Junior School

BOOK IN A DAY

The sound of sirens echoing through the dense forest, a story of ‘disaster and dreams’ and an intriguing title, ‘Murder on the Menu’ were just some of the ideas that materialised in the ‘Write a Book in a Day’ event. An event to coincide with Book Week, Year 5 students worked in teams over a nine hour period to craft stories in our KDS competition. The competition required that teams create a cohesive narrative of at least 1,200 words, as well as integrating certain parameters such as a journalist, a conflict revolving around ‘change’ and five specified ‘random words’. We were fortunate to be joined by celebrated author Elliot Perlman, who judged the narratives together with David Opat. Judging was structured around six criteria including cohesion and continuity of events, deliberate choice of language, and the crafting of ideas to support a theme. Elliot offered our Year 5 students wise words about resilience, overcoming adversity and accepting loss as necessary on the path to success. The students listened intently as the words resonated with their experience, and will, no doubt, serve them in time to come. Throughout the entire day, students demonstrated impressive collaborative skills, a high level of engagement and effort as they worked towards their common goal. The narratives showcase the creative talents of our Year 5 students and their strong command of language. Congratulations to all teams for setting high expectations... and achieving them. Thanks to the team of staff who each made special contributions to enhance the day – David Opat, Janice Shearer, Louise Lowinger, Rebecca Rudstein and Marisa Mowszowski.

Gideon Sharp, Taryn Stark and Debbie Arnheim

CRITICAL THINKING IN THE JUNIOR SCHOOL

Our teaching and learning framework focuses on teaching students the crucial skill of how to think and learn rather than what to think and learn. The development of this skill will enable our students to thrive now and in the future. In the Junior School, students learn through curiosity, experiments and play. Our Junior School program, ‘Bedrock thinking’, is designed to develop thinking and cognitive functioning. An example of this is Year 1 students have been exploring the concept of sound and light as part of their Units of Inquiry program. The students listened to different music and displayed what they heard through drawing. They used a different colour for each of the different pieces of music. After listening and drawing what they heard, they used words to describe how they felt listening to each to the pieces. This learning experience taught students about patterns, symbolism and to connect their senses with observation, engaging them academically on a deeply personal level. In an extension to their learning, a lesson followed on how sound works and how eyes see colour. They discussed the difference between matter and energy and light and sound waves.