Encouraging the joy of reading

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It’s been a busy year in the Knowledge Commons. Since we were once again able to host students and visitors back on campus, we have celebrated a range of fun and inspiring literary events. In February the Junior School celebrated National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS), hosted by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). NSS is celebrated annually by students across the nation. ALIA chooses a picture book written and illustrated by Australians for students, children and families to read at the same time all across the nation. Students and families can choose to read the book themselves or watch the live feed via the ALIA website or YouTube. This year the chosen book was The Family Tree by Josh Pyke and Ronojoy Ghosh. Our Early Learning Centre, Prep and Year 1 students had a live event hosted in the Prep Chapter space with a special guest reader, while the other Junior School classes watched the live feed. Mr Houlihan elicited some very insightful observations from the audience, but by far the most interesting topic was how old is Mr Houlihan really? The overall consensus was at least 100! Book Week in August was the highlight of the year for the Knowledge Commons and we celebrated with costumes, author visits, competitions and the much-anticipated Book Parade. We were so happy to see parents back on campus and celebrating with us too! We were very lucky to secure author visits from Maxine Beneba Clarke author of Fashionista, Wide Big World and The Hate Race (ELC-Year 3 and Year 12), Andrew McDonald author of The Real Pigeons series (Years 4-6) Emily Gale author of The Other Side of Summer and Elsewhere Girls (Year 7) and Melissa Keil author of Life in Outer Space and The Secret Science of Magic (Year 8). In 2022 the Bookmark Competition was open to students in the Senior School who enthusiastically took part and we are looking forward to the winning bookmarks circulating soon, with entries from Prep-Year 10 The Blackout Poetry competition was open to Senior School students and involved tearing pages out of old, no longer usable books, and using a black marker to choose their words and then colour around them to create a unique and visually interesting poem. Throughout the year the Knowledge Commons has also introduced a range of exciting new online and physical resources. Students can now access: • BorrowBox our eAudio and eBook platform • GALE databases which give Senior School students access to a variety of international journals, encyclopaedias, newspapers, magazines and digital articles to support their learning across most subjects. • A range of Australian digital newspapers including The Age and Herald Sun • New and exciting print magazines such as the AFL Record,

Dance Magazine, Whacky but true! Slam Skateboarding and more. • Senior School students have had their fiction collection gentrified (organised into genres) for easier access and use. After a very big year in 2022 we are very much looking forward to more exciting developments in the Knowledge Commons in 2023.

Head of Knowledge Commons

1. Mr Gerard Houlihan reading to the ELC-Year 2 children 2. ELC-Year 2 students at Simultaneous Storytime