, adjectives and verbs. We have woven this learning through our first three extraordinary people: St Francis, Wangari Maathai – the girl who planted trees, and Boyan Slat – the ocean helper. Through these stories the children identified and collected common and Proper nouns, sorted and categorised descriptive adjectives, and created rich noun–adjective matches to bring each person’s qualities to life. We used adjectives to describe the characteristics of each figure—St Francis’ gentle kindness, Wangari’s determined courage, and Boyan’s inventive problem-solving— helping the class understand how language can paint a clear and lively picture in their writing.
CLASS 3 Lou Jenkins
Class 3 have moved into a new Main Lesson where we are learning the 4 realms of maths. The children have been learning how to add and subtract two digit numbers using vertical addition and subtraction. Each week we are writing letters to Amy and hopefully she will be able to write back to us. We all enjoyed the visit from the graduating Year 12s and presented them with a farming painting to remind them of what we learn in Class 3.
CLASS 4 Micheal Britton
Class 4 is heading off on their Zoo Camp to Queenscliff. We will begin by visiting Healesville Sanctuary, where the children will enjoy observing and learning about a range of Australian animals. From there, we will explore Queenscliff, visit the Lighthouse, and wander through the dunes. If the weather permits, we will also take a cruise around the bay to observe marine life and learn about the coastal environment. On the way home we will be visiting Werribee Zoo. This camp forms an important part of our new Human and Animal main lesson, which we will continue working through until the end of term. During this time, Carol will also be teaching Freehand Geometry. The students are also very excited to be working on their Viking shields in Craft. In Week 8, the class will be moving into their new classroom space, and they will soon be meeting their Class 1 buddies for next year — an important milestone as they step into the role of older students in the Primary School.
CLASS 5 Lou Pullar
Class 5 spent three days on camp last week exploring the history and botany of our local area. In Jamieson they discovered century-old trees like the giant sequoia, and ancient apple trees planted by pioneers when the town serviced the gold-mining boom. The Greiter’s hosted us for lunch on their property which has evidence of an old settlement and family graveyard established at a time when the first Eurpoeans were trying to make a go of living off the land, deep into the high country. We spent two nights camping out at Fry’s Hut using the hut for relief from a rainy Tuesday morning, allowing us to comfortably sketch and whittle the time away. On our final day we hiked Mt Timbertop taking a close look at the flora to discover a patch of rare orchids and some sunny murnongs. Thanks to Oliver, Liv and Hayley for helping and Carol’s expert camp assistance.
CLASS 6 Clare Bennetts
We have been creating rules for various patterns that we see in nature; the number of legs on insects, the number of petals on flowers, the area of land needed per pony. We have been replacing names with pronumerals such as y = 6x when y represents the number of legs and x = the number of insects. Last week we enjoyed two afternoons with ATC, firstly learning some mountain bike skills and then riding up to Rifle Butt Reserve. It was lovely to be out in the sunshine together and having a break from the classroom. Thanks to Shannon and Lachy for being our instructors. Tania has been teaching students to shade3D objects on black paper and contuinues world geography on Fridays.
YEAR 7 Dion Hall
Year 7 have been busy with their hands exploring the power of mechanical advantage and the six simple machines that have revolutionised the world since antiquity: the lever, the screw, the wedge, wheel and axel, inclined plane and pulley. We have experimented with increasing mass and how it affects the force of friction to develop our scientific thinking and process skills. Finally we have been exploring non-contact forces such as magnets, static electricity and will finish with building our own electromagnet.
YEAR 8 Amy McMahon + Charlotte Dayman
Year 8 students have been working on their perspective geometry Main Lesson, learning the fundamental principles of perspective drawing: precision, horizon lines, vanishing points. We have been drawing interior and exterior spaces including a hallway, a living room, a trainline and a landscape. Students have been putting their interior architecture skills to the test, designing a bedroom with furniture and design features of their choice. This Main Lesson has resulted in some excellent drawings, showcasing the student’s precision and understanding of perspective drawing.
YEAR 9 Suz McKay
Many indigenous cultures, those most in touch with the cycles of season, attachment to land and an understanding of life through stories, send their young people out, away from parents and families, away from the comforts of community life and home, out onto the land on whose life they must learn to share mutual prosperity. These quests, rites of passage, initiation, whatever you call them are an opportunity and a challenge. A chance to call on all resources learnt while being raised, nourished and protected by the community, taken out into the world as an independent, to learn where their edges are, what they still need to learn more about and what they can confidently carry forward as they return as newly fledged, emerging adults in the eyes of the community. At Mansfield Steiner, with the support of parents and carers, the school community and leadership, we are able to open a small window to offer such a rite of passage to young people. This is Long Journey.
YEAR 10 Nicholas Koschitzke
This Main Lesson, Year 10 have been diving back through the ages to study some of the great ancient epics in The Birth of Literature. They first gained an understanding of where our language and alphabet came from, and the evolutions it has been through to arrive where it is today. A study of the Mesopotamian region gave them further insight into the spread of written literature, and they practiced this through their own clay tablet carving. Finally, a deep study into Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ gave the students a glimpse at the social consciousness of the period while reading one of history’s greatest stories.
MUSIC Celeste Cleason
Over the past few weeks, Class 2 have been trialling the violin and cello in preparation for deciding their instrument for next year. Many excited faces met the music teachers as they came to collect the students for their miniintroduction lessons. Learning a musical instrument is a rite of passage at our school and one that children are eager to begin. In other news, all our extracurricular ensembles are busy preparing for the Strings and Choral Concert on Thursday the 4th of December at 6:30pm. We are looking forward to sharing a wonderful evening of music with the community.
SPORT Rachel Delany
Congratulations to Archie, Matilda and Heidi who made it to the Athletics State Final on November 6th. Heidi competed in the hurdles and triple jump, Matilda in the high jump and Archie in the 800m and 1500m events.
